The legitimacy of regional and international organizations is increasingly under attack due to issues such as climate change and rising nationalism around the world.
As an organization’s ability to function, and the liberal international order itself, rests on its legitimacy, the issue must be examined more closely.
This webinar draws on the special section in the May 2023 issue of International Affairs to explore the drivers behind strategies used by international organizations to gain legitimacy, and what that could mean for their future.
Experts dive into how an organization maintains legitimacy internally with its own staff, and how both authority and relative power impacts its ability to gain support.
The speakers in this event drew on the following research:
- The origins of legitimation strategies in international organizations: agents, audiences and environments by Tobias Lenz and Fredrik Söderbaum, available open access
- Agents, audiences and peers: why international organizations diversify their legitimation discourse by Tobias Lenz and Henning Schmidtke, available open access
- Organizational narratives and self-legitimation in international organizations by Sarah von Billerbeck, available open access
- Two-sided legitimation strategies: informal groups at the World Trade Organization by Lora Anne Viola
- ASEAN, Chinese and US legitimation strategies over the Indo-Pacific security architecture by Joel Ng
