International Legitimacy Research Articles

Exploring the foreign policies of populist governments: (Latin) America First

How do populists conduct foreign policy? The existing literature on populism focuses mainly on domestic patterns, and until recently the foreign dimension of populism has been largely overlooked. This paper aims to fill theoretical and empirical lacunae by mapping patterns of change and continuity in the formulation of geopolitical and economic international policy among Latin-American populist governments. Striving to conduct a systematic comparative analysis, this paper explores three waves of populist foreign policies in Latin America (classic, neoliberal, and progressive). While it is difficult to highlight a unified phenomenon, the findings reveal that several ‘unifying’ elements indeed exist: they are manifest in the tendency of such governments to jointly (re)construct transnational solidarities for legitimation purposes and to adopt economic foreign policies with a pragmatic bent. Moreover, in opposition to the two first waves of populist governments, the most recent wave has embraced personalist styles, emotional public diplomacy, and clientelist techniques with support networks abroad, thus actively projecting the domestic patterns of populism to the regional and global levels in an attempt to leverage both domestic and international legitimacy. This study offers critical lessons for IR scholarship’s increasing engagement with populism, contributing to the lively debate regarding the rise of populist trends across the globe.

Between legal norms and geopolitical implications: admission of Kosovo to the United Nations?

One of the basic attributes of statehood apart from the territory, population, and government is international recognition, which defines the capacity of states to enter into relations with other states. Through a comparative method, the main goal of the current research is to analyse the foreign policy of Kosovo as a case study and compare the admission processes of Israel and East Timor, countries with significant similarities to Kosovo’s situation and geopolitical context. By analysing the principles of international law concerning state recognition, this research article explores the conditions and policies that could lead Kosovo to be admitted to key international organizations, and particularly to the United Nations. What significance does membership in the United Nations have for the sovereignty and international legitimacy of states, and what is Kosovo’s foreign policy approach to prospective admission to the UN? These are the two central research questions, which lead this research analysis. The research assumes that the process of international recognition and membership in international organizations can be accomplished through a better foreign policy strategy and a smart proactive diplomacy. This can be done initially through admission in the UN specialized agencies and the dissemination of fulfilment of normative criteria such as commitment to peace, democracy and respect for human rights and minorities, principles that are crucial in recognizing new states. Through the findings and recommendations, the research aims to contribute to the understanding of foreign policy approaches toward membership in the international organizations, particularly admission of the new states to the United Nations.

Legitimate and Illegitimate Reading

The legitimacy of speculative fiction - a broad fiction category that includes science fiction and fantasy - varies according to the choice of texts. This article analyses what is at stake when reading literary genres with ambiguous legitimacy, by describing how this supposed illegitimate reading can be transformed into a social and cultural resource. After discussing the prejudices that science fiction and fantasy readers face, it shows how the genre’s internal legitimacy hierarchy allows for strategies of distinction amongst, not only individuals with a strong cultural capital, but others as well, through their choice of books and adopted reading methods.

Between pacification and dialogue: Critical lessons from Colombia’s territorial peace

Colombia's peace process prioritised conflict-torn geographies ostensibly suffering from historical state absence. We examine the origins and afterlives of this 'territorial' peace using discourse analysis, archival research and field interviews. The state-initiated agenda exceeded the objective of structuring negotiations with FARC guerrillas, pointing to the transformative potential of social dialogue. The negotiating parties co-sponsored participatory rural development forums, which attracted numerous collectives. These diverse actors' visionary proposals to address neglected claims and conflicts influenced the government's and FARC's respective discourses, ultimately informing the 2016 peace agreement. Yet, state priorities for peace centred on international legitimation and post-conflict infrastructure development to accelerate foreign investment in export-oriented mining, oil extraction, and agri-business. The beleaguered FARC challenged government's narratives while struggling to rebuild organisational legitimacy and prevent fragmentation. Subsequent disappointments with fraught territorial development plans, a new government's securitization of peace programmes, and continuing violence mar the post-agreement period. Prior contributors to participatory forums have joined contentious actions against neglectful austerity, extractivist maldevelopment and targeted assassinations. Thus, we argue that Colombia's international lessons may reside less in governmental pacification programmes - the potential of state-sponsored participatory dialogues notwithstanding - than in resilient (post-)conflict communities open to exercising their peace imagination while remaining mobilised against new-and-old violences. Furthermore, the territorial peace saga illustrates productive overlaps between critical peace geographies and socio-territorial analysis - especially the territorial restructuring induced by neoliberal economic policies, the violent multiple territorialities of differentiated state presence in geographical peripheries and pluriversal struggles against ontological occupation addressed herein.

