Whose legitimacy beliefs count? Targeted audiences in global governance legitimation processes
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Whose legitimacy beliefs count? Targeted audiences in global governance legitimation processes Magdalena Bexell1 · Kristina Jönsson1 · Nora Stappert2
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Which groups do global governance institutions address in their efforts to legitimate themselves? Global governance institutions are increasingly attempting to present themselves as legitimate vis-à-vis both internal and external audiences. Yet, empirical research on these legitimation audiences is still nascent. This article proposes a conceptual framework that highlights the selection of audiences by global governance institutions as a key element of their self-legitimation. Specifically, we argue that our approach addresses three continuing challenges in empirical research on self-legitimation. First, it emphasises how different actors within the institution may pursue multiple, and potentially conflicting, strategies with regard to the legitimation audiences they address. Second, our framework calls attention to what we call intermediary legitimation audiences, that is, audiences targeted with the expectation that they will in turn convince other audiences of the institution’s legitimacy. Finally, instead of taking for granted that external critique steers who is targeted by self-legitimation, our approach highlights that an institution’s internal assessment of such critique is decisive. We demonstrate the wide applicability of our framework through exploratory studies of three global governance institutions that differ with regard to their membership compositions: the World Health Organization, the International Criminal Court and the Forest Stewardship Council. Keywords Forest Stewardship Council · Global governance · International Criminal Court · Legitimacy · Legitimation · Self-legitimation · World Health Organization
* Nora Stappert [email protected] 1
Department of Political Science, Lund University, Box 52, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
2
School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
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M. Bexell et al.
Introduction Recent scholarship on authority and rule beyond the nation state has increasingly recognised a need to study legitimation processes and the strategies that global governance institutions use to justify their exercise of power (e.g. Beetham 2013; Zaum 2013). One core reason for such an interest is the assumption that higher levels of legitimacy improve compliance (Tallberg and Zürn 2019). Rising levels of politicisation, and the legitimacy crises experienced by several international institutions in recent years, have further accentuated the importance of such research (Zürn 2018: 137‒167). Despite increasing interest in empirically researching legitimacy beliefs and the ways in which global governance institutions seek to legitimate themselves in their public communication, legitimation audiences have received little scholarly attention. As Symons (2011: 2562) has pointed out, ‘the lack of a theoretical language for ident
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