The UN's legitimacy crises in global governance and the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The UN's legitimacy crises in global governance have become a more heated debate in the last decade with rapid transformations in world politics. The discussion has long ago shifted from the legitimacy of the UN to the sources of its illegitimacy. 2000s marked by the deepening of the UN crises of legitimacy as there emerged an ever-increasing tension among the 3Ps: “purposes, procedures and performance” of the UN system in global governance. Most recently, the UN's legitimacy in global governance is being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter aims to provide a theoretical and analytical overview of the UN's legitimacy crises in global governance with specific reference to its policies in this pandemic. Firstly, a brief theoretical overview of the UN's legitimacy crises in global governance within the analytical framework of procedural versus performance legitimacy will be scrutinized. Secondly, the UN's response to the pandemic is analyzed within this framework as formulation of response (procedural legitimacy) and the impact of response (the performance legitimacy). The paper argues that the COVID-19 has made the tension between the UN's procedural and performance legitimacy more visible especially among the intergovernmental mechanisms. However, the relative success of the “UN family” of epistemic community and civil society in formulating and implementing response strategy increased the hopes of resolving the UN's legitimacy crisis.