Bridging the legitimacy gap—translating theory into practical signposts for legitimate flood risk governance

Alexander, Meghan, Doorn, Neelke and Priest, Sally J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2304-1502 (2018) Bridging the legitimacy gap—translating theory into practical signposts for legitimate flood risk governance. Regional Environmental Change, 18 (2) . pp. 397-408. ISSN 1436-378X [Article] (doi:10.1007/s10113-017-1195-4)

Preview	PDF - Published version (with publisher's formatting) Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (776kB) | Preview
Preview	PDF - Final accepted version (with author's formatting) Download (710kB) | Preview

Abstract

Legitimacy is widely regarded as a founding principle of ‘good’ and effective governance, yet despite intense academic debate and policy discourse, the concept remains conceptually confusing and poorly articulated in practice. To bridge this gap, this research performed an interpretive thematic analysis of academic scholarship across public administration, public policy, law, political science and geography. Three core themes were identified in relation to representative deliberation, procedural and distributive equity and justice, and socio-political acceptability, with numerous sub-themes therein. In an attempt to clarify conceptual confusion, this paper grounds these theoretical debates in the context of flood risk governance where numerous legitimacy dilemmas exist. A number of questions are presented as conceptual ‘sign posts’ to encourage reflexive governance in the future. Thus, more broadly, we assert the importance of bringing legitimacy to the forefront of contemporary flood risk governance discourse and practice, moving beyond the realm of academic reflection.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

6 month trend

400Downloads

6 month trend

592Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.