IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v5y2017i1p54-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity

Author

Listed:
  • Elke Krahmann

    (Department of Economics, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany)

Abstract

Global governance is frequently criticised because of major legitimacy deficits, including lack of public accountability and democratic control. Within this context, questions about the legitimacy of non-state governance actors, such as non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations and private security companies, are neither an exception nor a surprise. Many actors have, therefore, turned to the measurement of performance, defined as publicly beneficial outcomes, in order to gain legitimacy. However, the rise of performance assessments as legitimizing practice is not without problems. Taking global security and health interventions as examples, this article contends that the immaterial, socially constructed and inherently contested nature of such public goods presents major obstacles for the assessment of performance in terms of observable, measurable and attributable outcomes. Performance is therefore frequently replaced by performativity, i.e. a focus on the repetitive enactment of specific forms of behaviour and capabilities, which are simply equated with the intended results. The implications for how global public goods are conceptualized and, ultimately, implemented are profound.

Suggested Citation

  • Elke Krahmann, 2017. "Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 54-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:1:p:54-62
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/773
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Glenn, 2008. "Global Governance and the Democratic Deficit: stifling the voice of the South," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 217-238.
    2. Cheryl Cashin & Lisa Fleisher & Tawab Hashemi, 2015. "Verification of Performance in Results-Based Financing (RBF): The Case of Afghanistan," Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Discussion Paper Series 103694, The World Bank.
    3. Scharpf, Fritz Wilhelm, 2009. "Legitimacy in the multilevel European polity," MPIfG Working Paper 09/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1998. "Interdependence and democratic legitimation," MPIfG Working Paper 98/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Klaus Dingwerth, 2017. "Field Recognition and the State Prerogative: Why Democratic Legitimation Recedes in Private Transnational Sustainability Regulation," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 75-84.
    2. Klaus Dieter Wolf, 2017. "Patterns of Legitimation in Hybrid Transnational Regimes: The Controversy Surrounding the Lex Sportiva," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 63-74.
    3. Melanie Coni-Zimmer & Klaus Dieter Wolf & Peter Collin, 2017. "Editorial to the Issue on Legitimization of Private and Public Regulation: Past and Present," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-5.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petia Kostadinova, 2015. "Improving the Transparency and Accountability of EU Institutions: The Impact of the Office of the European Ombudsman," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 1077-1093, September.
    2. Niedziałkowski, Krzysztof & Shkaruba, Anton, 2018. "Governance and legitimacy of the Forest Stewardship Council certification in the national contexts – A comparative study of Belarus and Poland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 180-188.
    3. Alber, Jens, 2010. "What - if anything - is undermining the European Social Model?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2010-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Vivien Schmidt, 2010. "Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited - Input, Output and Throughput," KFG Working Papers p0021, Free University Berlin.
    5. Haas, Peter M., 2018. "Preserving the epistemic authority of science in world politics," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2018-105, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    6. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2012. "Legitimacy intermediation in the multilevel European polity and its collapse in the euro crisis," MPIfG Discussion Paper 12/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Andreas Rasche & Wencke Gwozdz & Mathias Lund Larsen & Jeremy Moon, 2022. "Which firms leave multi‐stakeholder initiatives? An analysis of delistings from the United Nations Global Compact," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(1), pages 309-326, January.
    8. Trym N. Fjørtoft, 2022. "More power, more control: The legitimizing role of expertise in Frontex after the refugee crisis," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(2), pages 557-571, April.
    9. Timotijevic, Lada & Khan, Shumaisa S. & Raats, Monique & Braun, Susanne, 2019. "Research priority setting in food and health domain: European stakeholder beliefs about legitimacy criteria and processes," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 116-124.
    10. Chase Foster & Jeffry Frieden, 2021. "Economic determinants of public support for European integration, 1995–2018," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(2), pages 266-292, June.
    11. Michael Blauberger & Susanne K. Schmidt, 2023. "Negative Integration Is What States Make of It? Tackling Labour Exploitation in the German Meat Sector," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 917-934, July.
    12. Fritz W. Scharpf, 2009. "The Asymmetry of European Integration - or why the EU cannot be a Social Market Economy," KFG Working Papers p0006, Free University Berlin.
    13. Yahua Wang & Leong Ching, 2013. "Institutional legitimacy: an exegesis of normative incentives," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 514-525, December.
    14. Myrto Tsakatika, 2005. "Claims to Legitimacy: The European Commission between Continuity and Change," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 193-220, March.
    15. Fabio Wasserfallen, 2014. "Political and Economic Integration in the EU: The Case of Failed Tax Harmonization," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 420-435, March.
    16. Citi, Manuele & Rhodes, Martin, 2007. "New Modes of Governance in the EU: Common Objectives versus National Preferences," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 1, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.
    17. Klaudijo Klaser, 2020. "A Theory of Justice of John Rawls as Basis for European Fiscal Union," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 11(1-2).
    18. Tanja A. Börzel, 2016. "From EU Governance of Crisis to Crisis of EU Governance: Regulatory Failure, Redistributive Conflict and Eurosceptic Publics," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54, pages 8-31, September.
    19. Nenad Stojanović & Matteo Bonotti, 2020. "Political Parties in Deeply Multilingual Polities: Institutional Conditions and Lessons for the EU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 599-615, May.
    20. Mende, Janne, 2020. "Business authority in global governance: Beyond public and private," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-103, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:1:p:54-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.