Online engagement as a multimodal discursive practice: The case of Dubai Cares’ Facebook page

The paper examines the role of social media platforms in public relations engagement, focusing on the case of a leading non-profit organization in the UAE, namely Dubai Cares. Drawing on multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), the paper analyses the textual, paratextual, and visual modes of communication deployed by the organization, and investigates their role as (multimodal) discursive practices in constructing engagement and shaping power relations between the organizations and its publics. A key finding of the paper is that Dubai Cares’ online public relations efforts to promote its international recognition and legitimacy often come at the expense of addressing multiple power differentials between the organization and its stakeholders. The paper demonstrates how approaching engagement as a multimodal discourse, where power relations are at play, helps transcend the limitations of instrumental interpretations of the notion of engagement, thus obscuring its inherent discursive and social dimension.

Network governance forms in healthcare: empirical evidence from two Italian cancer networks

BackgroundThis study focuses on the application of Provan and Kenis’ modes of network governance to the specific field of public healthcare networks, extending the framework to an analysis of systems in which networks are involved. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze and compare the governance of two cancer networks in two Italian regions that underwent system reconfiguration processes due to reforms in the healthcare system.MethodsA qualitative study of two clinical networks in the Italian healthcare system was conducted. The sample for interviews included representatives of the regional administration (n = 4), network coordinators (n = 6), and general and clinical directors of health organizations involved in the two networks (n = 25). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews.ResultsOur study shows that healthcare system reforms have a limited impact on network governance structures. In fact, strong inertial tendencies characterize networks, especially network administrative organization models (NAO). Networks tend to find their own balance with respect to the trade-offs analyzed using a mix of formal and informal ties. Our study confirms the general validity of Provan and Kenis’ framework and shows how other specific factors and contingencies may affect the possibility that cancer networks find positive equilibria between competing needs of inclusivity and efficiency, internal and external legitimacy, and stability and flexibility. It also shows how networks react to external changes.ConclusionsOur study shows the importance of considering three factors and contingencies that may affect network effectiveness: a) the importance of looking at network governance modes not in isolation, but in relationship to the governance of regional systems; b) the influence of a specific network’s governance structure on the network’s ability to respond to tensions and to achieve its goals; and c) the need to take into account the role of professionals in network governance.

The tension between global public procurement law and nationalist/populist tendencies: proposals for reform

GPA had a main objective from its very beginning: confronting discrimination between bidders on national or geographical grounds and opening the system up to greater competence between private actors. The World has experienced a gradual liberalization of public national markets that was almost perceived as a natural process. But this other time thought never-ending process is experiencing serious difficulties. The global political panorama seems to be moving again towards the once forgotten nationalist ideologies; a fact that has brought back again the old host of economic protectionism to the front line of international public markets regulation. The present paper analyses the existing situation from a critical approach. Firstly, it carries out a study of the mechanisms and motives that lie behind populisms and its relationship with international law legitimacy and traditional procurement bias. Secondly, it signals the central role of GPA as the main international instrument to face neo-protectionism, and focuses on the subtle nature of most procurement barriers and how current review mechanism fail to both efficiently tackle potential infringements and to guarantee states’ autonomy. Finally, a proposal for reform is made as to the functioning of the GPA review mechanisms through the creation of a mixed review system.

East Asian Civilization and the Problem of Region Making

The paper examines East Asia as regional civilization whose enduring characteristics emerged from long-term relations towards the Chinese model of a centralized state. The civilizational approach helps to understand the interrelation between different aspects of the region, such as politics, economy or culture. Chinese statehood relied on the principle of total power unrestricted by any norms of morality or laws and its neutralization by non-state institutions and informal networks. These two aspects helped to maintain a dynamic equilibrium of the political system and adapt it towards internal and external changes. The adoption of Chinese statehood came into contradiction with Korean and Japanese natural and social characteristics. This produced risks for the internal political legitimacy of political systems constructed according to the Chinese model in both countries. Necessity to preserve internal legitimacy encouraged external expansion of Imperial China and forced Korea and Japan to resist Sinocentric order but continue to adapt Chinese influence to local conditions. This contradiction defined reality of East Asian region during the traditional period, influenced its transition to modernity and remains relevant today.

Decision-Making in Collaborative Governance Networks: Pathways to Input and Throughput Legitimacy

AbstractParticipants may lose faith in collaborative governance processes if they do not perceive internal decision-making processes to be legitimate. Yet, understanding how to assess internal legitimacy and what network characteristics are associated with it has been an enduring challenge. In this article, we propose conceptualizing internal legitimacy as multi-vectored, contrasting input legitimacy—the degree of openness and access that participants experience in their attempt to offer voice—with throughput legitimacy—the quality of the decision-making process itself. Using data from a comparative case study of 18 different US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-mandated Continuums of Care, we assess this framework with a mixed-methods approach, combining thematic analysis of interview data (n = 145) with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to show (1) differences in how participants experience input and throughput legitimacy, (2) the nature of the relationship between input and throughput legitimacy, and (3) what specific network characteristics are associated with positive assessments of each. Our findings indicate that input and throughput legitimacy are distinct but related—throughput legitimacy is harder to achieve and dependent on positive assessments of input legitimacy. Some network characteristics, particularly large size and commissioner-style network management, pose challenges, but a focus on in-person engagement can help ameliorate them. We conclude that distinguishing between input and throughput legitimacy can help managers identify where and how to intervene in order to improve the legitimacy of decision-making processes in collaborative governance networks.

Public Feelings toward ASEAN

What determines how ASEAN is perceived by the citizens of its member states? Most studies on ASEAN take a state-centric and elite-oriented viewpoint. We improve on this by bringing the people of ASEAN into the center of the analysis. Considering lessons from the European Union’s internal legitimacy crisis, we develop hypotheses on how skill-based economic interests, sociocultural beliefs, and assessments of national context shape people’s attitude to ASEAN. Our hypotheses are tested using the latest data from the Asian Barometer Survey, covering eight of the 10 ASEAN countries. We find that citizen confidence in domestic governance and a positive assessment of major extra-regional powers are associated with a closer identification with ASEAN. Our analysis also identifies age and gender cleavages. ASEAN affinity is higher among older rather than younger and male rather than female respondents. Our findings have important policy implications for the proponents of ASEAN.

Networks, institutional environment and firm internationalization

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of network relationships and institutional environment on premium winegrowers’ internationalization process.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a case study approach to examine two premium wine producers engaged in internationalization. The data sources consist of semi-structured interviews, observations at three major events and secondary data sourced from industry reports and materials that are available online.FindingsFindings illustrate that both personal and inter-firm networks help wineries to internationalize. Inter-firm networks play a significant role in gaining international legitimacy. Personal networks were found to be more important in establishing brand authenticity that facilitates wineries in their internationalization process. Gaining international legitimacy and establishing brand authenticity are crucial in the successful internationalization of premium wineries.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides an explanation of how networks can be put into institutional context. Future studies could map out the formal and informal institutions within the wine industry and investigate the closer dynamics among the different actors in the whole network. A whole network is formally structured and governed, yet still built on the relationships among members, making it a very complex phenomenon. This would allow the evaluation of multilateral ties that link firms and actors within the network and how this affects the internationalization process.Practical implicationsThis paper provides managers with insights on how they can capitalize on their inter-firm and personal networks to help them deal with domestic and international institutional environments when embarking on internationalization activities.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the existing literature on networks relationships and provides an important link between networks, institutions and internationalization.

First Mover Survival in International Entry Strategy: An Organizational Legitimacy Perspective

When entering a foreign market, multinational enterprises (MNEs) from the same home country do not necessarily face identical levels of institutional constraints. Taking a legitimacy perspective, we argue that first movers may confront more liabilities of foreignness and outsidership. Their pioneering efforts to build up external legitimacy can change the host country institutions, and lessen the institutional pressures for followers. Later access, therefore, may have survival advantages compared to first entry. To mitigate these entry timing disadvantages, first movers can form international joint ventures (IJVs) with local firms to quickly acquire external legitimacy from the outset. The downside to this strategy, however, is that efforts to gain external legitimacy in the host country context may undermine internal legitimacy in the internal environment of the MNE. To balance these two types of legitimacy, we suggest that the first mover needs to maintain relatively strong ownership control over the alliance. Meanwhile, although MNEs can also influence the relative allocation of control over an IJV by influencing staffing of subsidiary general managers (GMs), we argue that the nonownership control such as using a parent-country national to manage the subsidiary does not necessarily serve as a substitute for ownership control. In local partner dominated IJVs, this GM staffing strategy may further decrease the first movers’ survival rate. Drawing on Japanese longitudinal data from 1991 to 2013, our analysis provides empirical evidence to support the argument.

