Search

International organizations increasingly use social media to target citizens with an abundance of content, which tends to stylize officials across ranks as the “personal face” of institutional processes. Such practices suggest a new degree of access to the every day of multilateralism that has traditionally taken place on camera and with the aid of diplomatic discretion. What is more, in these practices the intuitive truth of images on social media often blends with a more credible expression of emotional states—such as enthusiasm, sympathy, anger, or shame—which facilitates the legitimation of international organizations as credible agents of shared values and norms. At the same time, however, such personalization arguably suggests a problematic dependency on the credible conduct of international organization officials as it might undermine institutional claims to depersonalized “rational-legal” authority in international politics and local arenas of implementation alike. Also, it aggravates existing problems of decoupling action in global governance from its political symbolism, because international organizations use social media by and large to communicate “top-down,” despite claiming a more personal mode of communication among peers. To illustrate this argument, the article takes on content shared by leading officials of the UN, the IMF, the WHO, and the WTO on Twitter.

International organizations increasingly use social media to target citizens with an abundance of content, which tends to stylize officials across ranks as the "personal face" of institutional processes. Such practices suggest a new degree of access to the every day of multilateralism that has traditionally taken place on camera and with the aid of diplomatic discretion. What is more, in these practices the intuitive truth of images on social media often blends with a more credible expression of emotional states--such as enthusiasm, sympathy, anger, or shame--which facilitates the legitimation of international organizations as credible agents of shared values and norms. At the same time, however, such personalization arguably suggests a problematic dependency on the credible conduct of international organization officials as it might undermine institutional claims to depersonalized "rational-legal" authority in international politics and local arenas of implementation alike. Also, it aggravates existing problems of decoupling action in global governance from its political symbolism, because international organizations use social media by and large to communicate "top-down," despite claiming a more personal mode of communication among peers. To illustrate this argument, the article takes on content shared by leading officials of the UN, the IMF, the WHO, and the WTO on Twitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature has examined how international organizations (IOs) use narratives for self-legitimation—legitimation aimed not at external audiences but at IO staff themselves. However, little work examines why some self-legitimation narratives 'stick' and others fade away or are challenged by counter-narratives. I address this question by focusing on the content of self-legitimation narratives. First, I describe the lifecycle of self-legitimation narratives in IOs, showing how they can be endorsed, rejected or challenged by legitimacy audiences. Next, I posit a three-part typology of narrative content: purpose, performance and politics. Drawing on 87 interviews with IO staff, I argue that narratives of purpose, which focus on organizational values and norms, are more likely to be endorsed and become dominant, while those that focus on performance or politics are more likely to be rejected or challenged. Where this happens, legitimacy agents must adjust narrative content in line with audience demands. I illustrate this with two case-studies from the United Nations. I conclude with the policy implications of these findings, in particular the importance for IO leaders to align internal messaging with the values and normative expectations of staff or risk staff demotivation and cynicism, ultimately imperiling organizational effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors propose to consider university as a significant cultural topos. The significance of the topos is provided by the narrative integrated in it. It reflects the values and inscribes the university into the current cultural situation. The authors give several historical examples to support their thesis that this narrative is a response to external cultural challenges. The current situation is rife with such challenges, and therefore, the creation of a legitimizing narrative for the university turns out to be quite problematic. The authors study the influence of such factors as massification of education, media communication, social, demographic changes, etc. Examples of modern Russian and foreign universities demonstrate self-legitimization process of the university and show its visual part. The universities represent their own position, history and current values by creating their own visual code. The authors adduce as examples modern universities’ websites with the visual images that are presented on their title pages. Based on this material, the authors draw a conclusion about the main modern strategies of self-legitimation of the university as positioning on the scales: tradition and innovation, loyalty to the government and independence from it, history and community.

