The Elusive Basis of Legitimacy in Global Governance: Three Conceptions

Abstract

The Elusive Basis of Legitimacy in Global Governance: Three Conceptions How to create and maintain legitimacy is arguably the greatest contemporary challenge to global governance and international order. To address this challenge, International Relations scholars, accustomed to a clear distinction between international and domestic legitimacy, have had to borrow extensively from the fields of political philosophy, comparative politics, law, and sociology, which have long investigated the legitimate basis of political authority. These traditions inform three distinct conceptions of legitimacy in this new wave of scholarship: 1) principled legitimacy rooted in democratic politics; 2) legitimacy as law or legalization; and 3) a sociological conception of legitimacy rooted in intersubjective beliefs about appropriateness. Each conception provides only partial insight into the core puzzle animating this literature: what does political authority beyond the state require? The answer can only be found through an examination of the relationship of power, legitimacy, and community, which together constitute political authority. This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 29-September 1, 2001. I thank Benjamin Cashore, Catherine Connors, Erin Hannah, Louis Pauly, Grace Skogstad, Janice Stein, Alexander Wendt, and Linda White for comments and criticisms and Catherine Connors and Erin Hannah for valuable research assistance. I also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.