Legitimacy Of International Institutions Research Articles

New perspectives on the legitimacy of international institutions and power

New perspectives on the legitimacy of international institutions and power

The Public’s Role in Politicizing International Issues: Why Multilateralism Needs to Take Public Opinion More Seriously

The aim of this article is to introduce a framework that expands our understanding of the power of public opinion in influencing decisions at the multilateral level, with particular focus on the relationship between public opinion and legitimacy of international institutions and IOs. The framework traces how multilateral issues evolve from having high consensus to being highly contested, or vice versa. The progression and pathways become clear when public contestation is disentangled from elite contestation. Further, it argues that the faster pace of issue politicization is aided by the political ecology dominated by social media, as compared to the period when news media were the public’s main source of information on international matters.

Legitimacy under institutional complexity: Mapping stakeholder perceptions of legitimate institutions and their sources of legitimacy in global renewable energy governance

AbstractThe legitimacy of international institutions has in recent years received growing interest from scholars, yet analyses of stakeholder perceptions of the legitimacy of institutions that coexist within a governance field have been few in number. Motivated by the proliferation of institutions in the field of global climate and energy governance, this study maps stakeholder perceptions of legitimate institutions and their sources of legitimacy in global renewable energy governance. Specifically, the article makes three contributions to the existing literature. Theoretically, it unpacks the legitimacy concept and offers a multidimensional conception of legitimacy. Methodologically, it captures these different dimensions of legitimacy by relying on three open survey questions. Empirically, it maps legitimacy perceptions among climate and energy experts and not only shows which institutions are considered most legitimate, but also why they are considered legitimate and how this varies between different stakeholders. The article thereby contributes to the literature on legitimacy by providing new insights into the sources of legitimacy among international institutions that operate under institutional complexity.

Judicial diplomacy: International courts and legitimation

AbstractObservers of international courts (ICs) note that several ICs carry out a broad range of non-judicial activities, ranging from legal training workshops and public seminars to visits with public officials. Despite the growing prominence of these activities, they have received little attention from scholars. Seeking to fill this gap, this article examines these activities as a form of ‘judicial diplomacy’, asking how and why ICs employ judicial diplomacy. The article argues that ICs use judicial diplomacy as a means of legitimation. They seek to boost institutional legitimacy through their judicial diplomacy by targeting the public and communicating norm-referential narratives about their processes and outcomes. This argument bears out in case studies on the judicial diplomacy of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Caribbean Court of Justice. Both courts are shown to have judicial diplomacy that is public-oriented and people-centred. This argument has important implications for literature on international courts and the legitimacy of international institutions.

Club governance and legitimacy: The perspective of old and rising powers on the G7 and the G20

ABSTRACT Club governance is among the most contested of global governance approaches. This article investigates legitimacy evaluations of two informal governance clubs from the perspective of both old powers and rising powers. It examines how legitimate the G7/G8 and the G20 are perceived to be and which (de-)legitimation criteria are used in the context of these summit regimes, assessing how legitimacy evaluations in the media vary across these two settings, across different types of actors and over time. The article shows that rising powers challenge certain aspects of the global order more than old powers. While the criteria linked to output legitimacy, such as effectiveness, tend to be more prominent than criteria on input legitimacy, such as participation, the latter seem to be more important for rising powers than for old powers. This article contributes to the various bodies of literature on club governance, the legitimacy of international institutions and the role of rising powers in global governance.

‘Can you pass the salt?’ The legitimacy of international institutions and indirect speech

This article introduces the concept of indirect speech and shows what it can contribute to understanding ‘legitimacy talk’ regarding international institutions. Indirect speech occurs when one kind of illocutionary act is used to communicate another. Examples include euphemism, some forms of politeness and when a request is expressed as a question (‘Can you pass the salt?’). Transporting concepts from pragmatics and sociolinguistics, this article argues that legitimacy talk often serves this function in international politics, operating by expressing specific requests in the form of more generalized legitimacy claims. Understanding this double role of legitimacy talk sheds light on otherwise puzzling empirical phenomena, such as why states frame their demands in terms of legitimacy when they are transparently self-serving, why states with different interests can nonetheless express their demands in the same terms, and why they persist in doing so long after there is any realistic hope of being ‘persuasive’. An analysis of the debate on Security Council reform illustrates the benefits of this approach for the study of international relations.

