The UN experiment has endured for more than half a century despite perennial charges of corruption and inefficiency, and amidst tectonic shifts in geopolitical and economic power. The last two decades have been particularly tumultuous: a bipolar world gave way to unipolar American hegemony, followed by the aggressive rise of emerging market economies (EMEs); Overstretched mandates in the 1990s and sexual abuse scandals in the 2000s rocked the peacekeeping edifice; Tyrants chaired UN human rights bodies; and Oil-for-Food graft surfaced before a riveted global audience.
Paradoxically, UN influence continues to grow: demand for humanitarian and peacekeeping missions is at an all-time high; the International Monetary Fund (IMF) played an integral role in stabilizing the global financial crisis, and now its European counterpart; the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has proved crucial to civil nuclear and non-proliferation efforts, not to mention Japan’s response to the Fukushima crisis; and the reputedly anachronistic Security Council (UNSC) has continued to pass binding resolutions on some of the world’s most polarizing issues, including anti-terrorism (UNSC 1373); non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (UNSC 1540), and Responsibility to Protect (UNSC 1674).
Intrigued by the UN’s resilience in the face of so many delegitimating forces -- and how the “language of legitimacy” seems to pervade UN debates -- Drs. Jean-Marc Coicaud and Ian Hurd launched The UN Legitimacy Series. Consisting of four panel discussions -- The Legitimacy Challenge; UN Legitimacy vis-à-vis Civil Society; Peace Operations; and the Security Council -- of practitioners and academics at UN headquarters in New York, the series deconstructs the concept of legitimacy in the UN context.
PANEL: Jean-Marc Coicaud, Director of UNU in New York and former speechwriter for Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Ian Hurd, Professor of international relations at Northwestern university and visiting fellow at the Niehaus Center on Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University; and Tom Tyler, Professor and Chair of the psychology department at New York university.
PROFESSOR HURD has for years observed the “language of legitimacy” in debates on UN performance, most of which simply equate legitimacy with “what is good.” To move beyond such an oversimplification, he offers an alternative approach to the concept: first, legitimacy can be viewed as inseparable from the power of an organization. In other words, people’s belief in the legitimacy of an organization is a source of power, especially a political organization like the UN which relies on persuasion -- rather than market-based incentives or military-based coercion -- to exercise influence. This belief-based power can be thought of as an endowment that can be drawn on, invested in, wasted, or lost.
If an organization’s power can lie in its followers’ beliefs, Professor Hurd explains, then legitimacy is subjective. And if legitimacy is subjective, it is necessarily multiple and contested because not everyone will hold the same views toward an organization or its constituent parts. He concludes, then, that an organization’s legitimacy is a source of power fueled by multiple, contested, subjective beliefs, which can grow or diminish through investment or neglect.
MR. COICAUD, the practitioner of the day, pointed out the importance of exploring UN legitimacy. First, since the UN lacks material power and leverage of leading states, it must rely on other forms of power, namely legitimacy. Second, since international order is continually changing, UN legitimacy is continually challenged, which, in turn, destabilizes world order. One of the most prominent examples of the latter is the rise of EMEs, whose growing influence is offsetting the historically western-centric balance of power.
De-westernization of the global order, he argues, is fostering new institutional arrangements which threaten UN legitimacy, and cannot be ignored. The G20 and the BRICS (an economic alliance of five EMEs: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), for example, are in many ways better suited to the interests of emerging powers, and may present a more appealing means by which to pursue those interests.
PROFESSOR TOM TYLER, the panel’s guest academic, focused on the traditional understanding of legitimacy before detailing recent research on the concept. The traditional model of legitimacy in international relations, he explains, gives deference to coercive power or the means to provide rewards, dole out punishments, or otherwise compel others to do one’s bidding. Thucydides’ words, “the strong do as they will, the weak endure as the must,” exemplify this realpolitik view.
While effective in some respects, he notes, governing through coercive power alone has its limitations. If governance relies on compliance of laws, for example, tremendous amounts of resources are required to create and deploy effective means of surveillance, capture, punishment, and enforcement in general.
In contrast to the traditional view, according to Professor Tyler, recent studies have found that legitimacy-based power is a more effective means of exacting compliance. People comply more readily to rules on the basis of whether they come from fair authorities than by perceived risk of being caught or punished or losing resources for not complying. In other words, if people think an authority is legitimate or fair, they are more likely to obey it.
But what constitutes a legitimate authority? According to Tyler, many studies suggest the the degree of procedural justice (fairness) present in the creation of the authority is a primary factor in its legitimacy. If an official is elected or an institution created in an inclusive, transparent election, subsequent policies and decisions are more likely to be considered legitimate, despite the fact people may disagree with them.
Legitimacy and the UN
The panel’s insights are important to the UN for several reasons. As Mr. Coicaud pointed out, the global geopolitical and economic landscape is undergoing fundamental changes, in response to which more nimble institutions are arising. While not an immediate threat to the UN, alternative institutions such as the G20 and the BRICS will likely continue to amass the social power (legitimacy) illustrated by Professor Hurd in their respective spheres of influence.
According to Professor Tyler, building and maintaining legitimacy comes from creating authorities in fair ways. Not only is this model of governance shown to be highly effective in exacting compliance, it costs less in social resources. That is encouraging to institutions like the UN, he notes, because everyone can create fair procedures; few, by contrast, can accumulate colossal budgets and massive armies.
Next week: Part II of the legitimacy series will explore UN legitimacy vis-à-vis civil society.
