Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2014
Abstract
The paper proposes to give an account of the methodological challenges that one is facing when embarking on a study of how political legitimacy works in practice. Based on a concrete research project attempting to study the processes of negotiating political legitimacy between public and private actors in the framework of lobbying practices, the paper explores the possible approaches to the problem of political legitimacy.
After an overview of the most important normative takes on political legitimacy in contemporary political theory, it presents three possible orientations for a pragmatic study of political legitimacy: the symbolic interactionist, the bourdieusian one, and finally, a discourse analytical one.