Critical Analysis Of Global Governance And Legitimacy

This critical analysis is on a paper by Robert O. Keohane on Global Governance and Legitimacy. In this paper Keohane proposes six standards or criteria that can be used to make legitimacy judgements on international organizations. As the first criterion he says that organizations should have minimal moral acceptability. Which means that governance institutions should not commit serious injustices, and particularly refrain from human rights violations. The second standard is identified as inclusiveness, which talks about the extent at which people who are willing to participate in the governance process are included in the organization. The next criterion is epistemic equality, which he defines as institutional integrity and transparency within

Keohane then goes on to apply these standards on World Trade Organization and the UN Security Council and makes legitimacy judgements on them. This analysis will not focus on the two specific cases mentioned by Keohane, but on the standards he uses to asses these two organizations.

Though these standards might work in some cases, it is not applicable everywhere. Passing of all the criteria proposed by the author does not make a global governance institution legitimate. An organization with good scores from all the aspects might still be considered as not legitimate depending on the circumstances. The legitimacy of international governance organizations depends on various factors and it will change on a case by case basis.

Legitimacy of international governance organizations are often socially constructed. It is a popular opinion among scholars of international relations that, all aspects of international system are socially constructed. Hence, like various aspects of the international system, legitimacy of a governance organization is dependent on

UN is recognized by even the most autocratic nations in the world. They are able to operate within these countries because they operate within the framework of the existing governance mechanisms in these countries. Instead, if they tried to impose their own ways many of these countries will not recognize UN as legitimate. In addition to this, NATO is also a recognized international organization which is considered as legitimate by a lot of countries. If we apply the standards proposed by Keohane, NATO can be considered as a legitimate organization. For example it passes the comparative benefit test and inclusiveness. So in that sense NATO is legitimate. However, there are countries that challenge that. Countries like Russia and Iran challenges the legitimacy and authority of NATO. Because according to their standards and values NATO might not be legitimate. So, legitimacy of an organization cannot be determined based solely on fixed set of standards. For that to happen the world need to have a homogenous