The Effects of (De)Legitimation on Citizens’ Legitimacy Beliefs about Global Governance

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the potential effects of (de)legitimation on citizens’ legitimacy beliefs about global governance institutions (GGIs) through original survey experiments among the general public in ten countries worldwide: Australia, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, and South Korea. Building on cueing theory, several hypotheses about the expected effects of (de)legitimation by different agents are tested. Survey respondents are exposed to different treatments of (de)legitimation by foreign ministries, citizen protests, and GGIs themselves. Focusing on the United Nations, the World Bank, and the WHO, the chapter finds that the delegitimation of GGIs by governments and citizen protests has some limited effectiveness, depending on the GGI in question. While GGI self-legitimation in itself does not boost public belief in GGIs’ legitimacy, self-legitimation is generally effective at counteracting delegitimation attempts by governments and citizen protests. Hence, GGIs are vulnerable to delegitimation by agents and actions such as hostile governments and citizen protests. Still, the experimental results demonstrate that GGIs can effectively defend themselves against such attacks and neutralize them through self-legitimation efforts. The results carry significant implications for academic research and agents in GGI legitimacy debates.