Constructing Legitimacy
This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology programme at Newspeak House, open to faculty, fellows, and fellowship candidates only.
Session by Faculty member Hannah O’Rourke
A lot of political and organisational problems are not really persuasion problems, they're legitimacy problems. People often know what needs to happen but disagree on who gets to decide, whether the process was fair, or whether they trust the people leading it. I'm interested in how legitimacy gets constructed in practice: through participation, transparency, shared ownership, evidence and creating processes people recognise as fair. Following Martin Conway, I treat legitimacy as historically contingent, socially constructed and contested — the interesting question is never "is this legitimate?" but "how did it become legitimate, and why then?"
Across my work I’ve repeatedly operated in environments where authority is fragmented such as campaigns, parties, community groups, MPs’ offices, networks and coalitions. I can help fellows think about questions like: How do you make decisions people will actually follow? How do you create buy-in without formal power? How do you design participation that is meaningful rather than performative? How do you create legitimacy for new technologies or organisational change?
Recording: the whole session will be recorded.