Legitimacy in Global Governance: Elite Communication, Populist Rhetoric, and (De-)legitimation Practices

Abstract This workshop seeks to bring together researchers interested in elite communication, populist rhetoric, and legitimation and delegitimation or global governance institutions (GGI). We aim to advance the research frontier in populism and legitimacy research by focusing on three research questions: (1) what are the patterns and causes of elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation practices targeting GGIs across actors, GGIs, and over time?; (2) how, when and why do elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation practices affect GGI legitimacy?; and (3) what are the domestic and global consequences of losses or gains in GGI legitimacy? We invite papers that conduct theory-guided empirical research using quantitative and/or qualitative methods. This workshop has been endorsed by the Research Network on Political Communication and the Standing Group on Political Methodology. Outline of Topic Today’s more global world requires global governance that can effectively address important societal challenges such as climate change, Internet communications, disease epidemics, financial markets, human rights, human security, and trade flows. As domestic governments cannot meet global challenges on their own, global governance institutions (GGIs) such as the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and United Nations (UN) addressing such challenges are essential for preserving collective welfare in contemporary society. Yet GGIs have been increasingly publicly debated and contested in recent decades, which may hurt their power and effectiveness (Hurd 1999). While GGIs historically have enjoyed latent popular support (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970), developments since the early 1990s suggest that citizens have become increasingly critical of GGIs (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993; Hooghe and Marks 2009). Elite communication, populist rhetoric, and, more broadly, (de-)legitimation practices may account for this trend in the social legitimacy of GGIs, i.e. the consent of those who are governed by GGIs. In terms of elite communication, state and non-state actors are increasingly engaging in speech acts to justify or contest GGIs (Zaum 2013; Gronau 2016). Domestic oppositional forces have adopted a populist rhetoric, framing GGIs as scapegoats for domestic problems, e.g. by ascribing the financial crisis and its effects to the policies of the EU and the IMF (Vasilopolou et al. 2014; Lubbers and Coenders 2017). More broadly, (de-)legitimation practices include actions (e.g. campaigns, protests, and withdrawing memberships in GGIs), discursive strategies, policies, and rituals adopted by state and non-state actors (O’Brien et al. 2000; Della Porta and Tarrow 2005) or GGIs themselves (Morse and Keohane 2014; Bäckstrand and Söderbaum 2018) to support or challenge GGIs. In the words of Rittberger and Schroeder (2016: 586): ‘Legitimacy can thus be gained, maintained, or lost as a result of social and political processes’. Legitimacy losses may undermine the power and effectiveness of GGIs, as numerous contemporary examples suggest (e.g. Hurd 1999; 2007; Steffek 2004; Dai 2005; Tomz 2007). Electorates in several European countries have rejected government-negotiated treaties when given the opportunity in popular referenda. In this respect, the increasing success of rightwing populist actors, such as the American president Donald Trump and the German political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), may be the result of growing discomfort with globalization processes. Furthermore, dissatisfaction with elite-driven international cooperation has led to the establishment of alternative arenas for public debate, such as the World Social Forum in the early 2000s. These examples forcefully indicate that legitimacy is crucial for GGIs to solve problems effectively; without legitimacy, an authority has to depend on coercion and secrecy – and policies are often less effective as a result (Bäckstrand et al. 2018). Research Questions Starting from this research problem, this workshop addresses three sets of questions: (1) what are the patterns and causes of elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation practices targeting GGIs across actors, GGIs, and over time?; (2) how, when and why do elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation practices affect GGI legitimacy?; and (3) what are the domestic and global consequences of losses or gains in GGI legitimacy? Relation to Existing Research This workshop will link and contribute to three bodies of research, neither of which has to date sufficiently addressed these three sets of questions. First, there is a burgeoning but still limited literature on the social legitimacy of GGIs that either treats legitimacy perceptions of GGIs as a dependent variable (e.g. Johnson 2011; Ecker-Erhardt 2012; Binder and Heupel 2015, Dellmuth and Chalmers 2016) or focuses on the effects of Euroscepticism on domestic political developments (e.g. Werts et al. 2013; Treib 2014; Steenbergen and Siczek 2017). Second, a growing already substantial body of research on (de-)legitimation practices analyses a variety of such practices such as the strategies of GGIs to secure legitimacy (e.g. Gronau and Schmidtke 2016; Ecker-Ehrhardt 2017) and media coverage of and political discourse about GGIs on the domestic level (e.g. Schmidtke