Call for Papers: Legitimation & Delegitimation of Global Governance Orgs

Of interest:

The Changing Norms of Global Governance research group at the Institute of Intercultural and International Studies of the University of Bremen has issued a call for papers for a conference on "The Legitimation and Delegitimation of Global Governance Organizations," to take place September 11-13, 2013.

We are particularly interested in papers that address the following issues:

Legitimation norms: Which norms and values (e.g. legality, justice, democracy, peace, growth) do various actors refer to in order to legitimize the identities and/or activities of global governance organizations? How does the content of such norms and values vary over time, across (types of) global governance organizations and across world regions? How do changes in the international system (e.g. rising powers) affect the set of norms and values against which global governance organizations are conventionally evaluated? And how is the contestation between different norms and values played out?

The structure of legitimation discourse: Where does (de-)legitimation take place? How are legitimation discourses structured? Whose contributions count and on what terms?  How do organization-specific discourses relate to each other? How are they connected to the broader social discourses in which they are embedded? And to what extent do the worldwide expansion of education (referred to by some as a ‘skill revolution’), the revolution in communication technologies and the mediation/mediatization of societies alter the nature, content and processes of legitimacy communication as well as the conditions under which legitimation discourses take place? 

Drivers and effects of (de-)legitimation: When and how do efforts at legitimizing global governance organizations succeed? Under which conditions can legitimacy claims be successfully challenged from the inside (e.g. diplomats, recalcitrant bureaucrats or NGO observers) or the outside (e.g. social movements, the business community or states that are not members of an international organizations)? With which repertoires and resources? And what are the major short-term and long-term effects of successful (de-)legitimation efforts for an international organization? 

Institutionalization of legitimacy management: How do global governance organizations internally organize and institutionalize their legitimacy management and how has this changed over time? How are particular legitimation strategies developed internally? How has the emergence and spread of social media changed the ways in which international organizations (seek to) manage their legitimacies? 

Opening up as a legitimation strategy: When and why do global governance organizations pick the specific legitimation strategy of opening up, i.e. increasing their transparency towards the public and opening their governance processes to non-state actors? How are organizations in different policy fields opening up? How is opening up presented as a legitimacy building measure to the organizations’ audiences? What are the micro-processes of opening up? How do changes in transparency and access interact with each other? Which actors are marginalized, which favoured through increasing participation and transparency?

Many or perhaps all of these questions have been on the minds of many international tax scholars, particularly those who view the OECD as central to any analysis of international tax law issues, or who are thinking about alternatives for cross-border cooperation and collaboration, such as through the G-20 or the UN.

h/t Intl Law Reporter