The legitimisation of local environmental organisations by community members

ABSTRACT

Although environmental activists play an important role in addressing local environmental injustices, they find it difficult to legitimise their activities. They are frequently challenged by political and business forces on the grounds that they are raising barriers to local economic development and are often regarded as irrational or hysterical. In this study we analyse the legitimacy conferred on local environmental organisations by residents living near a polluting industrial site. Considering an individual’s judgement of legitimacy as an attitude and drawing on the social psychological and risk-benefit analysis literatures, we define a model that explains how individuals’ beliefs and perceptions about local environmental organisations and their context (in terms of the local industry risk-benefit controversy), together with personal environmental beliefs, influence their assessments of legitimacy. Results show that individuals’ legitimacy judgements of local environmental organisations are directly influenced by beliefs about their credibility and the risk perceptions associated with the industrial area, and indirectly affected by personal environmental beliefs.

KEYWORDS:

• Legitimacy
• environmental movements
• environmental activism
• risk-benefit analysis
• credibility
• environmental beliefs
• local communities

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Several studies (e.g., Kassinis and Vafeas 2006; Lannelongue and González-Benito 2012; or Leyshon et al. 2021) deal with ‘environmental groups and organisations’ under the same heading. In any case, any nuances that might be established between the two concepts are not relevant for the purposes of the present study (the individuals’ legitimation of the subject).

2 According to Suddaby, Bitektine, and Haack (2017, 464), “At the individual level, legitimacy is present as propriety judgment (…) or an evaluator’s assessment of the appropriateness or acceptability of a legitimacy object”.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Universitat Jaume I (research project UJI-B2017-76).