How do leaders create legitimacy in international organizations (IOs)? It is widely acknowledged that legitimacy matters to IOs, but little research examines internal self-legitimation—the creation of legitimacy for staff, rather than for external audiences—and who specifically undertakes these self-legitimation activities in IOs. This paper fills these gaps by examining the particular role of leaders in self-legitimation and I develop a theoretical framework that shows (1) how leaders have a unique role to play as legitimators due to their high social status within the IO and their access to discursive resources for legitimation, (2) how leaders create internal legitimacy through the introduction or reintroduction of narratives and the creation of self-referential language, and (3) how leader-led self-legitimation entails three potential risks. I illustrate these points with three case studies, one from the World Bank and two from the United Nations. I conclude by proposing a new research agenda for this underexplored area of IO and legitimacy scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do international organisations (IOs) legitimise their right to rule in times of a Pandemic? Where are their previously made environmental commitments on their agenda during a crisis? What are the differences in self-legitimation, if any, across different types of IOs? These questions have gathered renewed urgency during the ongoing COVID-19 and climate change crises posing a threat to the legitimacy not only of national governments but also of IOs. The paper aims to address these questions through the analysis of environmental commitments made in legal documents of three IOs (the EU, the EAEU, and the AIIB) and through the analysis of their respective social media between 2017 and 2021. Among other issues, we find significant differences in self-legitimation strategies of these three IOs as reflected by their social media and some evidence of mimicry across these IOs that should remain on the agenda for further studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voicing criticism seems to be a difficult task for employees in international organisations (IOs), as numerous anecdotes in the literature suggest. This observation is alarming, since internal criticism is an indispensable resource for organisational learning processes. So why are IOs apparently not using this resource to its full potential? The present article is the first to provide a comprehensive answer to this question by combining insights from organisation theory with an empirical case study of the UN Secretariat. My general argument is that 'criticism from within' is ambivalent. It can be a resource for, but also a threat to IOs: internal criticism can endanger an IO's external reputation as well as destabilise the organisation from within. Based on this theoretical understanding, I identify and empirically examine three specific reasons for the UN Secretariat's weak criticism culture: (1) Criticism is suppressed due to a widespread fear of leaks resulting from external pressures. (2) Criticism is avoided as a strategy of self-protection in the face of (inevitable) failures. (3) Constructive criticism is difficult to express in settings where organisational hypocrisy is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an essayistic perspective, the article presents reflections about the contradictions of the intensification of the journalistic practice self-legitimation rhetoric from the crisis of historical status of truth in the context of dissemination of "fake news". The hypothesis is that the journalistic field response to the phenomenon is based on deontological elements rooted in a review of the concept of "ingenuous realism" (GOMES, 2009), which weakens the self-legitimation argument as well as brings such rhetoric closer to a kind of parallax that projects light on similar structural elements to the own phenomenon of "fake news", eclipsing the complexity of a wider cultural perspective: the social dissemination of narrative models linked to adherent cultural patterns rooted in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which groups do global governance institutions address in their efforts to legitimate themselves? Global governance institutions are increasingly attempting to present themselves as legitimate vis-à-vis both internal and external audiences. Yet, empirical research on these legitimation audiences is still nascent. This article proposes a conceptual framework that highlights the selection of audiences by global governance institutions as a key element of their self-legitimation. Specifically, we argue that our approach addresses three continuing challenges in empirical research on self-legitimation. First, it emphasises how different actors within the institution may pursue multiple, and potentially conflicting, strategies with regard to the legitimation audiences they address. Second, our framework calls attention to what we call intermediary legitimation audiences, that is, audiences targeted with the expectation that they will in turn convince other audiences of the institution's legitimacy. Finally, instead of taking for granted that external critique steers who is targeted by self-legitimation, our approach highlights that an institution's internal assessment of such critique is decisive. We demonstrate the wide applicability of our framework through exploratory studies of three global governance institutions that differ with regard to their membership compositions: the World Health Organization, the International Criminal Court and the Forest Stewardship Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the migration narratives of Southern European parents living in Norway, where family projects emerged as a central theme. Migrant parents told stories not only of disillusionment and sacrifice but also of satisfaction, which they articulated around their aspiration to have a family life after migration. We analysed the informants' storytelling and explored the ways that family aspirations manifested. By articulating their migration experiences through their aspirations to grow their family, the migrant parents claimed a position as subjects in Norwegian discourses on parenting and citizenship and distanced themselves from discourses on labour immigration and immigrant parenting. The article aims to contribute to the scholarship on motivations for post‐2008 intra‐European migration and on narrative legitimation by drawing attention to the way migrants use their family projects as a vehicle for self‐legitimation, for claiming rightful membership to the host society and for justifying this position to themselves and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that much of the discourse observable within the UN constitutes neither unnecessary and unproductive 'talk' nor efforts to convince outside audiences of its legitimacy, but actually a form of institutional self-legitimation that is key to its ability to function. Using the case of the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), I show that because the organisation has a multifaceted organisational identity, it faces situations where it is forced to choose between multiple but equally appropriate courses of action, and it uses self-legitimation alongside other mechanisms to overcome these tensions. I specify three sets of circumstances in which this occurs, showing how DPKO uses discourse that simplifies and exceptionalises in a bid to reconcile or downplay these contradictions and reassert a cohesive and legitimate organisational identity internally. This simplification and exceptionalisation in turn serve an enabling function, allowing DPKO to continue operating in conditions of complexity by decreasing risk aversion and instilling a deep sense of professional loyalty in staff. At the same time, such discursive processes are costly and may entrench inefficient practices, rendering the effects of self-legitimising discourse paradoxical: they may enable action, but they reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of that action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a subject in communication, journalism is part of a course of recognition. In such course, journalism is historically conditioned to articulate a series of strategies to reveal the “competencies” of an institution that seeks to be perceived as more reliable and/or truthful than others, legitimating its authority. Based on this assumption, this article discusses some theoretical and methodological approaches to journalism that takes its devices into account. This is an attempt to pave the way for drawing a historical overview of a course inherent in what we perceive as “truth” of the institution itself, present in its self-legitimating discourses. Como sujeito em comunicação, o jornalismo está inserido em um percurso do reconhecimento. Percurso que o condiciona a articular, historicamente, uma série de estratégias para revelar as “capacidades” de uma instituição que se quer passar como mais confiável e/ou verdadeira do que outras, legitimando assim sua autoridade. Com base neste pressuposto, o presente artigo procura problematizar alguns caminhos teórico-metodológicos para envolver o jornalismo em seus dispositivos. É uma tentativa de abrir pistas para a historicização de um percurso, inerente àquilo que entendemos como a constituição de uma “verdade” da própria instituição, presente em seus discursos de autolegitimação. Como sujeto en comunicación, el periodismo se inserta en un camino de reconocimiento. Camino que lo condiciona a articular, historicamente, una serie de estrategias para revelar las “capacidades” de una institución que quiere se pasar más fiable y/o verdadera que otras, legitimando así su autoridade. Con base en este presuposto, el presente artículo busca problematizar algunos caminos metodológicos para involucrar el periodismo en sus dispositivos. Es un intento de abrir pistas para la historización de un camino inherente a lo que entendemos como el establecimiento de una "verdad" de la institución, presente en sus discursos de auto-legitimación.

