Legitimacy and Migration: Promise and Challenges


Nathan Ly, Cornell University

Migration research increasingly engages the concept of “legitimacy.” Although legitimacy has the promising ability to bridge levels of analysis, in the field of migration studies it is often a nebulous concept that lacks specificity in application. Researchers use legitimacy across a wide variety of contexts, hold different understandings and conceptualizations, and lack discussion across approaches. This paper seeks to address these challenges by providing an orienting account of legitimacy to facilitate and better engagement with the term. To do so, it discusses some fundamental questions underlying the field (what is legitimacy, and how are migration and legitimacy related?), underscores key themes, and synthesizes past research to map out promising directions, most prominently working towards a focus on social mechanisms. There are two principal objectives. First, is to provide an overview and orienting account of “legitimacy” in migration. By addressing core questions (i.e., what is legitimacy, and how are migration and legitimacy related?), the work clarifies the concept and identifies promising traits (e.g., ability to bridge levels of analysis) as well as challenges (e.g., lack of precision and specificity) to migration research. Second, is to synthesize the disparate approaches, conceptualizations, and applications of legitimacy in migration to date; identify common ground; and map out promising future directions. Migration research increasingly engages the concept of “legitimacy.” Classical migration theories, focused on the initiation and perpetuation of flows (Massey 1999), have been extended by considering a wide array of factors in an increasingly multidisciplinary space. One avenue in which the concept of legitimacy has gained increased salience focuses on political aspects of migration (e.g., Waldinger and Soehl 2013). The concept holds notable explanatory potential. By spanning levels of analysis, it can be a concept that bridges traditional approaches: tying together the macro structural causes of migration and state politics, the micro decision making, motives, and perspectives of migrants, and the meso analysis of groups and organizations (Bauböck 1998; Bloemraad, Chaudhary, and Gleeson 2022). At the same time, however, legitimacy presents the danger of being a nebulous and all-encompassing concept: something that researchers mobilize to capture an intuitive but vague set of sentiments, perceptions, and ideas, and that can operate anywhere and everywhere. Currently, researchers use legitimacy across a wide variety of contexts, hold different understandings and conceptualizations, and lack discussion across approaches (see e.g., Lenard and Macdonald 2021; Paquet and Larios 2018; Leerkes and Kox 2017). Theoretical synthesis, review, and development of a) past migration research (primarily from sociology and political science) making use of legitimacy as an explanatory factor; and b) the literature on legitimacy proper (mainly from political science and philosophy). Legitimacy can be broadly understood as relating to notions of “rightfulness,” “acceptability,” and/or “justifiability.” It can also be thought of as comprising three parts: beliefs, justification, and consent Beetham (1991; 1993). Major types and conceptualizations of legitimacy are also covered. We can divide the migration literature into three major approaches regarding legitimacy: 1) philosophical; 2) statist and organizational; and 3) individualist. The philosophical approach focuses on how, whether, and under what conditions states have the legitimate right and ability to control migration. The statist approach sees legitimacy as a key driver of state and organizational action, something that states are interested in maintaining and reinforcing. Finally, the individualist approach focuses on how individuals’ (often migrants and border officials) perceptions of legitimacy affect behavior, interaction, and pathways of resistance. Synthesizing this work, we can say that migration researchers largely agree (whether implicitly or explicitly) that legitimacy is: 1) a process; 2) relational; and 3) evaluative. These commonalities, in combination with some of legitimacy’s pitfalls, make a focus on social mechanisms a promising future direction. This would help narrow attention to a particular application, relationship, or area of the social structure, allowing researchers to examine exactly how legitimacy exerts its effects (Hedstrom and Swedberg 1996; Hedstrom and Ylikoski 2010). This can facilitate, for example, comparing whether similar processes operate across contexts, cases, and conditions. Influential and applicable mechanisms include diffusion, institutionalization, endorsement, and authorization. Legitimacy’s major pitfall in migration is its lack of specificity when applied to various research contexts. A focus on relevant social mechanisms allows us to build on previous research and work toward fulfilling legitimacy’s potential as an explanatory factor. This would ultimately contribute to better understanding the political dynamics underlying the migration state, migration controls, and the interplay between migration structures and individuals on the move.

This paper will be presented at the following session: