Page 41 - THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE’S ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES- A MULTI-METHOD INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ANALYSIS Ryan Gautier

Chapter Two – Global Governance and Legitimacy
exercises public power through the state to benefit the Olympic Games, and those associated with the Games, including the IOC itself.
3. Global Governance and Legitimacy
As discussed above, global governance actors do not have recourse to violence to compel compliance with their decisions. This is not to say that global governance actors have no means of ensuring compliance. For instance, rules set by global governance actors often have consequences attached to non-compliance, with formal consequences such as suspension or expulsion from the regime (e.g., ‘black-listing’), or the imposition of financial penalties, or informal consequences such as reputation harm caused by being labelled a ‘defector’ from the regime.34 However, compelling compliance through imposing consequences incurs high costs to the institution, and may lead to defection from the institution by affected actors. This situation requires a more consistent, long-term means of exercising institutional authority—legitimacy. This part will first define legitimacy. It will then explore how legitimacy may be constructed, and by whom it is constructed, with reference to the IOC throughout. This part will conclude by asserting that the IOC is facing a crisis of legitimacy, and outlining what the IOC’s options might be in coming to terms with this crisis.
3.1. Defining Legitimacy, and the Required Level of Legitimacy to Encourage Institutional Compliance
Legitimacy is the belief held by an actor that an institution (defined above as an organisation and its rules) ought to be obeyed.35 An actor’s belief that an institution is legitimate fosters a normative pull towards compliance.36 Legitimacy is not an absolute
34 Buchanan and Keohane (n 6) 407.
35 Ian Hurd, After Anarchy (Princeton 2007) 30. See also Ian Clark, ‘Legitimacy in a Global Order’ (2003) 29
Review of International Studies 79; Vivien Collingwood, ‘Non-Governmental Organisations, Power and Legitimacy in International Society’ (2006) 32 Review of International Studies 444.
36 Thomas M. Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (Oxford University Press 1990) 24 (“Legitimacy is a property of a rule or rule-making institution which itself exerts a pull toward compliance on those addressed normatively because those addressed believe that the rule or institution has come into being and operates in accordance with generally accepted principles of right process.”). Although Franck’s work deals with nation-
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