Abstract/Summary

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 UN. I conclude by proposing a new research agenda for this underexplored area of IO and legitimacy scholarship.