New Alphabets, Old Rules: Latinization, Legacy, and Liberation in Central Asia

ABSTRACT Changing national alphabets is significant and controversial because of its connection to the legitimation of power in the past and present. Writing system revisions in Central Asia present intriguing variations. Latinization in Turkmenistan achieved the most notable recognition. In Uzbekistan, the government instituted some degree of Latinization, but the scope of the new alphabet remains limited. In Kazakhstan, the script change seems politically ambitious, but slow in its implementation. This article scrutinises how modern autocracies incorporate alphabetic alterations within their domestic and international legitimacy projects, places current Latinization efforts in historical context.

The Russian World as a legitimation strategy outside Russia: the case of Gagauzia

ABSTRACT The Russian World, or Russian civilization, is an ideology proclaiming the existence of an imagined transnational community of people living primarily in the post-Soviet area and identifying themselves with Russia in various ways. Since the 2000s, it has been employed by the Russian authorities to procure legitimacy domestically and in the international arena. This study argues that also leaders of various communities in the post-Soviet area outside of Russia use the Russian World ideology as a legitimation strategy. This study argues that not only the Russian leadership but also leaders of various communities in the post-Soviet area use the Russian World ideology as a legitimation strategy. It includes making declarations about belonging to the community of people identifying themselves with Russia as well as demonstrating this identification through words and deeds. Employing the Russian World-based legitimation strategy, leaders may seek internal legitimacy from their populations by referring to people’s demands or sentiments. They may also look for external legitimacy from Russia. In this case, the Russian World-related legitimation strategy derives from the demands of the Russian authorities who seek confirmation and consolidation of the Russian World. These arguments are illustrated with a case study of Gagauzia under Governor Irina Vlah in 2015–2019, her first term of office. The region is a sub-state autonomous entity located in Moldova and dominated by the Gagauz, a people of Turkic origin.

Voting for Militants: Rebel Elections in Civil War

Rebel actors engage in a number of behaviors beyond violent conflict, including social service provision, diplomacy, and establishing local governance. This article centers on an oft-overlooked aspect of rebel behavior and governance: rebel groups conducting popular elections in wartime. We argue that rebel elections are a means through which rebels can strengthen both local and international legitimacy, but that there are risks to employing elections (such as logistical failures or publicized disconnect from civilians). We hypothesize that rebels that are pursuing legitimacy (local and international) in other ways are likely to set up rebel elections and that rebel groups with greater organizational capacity are more likely to introduce elections because they are well placed to manage the risks elections entail. Using a global data set of rebel use of elections where local civilians vote to elect rebel representatives at various levels of organizational hierarchy, we find empirical support for these propositions.

Pseudo Neutrality in Intra-State Conflict: Myanmar’s Official Discourse on Rakhine

Although the most recent manifestation of conflict in Rakhine can be traced to the coordinated attack on Myanmar security forces in August 2017 by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (hereafter ARSA), it goes without saying that the problem has a longer history. For this paper a corpus of official Myanmar government sources was examined qualitatively using the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method. Within the official pronouncements of the Myanmar state since August 2017 we can discern the discursive strategies deployed to balance the competing pressures of national and international legitimation of the Myanmar government. In name and through action, Myanmar has marginalized the Rohingyas. However, beyond this obvious imperative additional and more subtle strategies have been deployed in Myanmar’s official discourse, which attempts to position the Myanmar state as a neutral arbiter in a subnational dispute and one that seeks to distance itself from previous political arrangements. The paper focuses on these other discursive strategies which evince conformity to undercurrents of socio-cultural pressures from grassroots extremist Buddhist actors within Myanmar. Ultimately, there is no escaping Official Myanmar’s responsibility for the status and plight of the Rohingya. The prognosis for external pressure to exert any normative influence on Myanmar will be limited. The official discourse betrays the ongoing attempts by the new government to balance these competing pressures at the expense of genuine neutrality and its responsibilities.

