Legitimacy, Power, and the Symbolic Life of the UN Security Council

Hurd, Ian

doi:10.1163/19426720-00801006

Cited by 146 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A related claim that-consistent with our argument-is that members of the public believes that institutions such as the United Nations Security Council have been invested with moral legitimacy(Hurd 2002(Hurd , 2005, giving the UN an ability to send persuasive cues.…”

supporting

confidence: 80%

Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

Grieco

Gelpi

Reifler

et al. 2011

International Studies Quarterly

151

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Recent scholarship on international institutions has begun to explore potentially powerful indirect pathways by which international institutions may influence states' domestic politics and thereby influence the foreign policy preferences and strategies of state leaders. In this paper, we provide evidence documenting the indirect impact of institutional cues on public support for the use of force through an analysis of individual-level survey data and a survey-based experiment that examines support for a hypothetical American intervention in East Timor. We find that institutional endorsements increase support for the use of force among members of the American public who value the institution making the endorsement and among those who do not have confidence in the president. These individual-level analyses show that international institutions can affect domestic support for military action by serving providing a valuable ''second opinion'' on the proposed use of force.

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supporting

confidence: 80%

Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

Grieco

Gelpi

Reifler

et al. 2011

International Studies Quarterly

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Claude (:367, 374) describes the Council as a “dispenser of legitimacy” whose core function consists in collectively granting legitimation. Hurd (:17:6) claims that states try to “associate themselves with the Council as a means to legitimize their actions, decisions and identities.” The legitimacy of the Security Council gives it symbolic power thus making “its scarce symbolic resources worth fighting over by giving them perceived value” (Hurd :38). Finnemore (:81–82) points to a norm according to which humanitarian interventions require the approval of the Council.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Legitimacy of the UN Security Council: Evidence from Recent General Assembly Debates

Binder

Heupel

2014

Int Stud Q

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Existing research on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council is conceptual or theoretical, for the most part, as scholars tend to make legitimacy assessments with reference to objective standards. Whether UN member states perceive the Security Council as legitimate or illegitimate has yet to be investigated systematically; nor do we know whether states care primarily about the Council's compliance with its legal mandate, its procedures, or its effectiveness. To address this gap, our article analyzes evaluative statements made by states in UN General Assembly debates on the Security Council, for the period 1991–2009. In making such statements, states confer legitimacy on the Council or withhold legitimacy from it. We conclude the following: First, the Security Council suffers from a legitimacy deficit because negative evaluations of the Council by UN member states far outweigh positive ones. Nevertheless, the Council does not find itself in an intractable legitimacy crisis because it still enjoys a rudimentary degree of legitimacy. Second, the Council's legitimacy deficit results primarily from states' concerns regarding the body's procedural shortcomings. Misgivings as regards shortcomings in performance rank second. Whether or not the Council complies with its legal mandate has failed to attract much attention at all.

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“…This is where this article sets in, identifying religious 'substances' (sources) and 'procedures' (practices) that constituted the UN's legitimacy and its significance for political conduct (consequences) which are the result of political judgements. This framework acknowledges that politics is also a struggle over symbols, their sources and the right to use them 21 under a cultural and thus religious frame. Symbols are frequently invoked narratives where: different sources of legitimacy are crafted together in a narrative that binds the authority back to the impartial pursuit of the social purpose.…”

Section: The Un's Legitimacy: Secularized But Religiousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimacy in the ‘secular church’ of the United Nations

Troy

2020

International Relations

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This article argues that how the United Nations (UN) conceptualizes legitimacy is not only a matter of legalism or power politics. The UN’s conception of legitimacy also utilizes concepts, language and symbolism from the religious realm. Understanding the entanglement between political and religious concepts and the ways of their verbalization at the agential level sheds light on how legitimacy became to be acknowledged as an integral part of the UN and how it changes. At the constitutional level, the article examines phrases and ‘verbal symbols’, enshrined in the Charter of the ‘secular church’ UN. They evoke intrinsic legitimacy claims based on religious concepts and discourse such as hope and salvation. At the agential level, the article illustrates how the Secretary-General verbalizes those abstract constitutional principles of legitimacy. Religious language and symbolism in the constitutional framework and agential practice of the UN does not necessarily produce an exclusive form of legitimacy. This article shows, however, that legitimacy as nested in the UN’s constitutional setting cannot exist without religious templates because they remain a matter of a ‘cultural frame’.

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Legitimacy, Power, and the Symbolic Life of the UN Security Council

Cited by 146 publications

References 11 publications

Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

The Legitimacy of the UN Security Council: Evidence from Recent General Assembly Debates

Legitimacy in the ‘secular church’ of the United Nations

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