Legitimacy and Global Governance

The legitimacy of global governance institutions is both contested and defended in contemporary global politics. Legitimation and Delegitimation in Global Governance explores processes of legitimation and delegitimation of such institutions. How, why, and with what impact on audiences, are global governance institutions legitimated and delegitimated? The book develops a comprehensive theoretical framework for studying processes of (de)legitimation in governance beyond the state. It provides broad comparative analyses to uncover previously unexplored patterns of (de)legitimation processes. A diverse set of global and regional governmental and nongovernmental institutions in different policy fields are included. Variation across these institutions is explained with reference to institutional set-up, policy field characteristics, and broader social structures, as well as to the qualities of agents of (de)legitimation. The approach builds on a mixed-methods research design that uses quantitative and qualitative new empirical data. Three main interlinked elements of processes of legitimation and delegitimation are at the center of the analysis: the varied practices employed by different agents that may boost or challenge the legitimacy of institutions; the normative justifications that these agents draw on when engaging in legitimation and delegitimation practices; and the different audiences that may be impacted by legitimation and delegitimation. This results in a dynamic interplay between legitimation and delegitimation in contestation over the legitimacy of GGIs.

Global Legitimacy Crises addresses the consequences of legitimacy in global governance, in particular asking: when and how do legitimacy crises affect international organizations and their capacity to rule. The book starts with a new conceptualization of legitimacy crisis that looks at public challenges from a variety of actors. Based on this conceptualization, it applies a mixed-methods approach to identify and examine legitimacy crises, starting with a quantitative analysis of mass media data on challenges of a sample of 32 IOs. It shows that some, but not all organizations have experienced legitimacy crises, spread over several decades from 1985 to 2020. Following this, the book presents a qualitative study to further examine legitimacy crises of two selected case studies: the WTO and the UNFCCC. Whereas earlier research assumed that legitimacy crises have negative consequences, the book introduces a theoretical framework that privileges the activation inherent in a legitimacy crisis. It holds that this activation may not only harm an IO, but could also strengthen it, in terms of its material, institutional, and decision-making capacity. The following statistical analysis shows that whether a crisis has predominantly negative or positive effects depends on a variety of factors. These include the specific audience whose challenges define a certain crisis, and several institutional properties of the targeted organization. The ensuing in-depth analysis of the WTO and the UNFCCC further reveals how legitimacy crises and both positive and negative consequences are interlinked, and that effects of crises are sometimes even visible beyond the organizational borders.