Legitimacy is widely regarded as a founding principle of ‘good’ and effective governance, yet despite intense academic debate and policy discourse, the concept remains conceptually confusing and poorly articulated in practice. To bridge this gap, this research performed an interpretive thematic analysis of academic scholarship across public administration, public policy, law, political science, and geography. Four core themes were identified in relation to representative deliberation, procedural and distributive equity and justice, and socio-political acceptability, with numerous sub-themes therein. In an attempt to clarify conceptual confusion, this paper grounds these theoretical debates in the context of flood risk governance where numerous legitimacy dilemmas exist. A number of questions are presented as conceptual ‘signposts’ to encourage reflexive governance in the future. Thus, more broadly, we assert the importance of bringing legitimacy to the forefront of contemporary flood risk governance discourse and practice, moving beyond the realm of academic reflection.

中文翻译：

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将合法性差距转化理论转化为合法洪水风险治理的实际路标。

合法性被广泛认为是“良好”和有效治理的基本原则，然而，尽管学术争论和政策讨论激烈，但这一概念在概念上仍然令人困惑，在实践中也没有得到很好的阐述。为了弥合这一差距，本研究对公共管理、公共政策、法律、政治学和地理学的学术奖学金进行了解释性主题分析。确定了与代议制审议、程序和分配公平与正义以及社会政治可接受性相关的四个核心主题，其中有许多次主题。为了澄清概念上的混乱，本文将这些理论争论置于存在众多合法性困境的洪水风险治理的背景下。许多问题作为概念“路标”提出，以鼓励未来的反思性治理。因此，更广泛地说，我们主张将合法性带入当代洪水风险治理话语和实践的最前沿，超越学术反思的领域。