Sovereign States and their International Institutional Order

International law’s legitimacy has come under serious attack lately, including, and maybe even more so, in regimes considered democratic. Reading Dworkin’s New Philosophy for International Law in the current context is a timely reminder of the centrality of the political legitimacy of international law. Interestingly, indeed, his account does not succumb to the (however progressive) cosmopolitan ideal of an international political community. Nor is it reducible to a concern for domestic justice in which political legitimacy is only self-regarding. By revisiting seventeenth century international legal theories, Dworkin sends both cosmopolitans and statists back-to-back. He (re-)discovers a third way in which to conceive of statehood today: not on its own, but in a mirror-image fashion and against the background of the international institutional order without which there would be no equal sovereign States, but no individual equality either. Carrying Dworkin’s argument forward, this article identifies and discusses three of its crucial contributions with respect to the objects, subjects and institutions of international legitimacy that deserve further attention. It concludes with different proposals regarding the design and organization of other international institutions than States, both public and private, by reference to their relationship to States (and their people). According to Dworkin, this should enable us to improve not only the legitimacy of the international institutional order as whole, but also the political legitimacy of each State therein since both are mutually related.

The great delusion of engagement: how China should compete with America

Faced with a fundamental shift in America’s China policy, Beijing should have a clear-eyed analysis of its choices and strategies. It is no longer feasible for China to hide its capabilities and bide its time. Instead, competition must be met with competition. Thus, China should rethink how to improve its competitive strength vis-à-vis the United States. Strength stems from not only economic and military power, but also international legitimacy. To bolster its international legitimacy, China should improve relations with its neighbors, enable the international community to have a larger share of its prosperity, articulate broadly appealing political values, and make its national identity more inclusive. These four steps are not confrontational, but they will make China a more formidable competitor vis-à-vis the United States.

Institutional Drivers for Managers: A study on Training Adoption and its Impact on Social Enterprises Legitimacy and Performance in Pakistan

BACKGROUND: Despite wide global attention to training programs in business organizations, research on training programs and their outcomes at the social enterprises in general is very limited. This study aims to explicate the drivers and effects of manager’s training.OBJECTIVE: Based on institutional theory, this research explores the reasons why social enterprises train their managers as well as how the legitimacy and performance improves in response to training.METHODS: Our theoretically derived model is tested using survey data obtained from ninety-nine senior managers of social enterprises in Pakistan. Data was analyzed through Partial Least Square structural equation modeling method (PLS-SEM).RESULTS: The results of analysis support the idea that training of managers is synergistically and interactively driven by institutional forces e.g. normative, mimetic and coercive pressures. These institutional pressures spur social enterprises and induce them to adopt training programs to enhance their external and internal legitimacy and improve their performance.CONCLUSIONS: This research emphasizes the importance of institutional pressures in adopting training programs in social enterprises. In sum, the present study provides important insights for senior managers in social enterprises who seek to foster external and internal legitimacy and improve performance. This study makes important contribution to the literature by developing an empirical link between institutional pressures and social enterprises performance. This research reiterates finding in previous studies to show the significance of the institutional forces in adoption of certain practices e.g. training of managers, to monitor the outcomes of training and providing further explanation regarding effects of training on legitimacy and performance.

Decentralization as a strategy of regime maintenance: The case of Yemen

SummaryProponents of decentralization often argue that decentralization makes governments more accountable and responsive to the governed. This is perhaps why the decentralization literature tends to overlook Middle Eastern regimes as these are among the most authoritarian and most centralized regimes in the world. However, many of these regimes have included decentralization in their legal framework. This article shows how a weak regime can use decentralization as a regime maintenance strategy when formal decentralization reforms strengthens external and internal legitimacy. The articles main argument builds on the literature on decentralization and elite capture to show how weak regimes can use formal decentralization reform to undermine local autonomy. The article uses the case of Yemen to make this argument. Yemen has a long tradition for local bottom‐up initiatives and there is widespread internal support for decentralization. Simultaneously, donors have seen decentralization as a way of strengthening the Yemeni state, leading to international support to the formulation of the Local Authority Law of 2000, Law 4/2000, an extensive legal decentralization framework.