Self-Legitimation by International Organizations

最近在伊拉克、叙利亚和乌克兰发生的危机，以及欧洲目前的难民危机，都凸显了各国政府在与国际组织合作时所遇到的困难。政府和其他政策制定者通常认为IOs效率低下且过于官僚，因此只会有选择地和表面地与它们合作（Malloch-Brown 2015, Gowan 2008）。然而，这些互动在一定程度上是无效的，因为人们误解了国际组织所面临的相互冲突的义务，他们如何做出决定，以及他们如何在国际体系中获得和维持合法性（Barnett and Finnemore 2004, Zaum 2013, Allison & Zelikow 1999, Hanrieder 2010, Rittberger, Zangl, & Kruck 2012）。事实上，在整个社会科学中，合法性越来越被认为是一种追求和工具，不仅是一种静态属性，而且是行为者出于战略原因寻求和利用的资源。特别是在国际关系中，对行为者如何产生、维持和使用合法性的兴趣随着超越或反对国家的权威的兴起而增长，在非国家行为者、跨国运动和国际组织中。然而，迄今为止，大多数对国际关系中合法性和正当性的分析都集中在另一个行动者对合法性的看法上（Coleman 2007, Hurd 1999）。在这样做的过程中，他们没有考虑到自我合法化，在这种情况下，演员进行的合法化实践不是为了外部观众，而是为了内部，作为一种发展和加强其身份的方式（Barker 2001）。此外，许多对合法性的理解忽视了这样一个事实，即身份很少是统一的，而是多重的和相互冲突的，因此合法性不能被视为二元特征，而必须被视为可变的、不一致的和有争议的。本项目通过检查国际组织的自我合法化来解决这两个疏漏，并特别关注自我合法化如何影响具有多个可能冲突的机构身份的组织的国际组织行为。事实上，许多国际组织既是积极参与战斗、维持和平、发展以及全球政治和经济进程的行动行为体，又是制定和促进国际规范的规范行为体。这些不同的身份有时决定了相互矛盾的目标和做法，迫使机构违反被认为适合其身份之一的原则和活动，从而使合法化复杂化。因此，IO自我合法化通常需要使用话语和象征性行为以某种方式传达或“包装”行为，以确认连贯的制度认同。然而，这意味着IOs经常“说一套做另一套”，这些矛盾的话语和操作实践对内部和外部的合法性认知产生了负面影响。该项目将对三个国际组织（联合国、世界银行和北约）的自我合法化做法进行比较分析。它将作出双重贡献，一是理论贡献，一是实践贡献。首先，它将补充现有的国际组织行为和国际关系合法性理论，这些理论主要关注国际组织合法性的外部评估，而忽视了国际组织的多重身份，有时甚至是相互矛盾的身份。其次，它将使决策者更好地理解这些机构如何以及为什么做出某些决定，它们如何与国际体系中的其他行为体互动，以及它们如何在国际事务中成为有效的行为体。虽然他们所面临的矛盾不太可能被消除，但更深入地了解这些矛盾行为存在的原因以及IOs如何克服它们，将有助于更有建设性和更有效的合作，避免最近困扰IOs互动的不一致。

Recent crises in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, as well as the current refugee crisis in Europe have highlighted the difficulties national governments have in working collaboratively with international organizations (IOs). Governments and other policymakers often view IOs as inefficient and overly bureaucratic, and therefore engage with them only selectively and superficially (Malloch-Brown 2015, Gowan 2008). However, these interactions are partly unproductive because of a misunderstanding of the conflicting obligations IOs face, how they take decisions, and how they gain and maintain legitimacy in the international system (Barnett and Finnemore 2004, Zaum 2013, Allison & Zelikow 1999, Hanrieder 2010, Rittberger, Zangl, & Kruck 2012).Indeed, across the social sciences, legitimacy is increasingly conceived of as sought-after and instrumental, as not only a static attribute but also a resource that actors seek and draw upon for strategic reasons. Within International Relations specifically, interest in how actors generate, maintain, and use legitimacy has grown in tandem with the rise of authority that exists beyond or in opposition to the state, among non-state actors, transnational movements, and IOs. However, to date most analyses of legitimacy and legitimation in International Relations focus on perceptions of the legitimacy of one actor by another (Coleman 2007, Hurd 1999). In so doing, they fail to account for self-legitimation, where an actor undertakes practices of legitimation not for external audiences, but internally, as a way of developing and reinforcing its identity (Barker 2001). Moreover, many understandings of legitimacy neglect the fact that identities are rarely uniform and instead are multiple and conflicting, and thus that legitimacy cannot be treated as a binary characteristic, but must instead be conceived of as variable, inconsistent, and contested.This project addresses these two omissions by examining self-legitimation by IOs, and looking in particular at how self-legitimation affects IO behaviour for organizations with multiple institutional identities that may conflict. Indeed, many IOs are at once operational actors that participate actively in combat, peacekeeping, development, and global political and economic processes and normative actors that develop and promote international norms. These different identities sometimes dictate contradictory goals and practices, forcing the institutions to violate the principles and activities considered appropriate to one of their identities, thus complicating legitimation. Accordingly, IO self-legitimation often entails the use of discourse and symbolic acts to convey or 'package' actions a certain way in a bid to affirm a coherent institutional identity. However, this implies that IOs often 'say one thing and do another,' and these contradictory discursive and operational practices have negative implications for perceptions of legitimacy, both internal and external.The project will undertake a comparative analysis of the self-legitimation practices of three IOs-the UN, the World Bank, and NATO. It will make a two-fold contribution, one theoretical and one practical. First, it will add to existing theories of IO behaviour and of legitimacy in International Relations, which focus primarily on external assessments of IO legitimacy and neglect the multiple and at times contradictory identities of IOs. Second, it will lead to a greater understanding among policymakers of how and why such bodies take certain decisions, how they interact with other actors in the international system, and how they can be effective actors in international affairs. While it is unlikely that the contradictions they face can be eliminated, a greater understanding of why these contradictory behaviours exist and how IOs seek to overcome them will enable more constructive and efficient cooperation, avoiding the inconsistency that has plagued recent interaction with IOs.