In this pre-submission seminar, Daniel McAvoy talks about his research that uses the concept of ‘legitimacy work’ to examine the construction of legitimacy through discourses, narratives and practices of transnational policing. An interpretivist approach is adopted to investigate how the strategic narrative of the recently concluded Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (2003-2017) worked first to establish and sustain its own legitimacy, and subsequently to confer legitimacy on Solomon Islands state institutions, including the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.