Practices of (De)legitimation in Global Governance

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of patterns of discursive, behavioral, and institutional (de)legitimation practices across policy fields and types of global governance institutions (GGIs). Focusing on a sample of nine GGIs and drawing on three datasets (annual reports, Twitter, and elite survey), the chapter demonstrates how different types of data can be used to capture institutional, discursive, and behavioral (de)legitimation practices, respectively. The chapter finds a higher intensity of (de)legitimation practices related to intergovernmental GGIs as compared to the nongovernmental and hybrid GGIs in the sample, but the types of (de)legitimation practices are similar across governmental and nongovernmental/hybrid GGIs. The regional organizations in the sample—the EU and ASEAN—do not display markedly different patterns of (de)legitimation practices as compared to the global GGIs. Instead, the chapter finds significant differences between these two regional GGIs, which can be attributed to their different positions in global power relations. Regarding policy field, the chapter finds that economic GGIs, as compared to GGIs in other policy fields, tend to more frequently use and be targeted by a diversity of (de)legitimation practices.