Dull compulsion or perceived legitimacy? Assessing why people comply with the law in Nigeria

Abstract

Do people living in societies rife with police corruption comply with the law because they perceive police as legitimate or because of their feelings of endemic powerlessness (i.e., what Tankebe (2009) refers to as dull compulsion)? Prior studies have shown that compliance is driven primarily by perceptions that authorities and their laws are legitimate and entitled to be obeyed. Using cross-sectional survey data collected from Southwest Nigeria, this study found that perceptions of police effectiveness and procedural justice were related to Nigerians' self-reported compliance with the law. Importantly, and unexpectedly, neither dull compulsion nor perceptions of police legitimacy were related to Nigerians' self-reported compliance behaviour. The implications of these findings for policing in postcolonial African societies are discussed.

“Truly free consent”? Clarifying the nature of police legitimacy using causal mediation analysis

“…In this, we built uponAkinlabi and Murphy's (2018) Nigeria-based study. They fielded measures of police legitimacy like 'Even if police are doing the wrong thing, I still feel a moral obligation to obey police' and measures of dull compulsion, e.g.…”

Blurring the Distinction Between Empirical and Normative Legitimacy? A Methodological Commentary on ‘Police Legitimacy and Citizen Cooperation in China’

“…In many of these countries, legitimacy seems to rest a good deal on the extent to which police officers act in procedurally fair, neutral, transparent and trustworthy ways when making decisions and interacting with the public. Sun et al's (2018) recently published paper on police legitimacy in a coastal city in Southern China is an excellent example of the increasingly international nature of this field of enquiry (for others see Tsushima and Hamai 2015;Kim et al 2018;Akinlabi and Murphy 2018;Bradford and Jackson 2018;Gerber et al 2018;and Oliveira et al 2019). Sensitivity to context is important to their work.…”

Statement of Removal

“…We have also shown the validity of developing measures according to a powerful explanatory framework, PJT, that (a) directs conceptual definitions; (b) allows police departments to field the measures in their own surveys to investigate what they need to do to legitimate themselves in the eyes of the communities they police; and (c) ensures the framework retains explanatory value within the multiple cultural and geographical contexts in Canadian society. This last consideration is particularly relevant given recent empirical developments in the application of PJT globally (see, for example, Saarikkomäki et al, 2020;Zahnow et al, 2019;Oberwittler & Roche, 2018;Akinlabi & Murphy, 2018;van Damme, 2017;Sifrer et al, 2015), which suggests that the conceptual model outlined above may not reflect all cultural contexts in which 'the police' (as organizations and individuals) operate (see Jackson, 2018, for a review of the international literature).…”