Non-state legitimation as practice: the multiplicit making of public authority in Afro-Chinese engagements

African states, under market liberalization, have witnessed resurgent non-state intervention, with non-state actors (NSAs) enmeshed in collective good provision or roles associated with the state. To do so, NSAs must legitimate private forms of authority in the name of the public. Legitimation, we argue, is a core problem of socio-political life but remains only partially represented, hamstrung by Eurocentric, often state-based rationalities. This article sets out a post-Weberian framework for understanding how NGOs and companies legitimate their authority to act, focussing on African contexts. We bring analyses of these organizations into dialogue through our presentation of ‘the non/state’, attending to three conceptual axes: organizational type; source modalities; and contact zone. To illustrate the purchase of this approach, we explore a conspicuous ‘front’ in Africa’s international relations: Chinese organizations going global. Beyond notions of a singular, state-directed approach, we contribute to a pluralist understanding of ‘global China’, shaped by local contexts.