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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 24:6 (2025) ► pp.861–888

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“We pursue justice”

Legitimation strategies in the public-facing communications of philanthropic foundations in global sustainability governance

ORCiD logo with link | Erasmus University Rotterdam | Utrecht University
ORCiD logo with link | Erasmus University Rotterdam
ORCiD logo with link | Utrecht University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Utrecht University.

Published online: 6 January 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24040.deh
Abstract
Philanthropic foundations are key players in global sustainability governance. This paper explores the legitimation strategies these foundations use to justify their actions and positions in the sustainable development community. By combining Theo van Leeuwen’s legitimation framework with our novel analytical justice framework, we offer a new tool to analyse hard-to-research actors. Analysing data from 41 foundation websites, we find that foundations emphasize Global Egalitarian Cosmopolitanism in their values and objectives to align with global sustainability discourses. However, Libertarian ideas dominate when discussing programs and founders. This indicates there may be internal conflicts within foundations over the relationship between extreme wealth accumulation required for global philanthropy and sustainability objectives. In turn, this has implications for how foundations position themselves as agents of justice in sustainable development. While discourse analysis provides valuable insights into philanthropic legitimation strategies, further research is needed to fully understand how justice intersects with organizational decision-making.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Philanthropy and sustainable development
  • 3.Legitimation and justice
    • 3.1Van Leeuwen’s legitimation framework
    • 3.2Analytical justice framework
      • 3.2.1Theories of justice
      • 3.2.2Aspects of justice
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Corpus selection
    • 4.2Analytical method
    • 4.3Audience
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Authorisation
    • 5.2Moral evaluation
    • 5.3Rationalisation
    • 5.4Mythopoesis
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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