Description
Legitimacy/legitimation and partnerships are two topics increasingly studied in the contemporary international peacekeeping literature, yet there remains a paucity of a robust framework for investigating their overlap. In addressing this problematic gap, my paper proposes a legitimation framework for peacekeeping partnerships that highlights the following aspects. First, the plurality of agents in peacekeeping partnerships leads to diversified legitimation practices where the agents seek to legitimise themselves (self-legitimation), each other (mutual legitimation), the partnership itself (joint legitimation), while often contesting each other’s legitimacy (de-legitimation). Second, legitimation in a peacekeeping partnership is relational as its agents practice legitimation vis-à-vis each other, often in comparative terms. Third, legitimation practices in partnership contexts are more nuanced than those in a single-agent context, involving a strategic navigation between cooperation and competition. Lastly, legitimation in peacekeeping partnerships involves some additional legitimacy sources (e.g. partnership as a rightful procedure) and audiences (e.g. partnering agents). Overall, my framework sees peacekeeping partnerships as a complex political theatre constitutive of multifaceted and nuanced legitimation practices. In doing so, I emphasise that understanding complex practices is key to expanding our knowledge of how both legitimation and peacekeeping partnerships work. The paper applies the framework to an analysis of the African Union (AU) – United Nations (UN) peacekeeping partnership, demonstrating its contribution and transferability into future research.
