Recently in Germany UNICEF was accused of mismanagement and Kinderhilfe e.V. has had its membership in the Deutsche Spendenrat withdrawn. These are just two examples of civil society organisations having their legitimacy publicly questioned. Whether justified or not, such accusations are an immediate dent in the reputation of the organisation.
One could argue, that this is not so important, because what counts for the do-gooders are their activities and their project record. While in principle correct, the danger lies in the reliance of the non-state, non-business sector on private contributions. As Sasha Courville emphasised, reputation is the currency by which NGOs trade. Without having an unblemished reputation, NGOs find it more diffult and thus more costly to raise sufficient funds to maintain operations.
This begs the question, how to react to crises and to accusations of being insufficiently legitimate. To react to crises is not the only possible and necessary way to manage legitimacy, but it is also necessary to establish structures, which preclude the emergence of avoidable crises.
What is legitimacy?
Legitimacy is a highly contested concept and often lies in the eye of the observer. Building on the work by Patrizia Nanz and Jens Steffek, I here employ a concept of legitimacy, which has its intellectual roots in the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas. Their concept consists of five interrelated elements
- Transparency
- Participation
- Inclusion
- Independence
- Responsivenes.
