Creating Legitimacy in a Pluralist World Order: The New Political Arts of Global Cooperation

Legitimacy is a fundamental value in world politics, and a key motivating driver of global cooperation. Legitimacy standards define the conditions under which political actors should support shared governance institutions, despite conflicting interests and moral commitments; meeting legitimacy standards thus helps institutions win support. In the ‘statist’ international order of the 20^th century, legitimacy standards were predominantly grounded in appeals to political actors’ rational agency. Governance institutions thus achieved legitimacy through standards centred on liberal law and rights-protection, democratic preference-aggregation and public deliberation, and technocratic application of scientific expertise. But in the emerging ‘pluralist’ global order of the 21^st century – characterized by rapid change, deep contestation, and growing complexity in the structure of governing institutions and political communities – these ‘rationalist’ legitimacy standards are no longer delivering robust legitimacy. This lecture argued that stronger legitimacy in global governance institutions can be built through recognising ‘creative’ dimensions of political agency as normative grounds for legitimacy, alongside strategic, moral, and communicative rationalities. It was discussed how ‘creative’ agency can be understood as a distinctive mode of political intelligence and normative ground for legitimacy standards; and how these distinctive intelligences can be harnessed to support legitimate global governance, through empowering the creative political arts of adaptation, innovation, and flexible accommodation of difference.

Schedule

11:20-11:30
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11:30-11:35
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Dr Frank Gadinger
Senior Researcher and Research Group Leader at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE)

11:35-12:15

43^rd Käte Hamburger Lecture
Creating Legitimacy in a Pluralist World Order:  The New Political Arts of Global Cooperation

Dr. Terry Macdonald
Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Melbourne

Discussant:  Alena Drieschova
Postdoc Research Fellow,  Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE)

Moderator:  Dr Frank Gadinger

12:15-12:45
Q&A with the Audience

12:45
Concluding Remarks and End of the Lecture