Deeply embedded core normative values and their relationship with perceptions of legitimacy

This article presents a tailored research tool developed to explore and test the recent theory of deeply embedded core normative values, which asserts that beliefs about the legitimacy of law-enforcement authorities derive in part from profound cultural orientations through which individuals act in and interpret the world. The model is based on a typology of four core normative value systems, namely religious-traditional, liberal, republican-communitarian, and ethno-national, which are associated in different ways with legitimacy. We first conducted in-depth interviews with 45 participants to develop the research tool (questionnaire), then performed a large-scale representative survey among 1,617 Israeli respondents. The findings support the main premises of the model. They show that liberal, republican-communitarian, and religious-traditional values have significant associations with two measures of legitimacy (trust and obligation to obey the police), and that these associations generally hold beyond perceptions of police conduct and performance.