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The UN Legitimacy Series, Part I: The Legitimacy Challenge
June 27, 2011
The UN experiment has endured for more than half a century despite perennial charges of corruption and inefficiency, and amidst tectonic shifts in geopolitical and economic power. The last two decades have been particularly tumultuous: a bipolar world gave way to unipolar American hegemony, followed by the aggressive rise of emerging market economies (EMEs); Overstretched mandates in the 1990s and sexual abuse scandals in the 2000s rocked the peacekeeping edifice; Tyrants chaired UN human rights bodies; and Oil-for-Food graft surfaced before a riveted global audience.
Paradoxically, UN influence continues to grow: demand for humanitarian and peacekeeping missions is at an all-time high; the International Monetary Fund (IMF) played an integral role in stabilizing the global financial crisis, and now its European counterpart; the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has proved crucial to civil nuclear and non-proliferation efforts, not to mention Japan’s response to the Fukushima crisis; and the reputedly anachronistic Security Council (UNSC) has continued to pass binding resolutions on some of the world’s most polarizing issues, including anti-terrorism (UNSC 1373); non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (UNSC 1540), and Responsibility to Protect (UNSC 1674).
Intrigued by the UN’s resilience in the face of so many delegitimating forces -- and how the “language of legitimacy” seems to pervade UN debates -- Drs. Jean-Marc Coicaud and Ian Hurd launched The UN Legitimacy Series. Consisting of four panel discussions -- The Legitimacy Challenge; UN Legitimacy vis-à-vis Civil Society; Peace Operations; and the Security Council -- of practitioners and academics at UN headquarters in New York, the series deconstructs the concept of legitimacy in the UN context.
PANEL: Jean-Marc Coicaud, Director of UNU in New York and former speechwriter for Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Ian Hurd, Professor of international relations at Northwestern university and visiting fellow at the Niehaus Center on Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University; and Tom Tyler, Professor and Chair of the psychology department at New York university.
PROFESSOR HURD has for years observed the “language of legitimacy” in debates on UN performance, most of which simply equate legitimacy with “what is good.” To move beyond such an oversimplification, he offers an alternative approach to the concept: first, legitimacy can be viewed as inseparable from the power of an organization. In other words, people’s belief in the legitimacy of an organization is a source of power, especially a political organization like the UN which relies on persuasion -- rather than market-based incentives or military-based coercion -- to exercise influence. This belief-based power can be thought of as an endowment that can be drawn on, invested in, wasted, or lost.
If an organization’s power can lie in its followers’ beliefs, Professor Hurd explains, then legitimacy is subjective. And if legitimacy is subjective, it is necessarily multiple and contested because not everyone will hold the same views toward an organization or its constituent parts. He concludes, then, that an organization’s legitimacy is a source of power fueled by multiple, contested, subjective beliefs, which can grow or diminish through investment or neglect.
MR. COICAUD, the practitioner of the day, pointed out the importance of exploring UN legitimacy. First, since the UN lacks material power and leverage of leading states, it must rely on other forms of power, namely legitimacy. Second, since international order is continually changing, UN legitimacy is continually challenged, which, in turn, destabilizes world order. One of the most prominent examples of the latter is the rise of EMEs, whose growing influence is offsetting the historically western-centric balance of power.
De-westernization of the global order, he argues, is fostering new institutional arrangements which threaten UN legitimacy, and cannot be ignored. The G20 and the BRICS (an economic alliance of five EMEs: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), for example, are in many ways better suited to the interests of emerging powers, and may present a more appealing means by which to pursue those interests.
PROFESSOR TOM TYLER, the panel’s guest academic, focused on the traditional understanding of legitimacy before detailing recent research on the concept. The traditional model of legitimacy in international relations, he explains, gives deference to coercive power or the means to provide rewards, dole out punishments, or otherwise compel others to do one’s bidding. Thucydides’ words, “the strong do as they will, the weak endure as the must,” exemplify this realpolitik view.
While effective in some respects, he notes, governing through coercive power alone has its limitations. If governance relies on compliance of laws, for example, tremendous amounts of resources are required to create and deploy effective means of surveillance, capture, punishment, and enforcement in general.
In contrast to the traditional view, according to Professor Tyler, recent studies have found that legitimacy-based power is a more effective means of exacting compliance. People comply more readily to rules on the basis of whether they come from fair authorities than by perceived risk of being caught or punished or losing resources for not complying. In other words, if people think an authority is legitimate or fair, they are more likely to obey it.
But what constitutes a legitimate authority? According to Tyler, many studies suggest the the degree of procedural justice (fairness) present in the creation of the authority is a primary factor in its legitimacy. If an official is elected or an institution created in an inclusive, transparent election, subsequent policies and decisions are more likely to be considered legitimate, despite the fact people may disagree with them.
Legitimacy and the UN
The panel’s insights are important to the UN for several reasons. As Mr. Coicaud pointed out, the global geopolitical and economic landscape is undergoing fundamental changes, in response to which more nimble institutions are arising. While not an immediate threat to the UN, alternative institutions such as the G20 and the BRICS will likely continue to amass the social power (legitimacy) illustrated by Professor Hurd in their respective spheres of influence.
According to Professor Tyler, building and maintaining legitimacy comes from creating authorities in fair ways. Not only is this model of governance shown to be highly effective in exacting compliance, it costs less in social resources. That is encouraging to institutions like the UN, he notes, because everyone can create fair procedures; few, by contrast, can accumulate colossal budgets and massive armies.
Next week: Part II of the legitimacy series will explore UN legitimacy vis-à-vis civil society.
