Whose legitimacy beliefs count? Targeted audiences in global governance legitimation processes

Bexell, Magdalena; Jönsson, Kristina; Stappert, Nora

doi:10.1057/s41268-020-00199-4

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…IOs are dependent on the legitimacy beliefs of specific audiences rather than the overall population (Bexell et al, 2020). IOs address relevant audiences to gain their trust.…”

Section: Legitimacy and Trust In Iosmentioning

confidence: 99%

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

Anderl,

Hißen

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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Social movements see participation formats of international organizations (IOs) with suspicion. They increasingly retreat from cooperation to contest IOs from the outside, because they fear co-optation without real policy impact. However, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) was an exception to this trend because its opening up was seen as long-term dialogue facilitating discussions about the nature of food production, and because it created credible institutional mechanisms that were trusted by activists to give influence to farmers and peasant movements. Therefore, the food sovereignty movement participated within the FAO framework in a remarkably institutionalized way throughout the 2010s. But in 2019, when the United Nations (UN) announced to hold a food systems summit (United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS)), this changed dramatically. The food sovereignty movement, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and eventually scientists, decided to boycott the summit, instead organizing an alternative Peoples’ Summit, and withdrawing from long-held institutional roles in the FAO. How can this be explained? This article traces the process from the announcement of the UNFSS to its implementation, stressing how institutional trust was damaged by several decisions in the process that undermined the good faith of activists. As we show in detail, the circumvention of established institutional mechanisms, and the feeling of betrayal on the side of the movement, was decisive for losing institutional trust. Importantly, a mixture of substantive and institutional changes in the context of UNFSS not only undermined the movement’s trust into the integrity and ability of the summit organizers, but thereby also provoked movement efforts to delegitimize UN food governance at large.

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“…IOs are dependent on the legitimacy beliefs of specific audiences rather than the overall population (Bexell et al, 2020). IOs address relevant audiences to gain their trust.…”

Section: Legitimacy and Trust In Iosmentioning

confidence: 99%

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

Anderl,

Hißen

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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“…We therefore analyze multiple, but not all, possible consequences of legitimacy in global governance. Beyond the abovementioned aspects of rule compliance and problem-solving effectiveness, our omissions include, for example, the strategic responses of IOs to challenges to their legitimacy (e.g., Ecker-Ehrhardt, 2018a; Bexell and Jo ¨nsson, 2018;Bexell et al, 2021). Re-legitimation efforts in public communication might be important tools for IOs to manage legitimacy crises, but we do not explicitly cover them.…”

Section: Dependent Variable: An Io's Capacity To Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

Global Legitimacy Crises

Sommerer

Agné

Zelli

et al. 2022

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This book addresses the consequences of legitimacy in global governance, in particular asking: when and how do legitimacy crises affect international organizations (IOs) and their capacity to rule. The book starts with a new conceptualization of legitimacy crisis that looks at public challenges from a variety of actors. Based on this conceptualization, it applies a mixed-methods approach to identify and examine legitimacy crises, starting with a quantitative analysis of mass media data on challenges of a sample of 32 IOs. It shows that some, but not all organizations have experienced legitimacy crises, spread over several decades from 1985 to 2020. Following this, the book presents a qualitative study to further examine legitimacy crises of two selected case studies: the WTO and the UNFCCC. Whereas earlier research assumed that legitimacy crises have negative consequences, the book introduces a theoretical framework that privileges the activation inherent in a legitimacy crisis. It holds that this activation may not only harm an IO, but could also strengthen it, in terms of its material, institutional, and decision-making capacity. The following statistical analysis shows that whether a crisis has predominantly negative or positive effects depends on a variety of factors. These include the specific audience whose challenges define a certain crisis, and several institutional properties of the targeted organization. The ensuing in-depth analysis of the WTO and the UNFCCC further reveals how legitimacy crises and both positive and negative consequences are interlinked, and that effects of crises are sometimes even visible beyond the organizational borders.

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“…Delegitimation and legitimation practices are "charged with power" (Bexell et al, 2020, p. 7; see also Tussie, 2018), as they aim to undermine or justify existing power and authority relations (Bernstein, 2011(Bernstein, , 2018Bexell et al, 2020;Clark, 2005, p. 254). Further, as delegitimation and legitimation are socially embedded and relational, they shape each other (Bäckstrand and Söderbaum, 2018, p. 102).…”

Section: Moving On In the Process: (De-)legitimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to the relational character of legitimacy, it involves a relationship between an organization and its audiences (Suchman, 1995, p. 594; see also Bexell and Jönsson, 2018, p. 122). Legitimation scholars have widely discussed different terms and aspects of this legitimation audience (see, for example, Bexell et al, 2020;Halliday et al, 2010;Tallberg and Zürn, 2019;Tallberg et al, 2018). In general, legitimation audiences can be defined as:…”

Section: Legitimation and The Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bäckstrand and Söderbaum, 2018, p. 106; see also Scholte, 2011;Tallberg et al, 2018;Zaum, 2013). Institutional self-legitimation attempts to foster the audience's perceptions of its own legitimacy, internally or externally (Bexell et al, 2020;Gronau, 2016;Gronau and Schmidtke, 2016;Steffek, 2003). These "may be conducted by a multitude of units, sections and individuals working at the institution's interface with outside actors" (Bexell et al, 2020, p. 21).…”

Section: Practices Of Delegitimation and Legitimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contestation-legitimation processes in global climate governance

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Whose legitimacy beliefs count? Targeted audiences in global governance legitimation processes

Abstract: This is a repository copy of Whose legitimacy beliefs count? Targeted audiences in global governance legitimation processes.

Cited by 18 publications

References 58 publications

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

Global Legitimacy Crises

Contestation-legitimation processes in global climate governance

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