What motivates states to follow international norms, rules, and commitments? All social systems must confront what we might call the problem of social control—that is, how to get actors to comply with society's rules—but the problem is particularly acute for international relations, because the international social system does not possess an overarching center of political power to enforce rules. Yet, taken in balance with other values, a measure of order is a valued good. Some take this absence of centralized power to mean that the international system is like a Hobbesian state of nature, where only material power matters; others see it as evidence that international rules have force only when they are in the self-interest of each state. I show that these two conclusions are premature because of their shallow reading of international society and misinterpretation of the ways in which authority works in domestic society.

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

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Whether international institutions are seen as legitimate or not is important to whether they are able to exercise authority. An institution that is seen as legitimate finds it easier to gain acquiescence with its rules and decisions and so relies less on outright coercion. From the point of view of the organization therefore legitimacy is a useful property worth cultivating, defending, and deploying. Most studies of legitimacy in International Relations take the perspective of the ruling institution. In this article turn the tables and consider global legitimacy with an eye on political controversy and opposition: how do legitimacy studies look if we begin by assuming a gap between what the people want and what rulers want? International organizations (IOs) are ubiquitous in international politics, in roles ranging from setting rules for governments and defining rights for individuals, to acting as settings for interstate negotiations, to supplying some of the discursive concepts and resources taken up by governments and activists in domestic and international society. From landmines to bankruptcy law and beyond, there is compelling evidence of the practical influence of international institutions over the conditions of life for many people (on power politics see Lipscy 2017; on markets see Block-Lieb and Halliday 2017; more widely see Halliday and Shaffer 2015). International organizations sometimes exercise political authority over their subjects and as such they deserve the same kind of attention as is given to other governing institutions in society. Questions that one might ask about a government-is it transparent? it is accountable? to what ends does it deploy its authority? what follows from its governance and for whom?-are now increasingly also asked about IOs. The essays in this collection advance these efforts by considering how legitimacy and legitimation affect IOs and how through them legitimacy shapes the broader world of international politics. The central premise of this approach is articulated by Tallberg and Zürn who say that Blegitimacy is central for international organizations (IOs) to make a difference in world politics^(Tallberg and Zürn 2019, 1). From there, the contributions here consider how legitimacy can be measured, used in practice,