Explaining the Consequences of Legitimacy Crises in Multilateral Governance

Abstract

Abstract This chapter presents a theoretical framework to explain the effects of legitimacy crises of international organizations (IOs). It posits that legitimacy crises imply the activation of specific audiences of an IO and that this activation entails behaviors by these and other audiences that will eventually have various consequences, either supportive or detrimental to the IO experiencing a crisis. This activation primarily depends on the type of protesting audience (for example, governments or civil society actors, formal members or nonmembers of the organization) but also on some features of the IO that is targeted by the protests, such as its formal power and the domestic regimes of its members. This chapter argues that these arguments for expecting either positive or negative effects of legitimacy crises apply to different dimensions of an IO’s capacity to rule: the quantity of resources, the volume of decisions, and the range of authority held by the organizations. Significantly, this chapter shows that the consequences of legitimacy crises will not only materialize in measurable properties of the IO itself, but also through the establishment, support, or obstruction of other institutions that operate in the same global governance field.