When an International Organization Fails to Legitimate: The Decline of the OSCE

Various international organizations have recently faced legitimacy crises, but many have demonstrated resilience and relegitimated their rule. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is an exception. It is clearly an organization in decline and is on the brink of irrelevance. The closure of its Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine in April 2022 in the wake of the Russian attack is only the latest manifestation of the organization’s long-term legitimacy crisis. Based on the case of the OSCE, this article contributes to the study of legitimacy crises to better understand when such crises can lead to decline. Drawing on twenty interviews with senior officials, the analysis suggests that the OSCE’s failure to (re)legitimate has two interrelated causes: (1) the organization’s institutional weaknesses and impeded leadership have prevented OSCE actors from engaging in effective legitimation practices, and (2) the heterogeneous and largely zero-sum preferences of the OSCE participating states have made them unwilling audiences for (re)legitimation practices. In doing so, the article contributes to our comprehension of the consequences of legitimacy crises.