Legitimacy in the ‘secular church’ of the United Nations
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117820904094 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117820904094
International Relations
2020, Vol. 34(4) 565 –582
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117820904094
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Legitimacy in the
‘secular church’ of the
United Nations
Jodok Troy
University of Innsbruck
Abstract
This article argues that how the United Nations (UN) conceptualizes legitimacy is not only a
matter of legalism or power politics. The UN’s conception of legitimacy also utilizes concepts,
language and symbolism from the religious realm. Understanding the entanglement between
political and religious concepts and the ways of their verbalization at the agential level sheds light
on how legitimacy became to be acknowledged as an integral part of the UN and how it changes.
At the constitutional level, the article examines phrases and ‘verbal symbols’, enshrined in the
Charter of the ‘secular church’ UN. They evoke intrinsic legitimacy claims based on religious
concepts and discourse such as hope and salvation. At the agential level, the article illustrates how
the Secretary-General verbalizes those abstract constitutional principles of legitimacy. Religious
language and symbolism in the constitutional framework and agential practice of the UN does not
necessarily produce an exclusive form of legitimacy. This article shows, however, that legitimacy
as nested in the UN’s constitutional setting cannot exist without religious templates because they
remain a matter of a ‘cultural frame’.
Keywords
legitimacy, religion, UN charter, United Nations
Providing legitimacy is one the United Nations’ (UN) core functions. Existing research of
conceptual accounts of legitimacy and issues of legitimation are often steered by a liberal
framework that views legitimacy ‘as the product of aggregated consent’.1 Such a frame-
work assumes that ‘contemporary power struggles and power relations generally operate
outside any religio-ideological and ethical context’.2 Concepts of legitimacy, however, are
not only the result of procedural, a-political matters. Concepts of legitimacy are also, in
Corresponding author:
Jodok Troy, Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
Email: jodok.troy@uibk.ac.at
904094IRE0010.1177/0047117820904094International RelationsTroy
research-article2020
Article
566 International Relations 34(4)
the words of Clifford Geertz, a matter of a ‘cultural frame’3 defining their meanings, val-
ues and purpose. Yet in the literature, there is a gap when it comes to the question how
religious concepts and language contribute to the UN’s seemingly secular concept of
legitimacy as enshrined in its constitutional set-up, other than potential drivers for delegit-
imation.4 Some scholars even suggest that the UN is a ‘secular Church’ which embodies
a ‘repository of the community’s collective beliefs’5 which are inevitably a matter of a
cultural and religious frame.
In this article, I argue that there is in fact a religious dimension of the UN’s conception
of legitimacy. Although seen as a modern rational and secular institution, the UN’s con-
cept of legitimacy has drawn to a significant degree on religious thought, images and
language in its development and presentation of legitimacy. This account of the UN’s
legitimacy lends itself to different interpretations, either leading to a normative argument
or acknowledging the religious dimension but dismissing it as rhetoric. Although not
abandoning these interpretations, the main thrust of this article is still another one. The
UN’s legitimacy cannot exist without religious concepts, however offhanded they might
have landed in the organization and however instrumentalized they are for rhetorical use.
My exploration of religious interventions in the concept of legitimacy within the ‘sec-
ular church’ UN shows ‘how concepts of and related to “religion” have emerged, altered,
ebbed and flowed in relation to specific cultural and geographic histories’.6 Pointing out
religious dimensions and interventions in secular discourses and the constitutional set-up
of the UN is not to argue that there is a religious discourse in a productive sense respon-
sible for the UN’s concept of legitimacy. The evidence available of constitutional adop-
tions (in the Charter) and agential adoptions (by the Secretaries-General) of religious
concepts and language might as well be rhetorical. Hence, the article does not seek to
overturn established arguments on power politics or notions of empire as organizational
agendas.7 Moreover, the religious dimension of the UN does not necessarily produce a
certain form of legitimacy. Rather, I suggest that legitimacy as nested in the UN’s consti-
tutional setting and interpreted by its agents cannot exist without religious templates
because any form of legitimacy takes place in a ‘symbolic cultural and value laden frame
of reference’.8 This frame of reference, provided by the religious dimension of the UN’s
concept of legitimacy, not only leads to normative and theoretical consequences. There
are also practical consequences that I point out at the example of how the concept of
human dignity reflects conceptions of rights and their enforcement.
After an introductory section on the concept and definition of legitimacy, I illustrate
that the UN Charter consists of a constitutional entanglement between political and reli-
gious concepts as commonly ingrained in assumed secular political constructs. This sec-
tion takes stock of the mutual constitution of religion, politics and the formal set-up of
international organizations.9 Second, I argue that zooming in on this entanglement offers
an additional explanation on how legitimacy became an integral part of the UN. The
constitutional entanglement between religious and political concepts and their discourses
is interesting to reveal because it develops in the space between normative and empirical
aspirations of legitimacy. For example, symbolic phrases or ‘verbal symbols’ enshrined
in the Charter evoke and augment legitimacy claims, charged by religious concepts such
as hope and salvation.10 Moreover, those legitimacy claims were present in the organiza-
tion even before its members practised international political conduct in and via the
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