and Nullmeier 2011; Bäckstrand and Söderbaum 2018), and the politicization of GGIs more broadly (e.g. Zürn et al. 2012; Hutter et al. 2016). Third, a burgeoning strand of literature on populist rhetoric has argued that right-wing populist actors may gain support for antidemocratic and nationalist policies due to perceived threats from GGIs potentially constraining national sovereignty (e.g. Schlipphak and Treib 2017; Lubbers and Coenders 2017). Our workshop starts from the premise that these three strands of research have so far not benefited enough from each other in terms of theory and methodology. In addressing the three sets of questions guiding this workshop, there is much room for cross-fertilization between comparative politics and International Relations (IR). To begin with, addressing our first set of questions about what explains elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation practices targeting GGIs requires a comparative approach. The study of (de-)legitimation practices toward GGIs is growing, with scholars examining questions such as: how do GGIs try to influence their public acceptance by changing communication strategies or their institutional structure in order to provide more transparency and accountability (e.g. Van Leuwen 2007; Morse and Keohane 2014; Vaara 2014)? However, existing comparative research on divergent patterns of the causes of GGI (de-)legitimation and the consequences for GGI legitimacy is still in its infancy (see Bäckstrand and Söderbaum 2018 for an overview). For example, we know little about the reasons for cross-country differences in legitimacy perceptions stemming from elite communication, the causes of politicization and contestation of GGIs by (populist) actors across countries, and the consequences of country-specific populist rhetoric for GGI legitimacy. Important questions remain unanswered. For example, does populist rhetoric use the same ‘blame frames’ for a GGI across countries despite countries being differentially affected by this GGI? Why and with what consequences for GGI legitimacy? When and why are ‘blame frames’ directed at specific GGI policies – such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which is being contested more strongly in countries which would benefit from TTIP and more popular in countries that would have experienced losses? Comparative politics and IR theories may be fruitfully combined to address these questions (cf. Bäckstrand et al. 2018). Similarly, our second and third sets of questions about the causes and consequences of GGI legitimacy may be fruitfully addressed by drawing on both comparative politics and IR. Previous IR literature provides useful insights about what makes elites and masses skeptical or favorable toward GGIs. Scholars have examined what determines citizens’ attitudes toward the EU, International Monetary Fund, UN and the World Bank (e.g. Jonson 2011; Ecker-Erhardt 2012; Schlipphak 2013, 2015; Dellmuth and Tallberg 2015) and states’ legitimacy perceptions vis-à-vis the UN Security Council (e.g. Hurd 1999, 2007; Binder and Heupel 2015). Moreover, the comparative politics literature on legitimacy has generated a number of hypotheses on the causes and consequences of legitimacy, for example by focusing on questions such as: When and how do citizens’ attitudes toward global developments and institutions shape voting behavior, If at all? What are the consequences of attitudes towards global issues for extremist (voting) behavior? Thus, comparative politics and IR theories may be usefully combined to address our second and third set of questions (cf. Dellmuth 2018). This workshop seeks to encourage comparative research on each of the question sets or studies bridging the question sets. In doing so, the workshop promises two principal contributions to the three strands literature identified above on GGI legitimacy, (de-)legitimation in global governance, and populist rhetoric. First, the workshop will help pushing theory forward on the causal relationships between GGI legitimacy, elite communication, populist rhetoric, and (de-)legitimation. Second, the workshop will help identify appropriate methods for measuring and disentangling the effects of elite communication and populist rhetoric on public attitudes. In all, it will provide a coherent picture linking current political events to the causes and consequences of GGI legitimacy. Biographical Note Lisa Dellmuth is Associate Professor of International Relations at Stockholm University. Her research interests include issues of legitimacy, power, and public opinion in global and European governance. Dellmuth has published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of European Public Policy, Review of International Organizations, and WIREs Climate Change. Her ongoing research focuses inter alia on the linkages between individual attitudes toward political institutions at regional and global levels, political communication, and political change in global governance institutions. Bernd Schlipphak is Associate Professor of Research Methods at University of Münster. His research interests include the effect of psychological predispositions and political communication on citizens’ attitudes toward politics on the domestic and the international level. His work has been published in journals such as Review of International Organizations, European Union Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, and Journal of Common Market Studies. 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