The sum of its parts? Sources of local legitimacy
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836716652426 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | Birte J Gippert |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict
2016, Vol. 51(4) 522 –538
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836716652426
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The sum of its parts? Sources
of local legitimacy
Birte J Gippert
Abstract
The article analyses the sources of local actors’ legitimacy perceptions towards international
peacebuilding operations. Local legitimacy perceptions are increasingly recognised as shaping
local behaviour towards international peacebuilding, which influences the effective functioning
of the operation. Legitimacy debates in peacebuilding are either absent or imported from the
literature on domestic legitimacy, without respect to the specific temporal and spatial situation
of international operations. The article first explores which legitimacy sources influence local
legitimacy perceptions of international peacebuilding operations. It finds that two sources are
relevant: output and procedure. Second, it investigates how exactly legitimacy arises from them.
In doing so, it demonstrates that output and procedure are umbrella terms comprising several
sub-elements which influence legitimacy in different, sometimes contradictory, ways. Finally,
the article empirically explores which of the sources are important to local actors’ legitimacy
perceptions using field data from the EU peacebuilding operations EULEX in Kosovo and EUPM
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Keywords
Bosnia-Herzegovina, EULEX, EUPM, Kosovo, local legitimacy, peacebuilding
Introduction
The significance of legitimacy in international interventions and peace operations has
received increasing recognition in recent years. Contributions have highlighted the
importance of the concept for winning local support and acceptance of a mission (Gow
and Dandeker, 1995; Mersiades, 2005), and fostering compliance with and efficiency of
international efforts (Gippert, 2016; Whalan, 2013). International donors and policy-
makers have similarly included perceptions of legitimacy into their guidelines and poli-
cies (Department of Peacekeeping Operations, 2008; Department for International
Development [DFID], 2011; OECD-DAC, 2010). Despite its clear importance for
Corresponding author:
Birte J Gippert, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: birte_julia.gippert@kcl.ac.uk
652426CAC0010.1177/0010836716652426Cooperation and ConflictGippert
research-article2016
Article
Gippert 523
international peacebuilding, we know very little about how legitimacy is engendered, as
the debate is often absent or derived wholesale from the literature on domestic legiti-
macy. While the latter can provide valid insights, such a transfer has to be sensitive to the
specific character of international operations – they are temporally limited but often
powerful sources of authority for the local population (or elite) of the host state. Most
traditional accounts of legitimacy theory are based on the state-citizen relationship,
where the legitimacy of the state derives from the social contract with its citizens (Weber,
1978; Zelditch, 2001). This Rousseauian idea does not apply to international peace oper-
ations as they at best strike a deal with the host state government but not the population
of the state.
This article illuminates how legitimacy arises in situations of international peace-
building using the examples of two divided post-conflict societies: Kosovo and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. Employing two case studies from the same region limits the generalisability
of the findings but allows for in-depth micro-level analysis of what these two cases can
tell us about the sources of legitimacy. The majority of the peacebuilding literature anal-
yses legitimacy views of the international community (Bellamy and Williams, 2005;
Coleman, 2007; Wiharta, 2009). This study, however, is interested in the perceptions of
the local actors in the host state who work directly with the international operation. Local
actors’ perceptions are important to international peace operations as these international
reforms aim at changing crucial elements of the political order of the state, the way its
institutions are organised or run, and how citizens engage with the state. Such reforms go
to the heart of the state-citizen relationship; they are in their essence meant to address the
domestic legitimacy and trust deficit conflict can incur between the state and its inhabit-
ants. Whether these reforms are accepted and considered legitimate by those who will
end up living with them plays an important role in the effectiveness and sustainability of
building peace. Legitimacy perceptions colour local actors’ actions in terms of coopera-
tion, compliance, or resistance towards the international institutions tasked with building
this peace. Perceptions therefore directly shape the permissibility of the environment in
which the mission works and the chance of the reforms being implemented and becom-
ing sustainable (Donais, 2009). On the operational level, the bulk of reforms are imple-
mented through or with the substantial help of local actors, as both case study examples
in this article show (Sending, 2011). Local legitimacy attitudes can therefore have an
imminent effect on the feasibility and effectiveness of international reforms.
The insights of this article contribute to the nascent debates on the relevance of legiti-
macy and local actors’ agency for international peacebuilding outcomes. First, the article
explores which legitimacy sources can influence local legitimacy perceptions of interna-
tional peacebuilding operations in light of their specific context. It finds that two sources
are relevant to peacebuilding operations: output and procedure. Second, it investigates
how exactly legitimacy arises from them. In doing so, it shows that output and procedure
are umbrella terms, comprising several sub-elements which influence legitimacy in dif-
ferent ways. Finally, the article explores which sources are important to local actors’
legitimacy perceptions using empirical data from the EU peacebuilding operations
EULEX in Kosovo and EUPM in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both operations were long-term
intrusive examples of peacebuilding, and the analysis focuses on the legitimacy percep-
tions of the local police officers who worked directly with the operations in
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