Legitimating International Organizations, Internal Diversification, and ASEAN's Myanmar Challenge

What is it about?

This article highlights three common sources of internal IO diversification: domestic change, new membership and new purposes Diversification's evolving challenges and strategies of legitimation are illustrated by the Association of Southeast Asian Asian Nations and its 30+ year-long efforts to defend and legitimate the organization's choices vis-à-vis its most internationally criticized member, Myanmar. It highlights three periods of contrasting internal diversification and effects on ASEAN's legitimation strategies.

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Why is it important?

Article offers four take-aways about the sources and effects of diversification: 1) Organizational legitimation strategies are especially sensitive to intra-organization diversification processes because of the constitutive changes these bring to an IO's identity and social purposes; 2) legitimation strategies are less about choosing the ‘best’ strategies and more about responding to intrinsically political and social processes given that multiple and interacting legitimating audiences, as well as organizational purposes; 3) explaining organizational choices requires more than appreciating the specific challenges of the moment; and instead 4) historically sensitive and procedurally oriented accounts