Introduction

While global governance institutions play a crucial role in our globalised world, their policies and decision-making procedures are often criticised as unjust and undemocratic. In normative political philosophy, the legitimacy of global governance institutions has only begun to receive increased attention in recent years. This introductory chapter sets out the book’s threefold purpose: to develop a normative concept of legitimacy that is applicable to all political institutions, to investigate how the use of this concept opens up new perspectives in the debate on legitimacy criteria for global governance institutions, and to apply the developed theoretical framework to a specific institution, the G20. In addition, the chapter presents a definition and typology of global governance institutions, which are the main subject of investigation of the study. It also describes the methodological approach of the book and provides an overview of its remaining chapters.