Assessing NATO's legitimacy in global governance

Abstract

This chapter aims to scrutinize NATO as an International Organization (IO) intending to construct its legitimacy by delivering Strategic Concepts. Among various legitimation tools employed by NATO, this study will specifically focus on its Strategic Concepts published respectively in 1991, 1999 and 2010 with the aim of understanding its input, output and throughput legitimacy. A closer assessment of the impact of three consecutive Strategic Concepts of NATO on its legitimacy showcases that the 1991 Strategic Concept of NATO has widely influenced its input legitimacy whilst its impact on output and throughput legitimacy remained limited. Whereas the 1999 strategic concept has contributed to increase NATO's throughput and output legitimacy thanks to its cooperation with third countries in the Middle East and Europe and to its relative contribution to the consolidation of peace in the Balkans, it has been less efficient on its input legitimacy due to increasing internal split among its members on non-Article 5 operations. With respect to the 2010 Strategic Concept, it seems that it has helped NATO consolidate its input and throughput legitimacy especially in the field of crisis management with third countries and cooperation with other IOs and non-NATO members. Yet the 2010 Strategic Concept has not helped much to consolidate NATO's output legitimacy in the cases of out of-sea operations particularly.