Contested Legitimacy - What role for IOs in fragile states?

Abstract

Fragile/failing/failed states suggest the need for global (security) management, but existing international institutions were designed to co-ordinate a system of nation states in which each state was supposed to be sovereign over its own domestic (security) affairs. There is thus an inherent disjuncture between the rising awareness of fragile states and fragile security along with the acceptance of the responsibility to protect (e.g. the human security paradigm, etc.) and international institutions, establishing the potential for a transformation of global governance. The legitimacy of international organizations has never been undisputed, but with the end of the Cold War, some argued that it seemed for a while that international organizations really had assumed the task they had been constructed for. With regard to large-scale military interventions under the UN flag (Gulf War in 1991) along with multidimensional peace-operations and UN-sanctions-episodes some say that a new era seemed to have started in which international organizations would play a much more prominent role than before. Some might exaggerate the point when emphasizing that a few years later, all this has become much more dubious. But nevertheless, the United Nations have been bypassed by NATO or the US, which intervened in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan without the initial blessing of the United Nations. In some cases like e.g. the genocide in Rwanda the international state community did not react at all. Obviously, the legitimacy of international organizations is something that is much more volatile than one might think. Simplified the source for legitimacy can be e.g. justice, broadly shared morality, correct procedure, fair representation, effectiveness. It is possible to be legitimate according to one of these criteria, but illegitimate according to another. One can easily come to the conclusion that for IOs, the situation is complicated and complex as they have a multilevel audience. They are created by governments, so their legitimacy depends to a large extend on how they perform in the eyes of those governments. But at the same time, different groups in the public at large also have an opinion about the legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations and their policies which, in the long run, will have an impact on government perceptions and actions. The panel will address questions deriving from different perspectives in regard to what role IOs might legitimately play towards fragile states and what kind of sources might effectively enhance, sustain or stabilize existing legitimacy.

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