Legitimacy is central for the capacity of global governance institutions to address problems such as climate change, trade protectionism, and human rights abuses. However, despite legitimacy's importance for global governance, its workings remain poorly understood. That is the core concern of this volume: to develop an agenda for systematic and comparative research on legitimacy in global governance. In complementary fashion, the chapters address different aspects of the overarching question: whether, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy? The volume makes four specific contributions. First, it argues for a sociological approach to legitimacy, centered on perceptions of legitimate global governance among affected audiences. Second, it moves beyond the traditional focus on states as the principal audience for legitimacy in global governance and considers a full spectrum of actors from governments to citizens. Third, it advocates a comparative approach to the study of legitimacy in global governance, and suggests strategies for comparison across institutions, issue areas, countries, societal groups, and time. Fourth, the volume offers the most comprehensive treatment so far of the sociological legitimacy of global governance, covering three broad analytical themes: (1) sources of legitimacy, (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation, and (3) consequences of legitimacy.

Examining the interplay between the domestic, regional and global aspects of the crisis of legitimacy of global governance, this book theoretically questions and empirically analyses the "crises of legitimacy" in global governance with respect to various mechanisms, actors, and issues. It expertly sheds lights on contemporary legitimacy contestations and crises by analysing conceptual, theoretical and empirical aspects of the legitimacy in global governance. The specific issues and case studies collected in this volume survey the evolving nature of legitimacy and legitimization processes in global governance with historical, and theoretical analysis. Perspectives on specific actors and issues provide vital insights for understanding several commonalities and differences of legitimacy crises faced at various global governance mechanisms. Improving the understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of current global governance bodies by showing several legitimacy contestations and crises at global and regional level, this book will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, globalization, international Political Economy, regionalism, and general global governance studies.

As the international community struggles with major issues such as deforestation, it is increasingly turning to sustainable development and market-based mechanisms to tackle environmental problems. Focusing on forestry, this book investigates the legitimacy of global forums and evaluates the quality of global governance in the current era.

This book offers a major new theory of global governance, explaining both its rise and what many see as its current crisis. The author suggests that world politics is now embedded in a normative and institutional structure dominated by hierarchies and power inequalities and therefore inherently creates contestation, resistance, and distributional struggles. Within an ambitious and systematic new conceptual framework, the theory makes four key contributions. Firstly, it reconstructs global governance as a political system which builds on normative principles and reflexive authorities. Second, it identifies the central legitimation problems of the global governance system with a constitutionalist setting in mind. Third, it explains the rise of state and societal contestation by identifying key endogenous dynamics and probing the causal mechanisms that produced them. Finally, it identifies the conditions under which struggles in the global governance system lead to decline or deepening. Rich with propositions, insights, and evidence, the book promises to be the most important and comprehensive theoretical argument about world politics of the 21st century.

"World Rule is essential reading for scholars, managers, and policy makers interested in the rules that underpin the global economy. Koppell authoritatively and convincingly explains the origins of the dense network of global rules and elucidates their effects on both markets and practices; his theoretical insights into the politics of organizations are profound." Rawi Abdelal, Harvard Business School.

Examining the interplay between the domestic, regional and global aspects of the crisis of legitimacy of global governance, this book theoretically questions and empirically analyses the "crises of legitimacy" in global governance with respect to various mechanisms, actors, and issues. It expertly sheds lights on contemporary legitimacy contestations and crises by analysing conceptual, theoretical and empirical aspects of the legitimacy in global governance. The specific issues and case studies collected in this volume survey the evolving nature of legitimacy and legitimization processes in global governance with historical, and theoretical analysis. Perspectives on specific actors and issues provide vital insights for understanding several commonalities and differences of legitimacy crises faced at various global governance mechanisms. Improving the understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of current global governance bodies by showing several legitimacy contestations and crises at global and regional level, this book will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, globalization, international Political Economy, regionalism, and general global governance studies.