The EU, the IMF, and the Representative Turn: Addressing the Challenge of Legitimacy

Over time, international organizations have adopted different strategies to redress their legitimacy deficits. Among them, two strategies stand out: expanding participation of relevant stakeholders and improving output. By analyzing the application of these strategies in the European Union (EU) and in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we argue that these efforts at legitimization have not been satisfying because they have been implemented as supplements, rather than complements, of representation. Interestingly, then, the most recent efforts at legitimizing the two international bodies have started emphasizing the issue of representation. We illustrate our argument by reviewing and comparing the legitimacy-enhancing strategies that have been adopted in the EU and the IMF.