Description
Legitimacy has become an increasingly widespread term within guidance and policy documents of many International Organisations. Given this increased use of the vague and “experience-distant” social-scientific concept, it matters greatly how it is understood on the ground. In this paper, I turn the question of the legitimacy of International Organisations on its head. Rather than asking what the legitimacy of an IO is or how IOs seek internal or external legitimacy, I ask: how do IO staff themselves understand the concept of legitimacy? I make a twofold argument. First, I argue for the importance of considering the sociological concept of legitimacy as inseparable from normative meaning. Hence, scholars of legitimacy need to go beyond the study of legitimacy as a descriptive concept and ask instead how the ascription of something as legitimate affects social relations. Second, I investigate the understanding of legitimacy within the UN's Department of Peace Operations. Combining a qualitative content analysis to study guidance, policy and training documents published by the department with Ordinary Language Interviews with international civilian DPO staff, I elucidate the meanings the UN DPO staff attributes to the concept of legitimacy.
