A key success factor : elucidating the meaning of legitimacy for UN peacekeepers

Published online: 20 Oct 2023Legitimacy has become a widespread term within policy documents of international organizations, not least international peacekeeping. But legitimacy is also a contested concept, so it matters greatly how it is understood on the ground. In this article, I ask what meanings the UN Department of Peace Operations attributes to the concept of legitimacy. Using a qualitative content analysis to study policy and training documents published by the department, I argue that the department understands the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping missions as a (mis-)perception of its international legitimacy and underappreciates how other actors might undermine UN and state legitimacy.This work was supported by the OeAD and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research