Strategies of Police Legitimation

The concept of police legitimacy has become central to the study of policing, yet scholarly attention has concentrated on legitimacy as an attitude measured among publics, rather than on the activities that produce legitimacy. This article reframes the problem as one of legitimation: the ongoing process through which police institutions seek to render their authority ordinary, necessary, and taken for granted. This shift in perspective highlights an enduring tension: although professional police forces have proven remarkably durable, they behave as though their legitimacy were perpetually fragile, investing continuously in activities whose function is less operational than legitimating. We argue that much of what police do can be read through this lens, and we distinguish two strategies with which the police legitimate their authority: processing strategies that construct and enact bureaucratic procedure to signal impersonal, neutral authority that is at once apart from and a part of the public it serves; and curating strategies that manage public perception through assorted channels including media, community engagement, and academic partnership. We conclude by charting directions for future research, including how these strategies interweave and how legitimation operates where police authority is least secure.

Duke Scholars

Author Tony Cheng Sociology