A Model of Rhetorical Legitimation: The Structure of Communication and Cognition Underlying Institutional Maintenance and Change

TLDR

The authors develop a model of rhetorical legitimation that explains how intrafield and interfield rhetoric shape institutional maintenance and change by influencing actors’ assumptions of legitimacy. They base the model on Toulmin’s distinction between intrafield and interfield rhetoric, using it to argue that intrafield rhetoric supports maintenance while interfield rhetoric drives change.

Abstract

We develop a model of rhetorical legitimation that specifies the communicative and cognitive structure underlying the maintenance and change of institutions. To do so we draw on Toulmin (1958) and his idea that social actors can use two structurally distinct forms of rhetoric: intrafield rhetoric and interfield rhetoric. We use this distinction to develop and advance novel arguments about the role of rhetoric in legitimation processes. Specifically, we theorize how the use of intrafield and interfield rhetoric shapes and reflects social actors' assumptions of legitimacy at two different levels. We then theorize how the use of intrafield rhetoric relates more to institutional maintenance, whereas the use of interfield rhetoric relates more to institutional change.