legitimierende

legitimierende is a German adjective derived from the verb legitimieren, meaning to legitimize or to confer legitimacy. The word is used to describe actions, measures, arguments or institutions that serve to legitimize something. It is often found in phrases such as legitimierende Maßnahmen (legitimation measures), legitimierende Narrative (legitimation narratives) or legitimierende Institutionen (legitimation institutions). In scholarly discourse the term is used to analyze how certain discourses or practices reinforce authority, order or social norms. For example, a state might employ legitimierende propaganda to justify its policies, or a company might develop a set of legitimierende policies to gain consumer trust.

Etymologically, legitimieren comes from the Latin legitimatus, the past participle of legitīre, which in turn comes from legitimus. The German adjective takes the form legitimierend in its present participle form and can be inflected for case, gender and number: legitimierende Personen, legitimierenden Zustand, legitimierenden Prozess. Because the adjective can be used attributively in compound nouns, it often appears in legal, political or sociological texts. The neutral meaning allows the term to be used in both supportive and critical contexts, thereby providing a neutral lens for examining the mechanisms of legitimacy in social structures.