Crowdsourcing Sustainable Development Goals from Global Civil Society: A Content Analysis

For the past several decades, members of global civil society have begun to play an increasing role in global environmental governance. Expanding participation in global decision making processes to include actors beyond the nation-state is viewed as a corrective for the democratic deficit that some argue continues to undermine the legitimacy of international institutions. Yet, important questions remain regarding how civil society should be incorporated into global policymaking. One recently implemented approach involves crowdsourcing comments through web-based platforms like e-discussions and social media. However, the viability of this approach and its implications for global governance have not been adequately assessed. In this paper, I evaluate the potential efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of increasing participation in global environmental governance through an analysis of data from the global MY World survey and a content analysis of UN-initiated e-discussions surrounding the inclusion of environmental sustainability in the post-2015 development agenda. I find that there exists a perceptible demographic imbalance among contributors to the MY World survey and considerable dissonance between the characteristics of participants in the e-discussions and those whose voices were included in the resulting summary report. This suggests that although crowdsourcing may be an attractive tool for widening participation in global governance, ultimately the democratic quality of that participation depends on the manner in which contributions are filtered by international institutions.

The Premises, Assumptions, and Implications of Van Gend en Loos: Viewed from the Perspectives of Democracy and Legitimacy of International Institutions

In its Van Gend en Loos judgment, the ECJ assigned citizens directly enforceable rights vis-a-vis their respective state executives, and authorized national courts to protect those rights. What explains the Court's suspicion of state executives as the sole actors to implement Community law (acting directly or through the Commission)? What justifies its confidence in the ability of the national courts to protect the individuals? We submit that the ECJ was informed by the premise that national courts acting in unison could withstand political pressures and protect individuals while implementing the Treaty. Moreover, the ECJ understood that its interaction with national courts would put it in a position potentially to offer significant support for citizens of relatively weaker countries against various predatory policies employed by the more powerful states in the organization. In this article we explore these premises and present evidence to support them. More generally, we argue that there is good reason to endorse this model of judicial activism as a means to ensure democracy as judged by the effective and informed participation of individuals in public decision-making that affects them - within international organizations. This judgment demonstrates the promise of greater interaction and coordination between national and international tribunals in preventing democratic failures at both the national and international levels. Although judicial intervention often pre-empts public deliberation, it can also encourage it; although it may operate to pre-empt the vote, it can also function to ensure it.

The premises, assumptions, and implications of Van Gend en Loos: Viewed from the perspectives of democracy and legitimacy of international institutions (Abstract only)

The premises, assumptions, and implications of Van Gend en Loos: Viewed from the perspectives of democracy and legitimacy of international institutions (Abstract only)

Constituent Power beyond the State: An Emerging Debate in International Political Theory

In this review article, I suggest that the books under review should be conceived of as trailblazers of an emerging debate in international political theory. They all innovatively apply the concept of constituent power to the international realm and thereby contribute to establishing a new principle for the democratic legitimacy of international institutions. I argue that we should aim to develop a systematic theory of constituent power beyond the state because such a tool could considerably enhance the analytical categories of our research on democratic legitimacy beyond the state. Furthermore, I propose research questions for this new field of study, concerning conceptual, methodological and institutional aspects, and in turn apply these to the different conceptions of an international pouvoir constituant presented in the volumes under review in order to discuss their strengths and weaknesses.

Federalism and Jurisdiction

This essay argues that we do not need the idea of federation for an appropriate constitutional interpretation of EU law. Federal States constitute a single scheme of government and jurisdiction on the basis of a coherent set of constitutional principles. The EU is no such thing. The idea of a pluralist legal system or dual sovereignty is equally implausible. It follows also that what Kalypso Nicolaidis has called ‘federal union’ is not really federal at all. In her account, the union has no single scheme of government and no single framework of jurisdiction. This account is correct, but it suggests a model based on an international recognition of the EU by the constituent States, not a federal model. The EU is a union of peoples under an international framework of justice and legitimacy. To say that it is international is neither to challenge the EU’s moral standing nor to diminish its importance. Arguments to such effect entirely misunderstand the power and legitimacy of international institutions.

Rules and Engagement: Legitimacy of International Institutions and Participation of NGOs in Global Environmental Governance

Rules and Engagement: Legitimacy of International Institutions and Participation of NGOs in Global Environmental Governance

Introduction to Symposium on Ethical Dimensions of International Institutions

The three papers in this symposium were initially presented at a conference on the ethical dimensions of international institutions in New Orleans in February 27-28, 2009, which was sponsored by Politics, Philosophy and Economics with the generous help of the Murphy Institute of Political Economy at Tulane University. The conference brought together leading thinkers in political philosophy, international relations and political theory to engage in an empirically informed discussion of some basic ethical issues regarding international institutions. These papers represent some of the most cutting edge work on ethically relevant features of international institutions. The first two papers are on the legitimacy of international institutions while the third is concerned with the normative implications of the structure of the international institutions. The paper by Allen Buchanan ‘‘Reciprocal Legitimation: Reframing The Problem Of International Legitimacy,’’ addresses the normative basis of legitimacy, or the basis of the reasons for obeying the directives of international institutions. It continues his path-breaking work analyzing the relationships between the legitimacy of states and their governments and the legitimacy of international institutions. In contrast to the traditional view associated with international law, which asserts that the legitimacy of international institutions derives from the consent of states, he argues that the relationship between the legitimacy of international institutions and the legitimacy of states and their governments is one of mutual dependence. The paper mounts a sophisticated, empirically informed philosophical defense of this view. The paper by Miles Kahler, ‘‘Legitimacy, Humanitarian Intervention, And International Institutions,’’ addresses the single most difficult issue of legitimacy with regard to international law and institutions. His paper offers a careful political analysis of the development of international law on humanitarian intervention from the nineteenth century

