Study On The Legitimacy Of Intergovernmental Organizations

Legitimacy refers to a trend of support or identification manifested by social members to the political system that they belong to, which is formed on the basis of their specific judgement of values, under a certain social and historic background. The legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations primarily means that members of this organization and the international community recognize and support its institution arrangement, structure and the relevant behaviors taken by this organization.The legitimacy of an intergovernmental organization can be investigated fromthree aspects——its "demand in benefits", "pursuit of values"and "requirement onrules". Demand in benefits refers to the "governance performance" or "validity" while the international organization supplies "international public articles"; Pursuit of values refers to the acceptance rates on the purposes, ideology and other values criterion of this international organization; Requirement on rules means whether the functions and rights, the charter and agreements, the organizational structure and the operational procedures are scientific and rational. These three factors are just one interrelated and integrated entity, which constitute the basis of the legitimacy of international organizations.It may take international organizations a process to obtain legitimacy. This process is defined as legitimation. The intergovernmental organizations also need to make efforts in aspects of "demand in benefits", "pursuit of values" and "requirement on rules" to realize its legitimation. An intergovernmental organization tries to enhance its ability of supplying international public articles, to coordinate its internal ideology and pursuit of values, and to make its operational rules more scientific, more normative and more effective. Of course, the realization of these goals mainly depends on the democratization degree of this international organization.If the legitimation of an intergovernmental organization can not proceed smoothly, and its legitimacy can not been consolidated, there will be problems of legitimacy, and even crisis of legitimacy when the conditions go worse. The crisis of legitimacy may affect the existence and development of international organizations. Those factors which may weaken the basis of legitimacy will probably lead to problems of legitimacy. Nowadays, there is a close relationship between glabalization and the legitimacy of international organizations, while the international democratization has some special meaning to the legitimacy of international organizations.