The social legitimacy of international organisations: Interest representation, institutional performance, and confidence extrapolation in the United Nations

Social legitimacy is central to the effectiveness of international organisations (IOs). Yet, so far, we have little systematic knowledge about what drives citizens to support or oppose IOs. In this article, we isolate and assess three alternative explanations of social legitimacy in global governanc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReview of international studies Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 451 - 475
Main Authors DELLMUTH, LISA MARIA, TALLBERG, JONAS
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2015
Subjects
Citizens
Cultural Values
Decision making
Effectiveness
Europe
global governance
Governance
Hypotheses
International cooperation
International organizations
International relations
Legitimacy
Political Science
Political systems
Public opinion
Representation
Sociology
statsvetenskap
support
Trust
United Nations
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Summary:Social legitimacy is central to the effectiveness of international organisations (IOs). Yet, so far, we have little systematic knowledge about what drives citizens to support or oppose IOs. In this article, we isolate and assess three alternative explanations of social legitimacy in global governance, privileging interest representation, institutional performance, and confidence extrapolation. We test these theories in a multilevel analysis of citizen confidence in the United Nations (UN) using World Values Survey and European Values Study data, supplemented by contextual measures. The results grant support to the arguments that institutional performance and confidence extrapolation shape popular confidence in the UN, while offering little support for the explanation of interest representation. These findings challenge the predominant understanding that more democratic procedures lead to greater social legitimacy for IOs. Instead, the UN case suggests that the social legitimacy of IOs is based primarily on the organisations' capacity to deliver, as well as on citizens' general confidence in political institutions, which IOs may have little to do with and can do little to change.
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ISSN:0260-2105
1469-9044
1469-9044
DOI:10.1017/S0260210514000230