Reciprocal legitimation: Reframing the problem of international legitimacy

Theorizing about the legitimacy of international institutions usually begins with a framing assumption according to which the legitimacy of the state is understood solely in terms of the relationship between the state and its citizens, without reference to the effects of state power on others. In contrast, this article argues that whether a state is legitimate vis-a-vis its own citizens depends upon whether its exercise of power respects the human rights of people in other states. The other main conclusions are as follows. First, a state’s participation in international institutions can contribute to its legitimacy in several ways. Second, when international institutions contribute to the legitimacy of states, their doing so can contribute to their own legitimacy. Third, a theory of international legitimacy ought to recognize reciprocal legitimation between states and international institutions.

The View of Old and New Powers on the Legitimacy of International Institutions

International institutions have developed into a site of political authority of their own as can be seen by looking at a number of authority indicators. The concept of international authority, however, is intimately bound to the concept of legitimacy. The stronger the role that international institutions play in policymaking, the stronger the demands for their legitimacy that can be expected to arise. Against this background, we ask which of the state powers analysed in this special issue prefer which form of legitimation of international institutions, whether their general conceptions of legitimacy diverge or converge, and what this means for the future of global governance.

Transnational Legitimacy in a Globalising World: How the European Union Rescues its States

This article addresses claims regarding the limited legitimacy of international institutions. It argues that the two original appointed supranational institutions of the European Union play a crucial, if systematically underestimated, role not merely in providing legitimacy for the Union itself, but also in shoring up that of its constituent member states. We illustrate that supranationalism enhances national legitimacy in functional, political and administrative terms. It does so by helping member states produce outputs they otherwise could not (particularly by enabling them to deal with transboundary policy problems they would struggle to confront if acting in isolation) and by embedding within national political and administrative systems legally enforceable obligations to respect the interests of actors whose voice is excluded or muffled (de jure or de facto) within purely national political processes. The article contends that the claims to legitimacy made by the EU and its member states are of distinctive character but interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

The Strategic Use of Liberal Internationalism: Libya and the UN Sanctions, 1992–2003

The UN's sanctions against Libya became an issue of great controversy in the Security Council in the 1990s owing to competing interpretations of the central legal norms of international relations. The norms of due process, the presumption of innocence, and respect for international organizations (IOs) were defended by both sides, but for opposite ends. I use the contestation over norms and law at the Council to argue three broader themes about international politics: first, that states' perceptions about the legitimacy of international institutions is important in influencing state behavior; second, that this legitimacy creates powerful symbols in international relations that are strategically useful to states in the pursuit of their interests; and third, that the distribution of material power among states does not necessarily parallel the distribution of symbolic power, and so it is not uncommon for apparently strong states to be defeated by apparently weak ones when they fight over symbolic stakes. The norms of liberal internationalism are intersubjective resources useful in the strategic competition among states. For helpful comments on earlier drafts, I wish to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of this journal, as well as Jose Alvarez, Stephen Brooks, Michael Doyle, Daryl Press, Henry Shue, Benjamin Valentino, Jennifer Welsh, William Wohlforth, and seminar participants at Columbia Law School, Dartmouth College, Oxford University, and ISA Montreal 2004.

Individuals and states as democratic subjects

Meaningful politics has been transferred increasingly from the national to the international arena. Substantively, more national control over public policy making cannot be regained, short of impairing certain desired outcomes—if it can be regained at all. Day‐to‐day activities within nations increasingly bear the mark of events occurring across the world and they generate their own global reverberations as well. The scope of national (democratic) decision making seems like it will diminish in the future. Yet in the long run, international policy making will require democratic legitimacy. This claim stems from two arguments. First, a causal relation exists between legitimacy and effectiveness. The legitimacy of international institutions must be enhanced because those that lack legitimacy seldom act effectively over the long run. Second, since democracy has become a universal value, any institution making substantive decisions faces demands for democratic procedures. As the role of international institutions in global governance grows, so too do democratic expectations. Reforms of international organizations must promote democracy not merely effectiveness. Thus, we must better conceptualize democracy at the international level. We'll do so here by focusing on the U.N. system.