Suchergebnisse

There is hardly any aspect of social, political, and economic life today that is not also governed internationally. Drawing on debates around hierarchy, hegemony, and authority in international politics, this volume takes the study of the international 'beyond anarchy' a step further by establishing the concept of rule as the defining feature of order in the international realm. The contributors argue that the manifold conceptual approaches to sub- and superordination in the international should be understood as rich conceptualizations of one concept: rule. Rule allows constellations of sub- and superordination in the international to be seen as multiplex, systemic, and normatively ambiguous phenomena that need to be studied in the context of their interplay and consequences. This volume draws on a variety of conceptualizations of rule, exploring, in particular, the practices of rule as well as the relational and dynamic characteristics of rule in international politics.

International organizations like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, or the European Union are a defining feature of contemporary world politics. In recent years, many of them have also become heavily politicized. In this book, we examine how the norms and values that underpin the evaluations of international organizations have changed over the past 50 years. Looking at five organizations in depth, we observe two major trends. Taken together, both trends make the legitimation of international organizations more challenging today. First, people-based legitimacy standards are on the rise: international organizations are increasingly asked to demonstrate not only what they do for their member states, but also for the people living in these states. Second, procedural legitimacy standards gain ground: international organizations are increasingly evaluated not only based on what they accomplish, but also based on how they arrive at decisions, manage themselves, or coordinate with other organizations in the field. In sum, the study thus documents how the list of expectations international organizations need to fulfil to count as 'legitimate' has expanded over time. The sources of this expansion are manifold. Among others, they include the politicization of expanded international authority and the rise of non-state actors as new audiences from which international organizations seek legitimacy.

Cette étude porte sur les perceptions locales d'une intervention régionale africaine – à savoir de l'Union Africaine et de la CEDEAO au Burkina Faso en 2014/15 – ainsi que sur les connaissances sur ces organisations détenues par différents acteurs locaux de diverses couches sociales. L'étude est le résultat d'une recherche collaborative et empiriquement rigoureuse effectuée dans la capitale et plusieurs localités du pays. Nous démontrons que les deux organisations régionales africaines sont plus contestées localement que ce qui apparaît dans la littérature académique, et sont à la fois perçues plus positivement que suggéré par l'imaginaire social dominant relatif à ces organisations comme « syndicats des chefs d'État ».

This study examines local perceptions of an African regional intervention – by the African Union and ECOWAS in Burkina Faso in 2014/15 – as well as the knowledge about these organisations held by different local actors from various social strata. The study is the result of collaborative and empirically comprehensive research carried out in the capital and several localities in the country. We show that the two African regional organisations are more locally contested than is depicted in the academic literature and, at the same time, perceived more positively than suggested by the dominant social imaginary of these organisations as "clubs of heads of state".

How do African citizens experience and evaluate African regional interventions? This research report examines the case of The Gambia to assess local perceptions of the African Union and ECOWAS, particularly of their interventions in that country since 2016. It is the result of collaborative and empirically comprehensive research carried out across the country in 2021/2022. We demonstrate that perceptions of the interventions in The Gambia are complex and diverge starkly, at times even contradicting each other. We explain this complexity as resulting from spatial, temporal, and sociopolitical factors that affect how these African regional interventions are (differently) perceived.