A chronic problem for democratic governments is generating legitimacy for policy decisions that go against substantial groups of citizens’ legitimate interests. The primary means of achieving this aim involve the arrangements through which policy decisions are made. Whereas research in the field has tended to focus on the arrangements leading up to a decision, this paper draws attention to developments after a formal policy decision has been made. We theorize that the formal decision constitutes a focal event that motivates affected individuals to update their beliefs about the decision. We identify four types of potential legitimacy-enhancing post-decision arrangements: how the decision is announced; how it is publicly explained; whether the process allows for post-decision voice; and whether decision-makers take actions to mitigate its negative consequences. The results from two survey experiments with large samples of Swedish adults addressing the case of school closures suggest that post-decision procedures have legitimacy-enhancing potential and that this effect is not dependent on the pre-decision process.

中文翻译：

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“结束时还没有结束”——决策后的安排与经验合法性

民主政府的一个长期问题是为违背大量公民合法利益的政策决定提供合法性。实现这一目标的主要手段涉及制定政策决策的安排。尽管该领域的研究倾向于关注导致决策的安排，但本文提请注意在做出正式政策决定后的发展。我们推测，正式决定构成了一个焦点事件，可以激励受影响的个人更新他们对决定的信念。我们确定了四种可能增强合法性的决策后安排：如何宣布决定；如何公开解释；流程是否允许决策后的声音；以及决策者是否采取行动减轻其负面后果。两项针对瑞典成年人的大样本调查实验结果表明，决策后程序具有增强合法性的潜力，并且这种效果不依赖于决策前程序。