Does Legitimacy Affect the Collaborative Regulation in the Food Safety Administration? Evidence from China

Abstract This article discusses the influence of external and internal legitimacy on food safety collaborative regulation. Drawing upon the legitimacy theory, this research proposes key hypotheses: (1) external legitimacy shapes the overall features of collaborative regulation, and (2) internal legitimacy influences partner selection. This research empirically tests research hypotheses using social network analysis (bootstrap t-test and MR-QAP) and the food safety regulation documents jointly issued by the Chinese central government’s agencies during 2010–2017. It finds that external legitimacy influences the overall characteristics of collaborative networks (cohesion), and internal legitimacy influences the local characteristics of collaborative networks, that is, partner selection (pragmatic consideration and cognitive consideration). Although partner selection is driven by both pragmatic and cognitive considerations, the latter is much more important.