Contested Governors: New survey evidence on International Organizations’ social legitimacy and mechanisms of (de)legitimation

Abstract

In an era of widespread backlash against the liberal international order, we have seen renewed interest in the formation of attitudes towards international organizations (IOs), including public belief in the legitimacy of IOs as eminent global governors. Collecting recent contributions to this thriving area of research, this panel seeks to shed new light on why some support IOs more than others and why such support tends to vary across the organizational field. Its productive combination of papers promises significant advances in our understanding of social legitimacy and mechanisms of (de)legitimation across a variety of organizations (e.g. United Nations, World Bank, European Union, ICANN) and their legitimating constituencies. Theoretically, the papers develop a rich set of explanations, ranging from institutional qualities of organizations (promoted goals, procedural inclusiveness, effectiveness etc.) to the impact of specific practices of (de)legitimation from the outside (political protest) and within (IO public communication). Methodologically, three papers focus on citizens as increasingly “unruly” constituents of IOs, while two papers broaden the picture by providing evidence for how IO staff members and nonstate participants in multistakeholder bodies understand issues of legitimacy from within the respective organization. Particularly noteworthy, the panel gathers scholars with a shared interest in employing advanced techniques of survey research, including observational and experimental designs. In this vein, it will also provide a much-needed opportunity to jointly reflect on the many challenges of survey-based research at the intersection of IO Studies, International Relations, and International Political Sociology.

Title	Details
The Missing Link: How Political Values Matter for Global Legitimacy Beliefs	View Paper Details
The Effects of Self-Legitimation and Delegitimation on Public Attitudes Toward International Organizations: A Worldwide Survey Experiment	View Paper Details
Why Do States Comply With International Institutions? Insights From a Survey Experiment	View Paper Details
Complex Language and Attitudes Towards the European Union: Communicating European Commission Infringement Proceedings	View Paper Details
Institutional Sources of Legitimacy in Multistakeholder Global Governance at ICANN	View Paper Details