The past decade has seen a sustained move by students of international institutions and organizations to viewing their subject matter as independent variables affecting state interests and policy. Conceptually, this has put a premium on identifying the mechanisms connecting institutions to...

In this article I discuss output legitimacy as a category of normative analysis of international organizations (IOs). I first take issue with the widespread view that output legitimacy is just a synonym for organizational effectiveness or efficiency, and unrelated to democracy. Against this...