This paper focuses on a largely neglected aspect of legitimation in international organizations (IOs)-the rhetorical work done by IO scripts as a legitimation strategy of IOs. Based on extensive research within regional and global IOs, we demonstrate four aspects of rhetorical legitimation....

This paper focuses on a largely neglected aspect of legitimation in international organizations (IOs) - the rhetorical work done by IO scripts as a legitimation strategy of IOs. Based on extensive fieldwork and research from the mid-1990s to 2005 on regional and global IOs, we show that global...