This paper illustrates how two Tanzanian presidential candidates deploy discourse for self-legitimation and other-delegitimation purposes. It also examines audiences' understanding of the strategies the candidates used with a view to finding out whether their understanding and the dual function of the strategies converge or diverge. The paper examines four campaign speeches given by former President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Dr Wilbroad Slaa during the 2010 presidential election campaign (two speeches by each candidate). The three questions guiding this paper are- How did the candidates legitimate themselves and delegitimate each other? What is the target audiences' understanding of the function of the strategies used to do so? Does their understanding depart from the function the strategies performed or not? Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CD A) is used to analyse the speeches. In particular, the analysis is done using Theo van Leeuwen's discursive semantic-functional approach. The findings show that the candidates deployed certain discursive strategies for self-legitimation and other-delegitimation purposes, of which some of the participants were aware. The other functions suggested by a fair number of participants are seeking to serve Tanzanians and lying. But it is shown that, if the participants had probed the candidates' language further, they wouldn't have mentioned functions such as seeking to serve. This divergence implies that consumers of campaign speeches need to pay close attention to language to understand what candidates say. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pegada is the property of Pegada and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The absence of a solid international migration regime and related competition between international organisations (IOs) in the field of global migration governance bring challenges to their authority and legitimacy to the fore. This paper sets to explore how the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reacted to such challenges. For this, the paper applies the concept of selflegitimation of IOs. Drawing on insights from International Relations and International Political Economy as well as on 'sociology of translation', the paper argues that the core selflegitimation strategy and practices of IOM rely on knowledge production partnerships with other IOs and relevant local stakeholders. To develop this argument, the paper uses the notions of challenged and challenging institutions, identifies sources of related challenges and the audiences that are important for self-legitimation efforts of IOs. It shows how IOM has become both a challenging and a challenged institution and how its knowledge production partnerships in the post-Soviet Central Asia increase its reputational authority in relations with its local and global audiences. This analysis builds on fieldwork conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in 2011-2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Journalism Research is the property of Sur le journalisme, About journalism, Sobre jornalismo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present study analyzes the discursive strategies of manipulation in the political genre of a discourse in Parliament with an aim to convince the audience that the Prime Minister and his party are innocent of receiving illegal cash donations from a slush fund run in the party. For that purpose, we have used Van Dijk's (2006) scheme of strategies of manipulation at several levels of discourse (content, lexis, topics, syntax, rhetoric, and order of discourse). Findings of the study show that the Prime Minister's speech presents characteristics of ideological discourse, since it follows a general strategy of positive in-group and negative outgroup presentation, which has an overall legitimating function. At other levels of discourse, the denial of controversial actions is made manipulative by following strategies of emphasis of our positive and their negative actions with the final aim of self-legitimating himself and his discourse. The discourse is further made manipulative by using appropriate contextual constraints and defensible semantics of representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article addresses practices of self-legitimation within insurgent social orders, and asks in what ways are legitimacy claimed and how do these claims construct an understanding of self? We discern what such practices are and how they function by examining the insurgent order of the FARC in Colombia. The FARC has through its existence shown persistent abilities to generate support as well as resources for its cause, and allows for consideration of changes and stability in an insurgent social order over time. Our concern is to illustrate empirically how an engagement with practices of self-legitimation enables an understanding of how these practices function to create a coherent understanding of self and its reproduction. The FARC has through such practices successfully contributed to establishing and reinforcing over time a form of symbolic power expressed by the group's revolutionary mysticism. Recent developments in the FARC suggest that the pressure on the FARC is strong, and the question is if the group will be as able to adapt as it previously has. We here outline the practices that have characterized the dynamism of the insurgent order in the past, and suggest that the external pressure may over time infuse a re-description of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]