June 2 10.00 AM - 11.30 AM
Score, Frescativägen 14A
Jonas Tallberg, Professor of Political Science, Stockholm University
Jonas Tallberg
Legitimacy in Global Governance
Today’s more global world requires substantial global governance. Consider climate change, Internet communications, epidemics, financial markets, cultural heritage, military security, trade flows, and human rights. All indicate the significant global quality of key contemporary societal problems. To make global governance operate effectively demands legitimacy: that is, the consent of those who are governed. Without legitimacy, an authority has to depend on coercion, secrecy and trickery – and policies are often less effective as a result. When citizens lack faith in global governance, it becomes more difficult to gain governments’ support for ambitious policy goals, to secure national ratification of negotiated agreements, and to achieve effective compliance with rules and norms. Thus a lack of legitimacy means insufficient and ineffective global governance for today’s global challenges. The purpose of the research program “Legitimacy in Global Governance” (LegGov), funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for the period 2016-2021, is to offer the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of legitimacy in global governance. To what extent are global governance institutions (GGIs) regarded as legitimate? What explains that legitimacy? By what processes are GGIs legitimated and delegitimated? What are the consequences of legitimacy (or its absence) for the functioning of GGIs? How are these legitimacy dynamics in global governance similar to or different from the dynamics of legitimacy in the nation-state and other forms of governance?
