Contemporary society has witnessed major growth in global governance, yet the legitimacy of globa... more Contemporary society has witnessed major growth in global governance, yet the legitimacy of global governance remains deeply in question. This book offers the first full comparative investigation of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. Empirically, it provides a comprehensive analysis of public and elite opinion toward global governance, building on two uniquely coordinated surveys covering multiple countries and international organizations. Theoretically, it develops an individual-level approach, exploring how a person’s characteristics in respect of socioeconomic status, political values, geographical identification, and domestic institutional trust shape legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. The book’s central findings are threefold. First, there is a notable and general elite–citizen gap in legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. While elites on average hold moderately high levels of legitimacy toward international organizations, the general...
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxfo... more Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Book Series Preface Legitimacy appears crucial if global governance is to deliver on the many challenges confronting contemporary society: climate change, economic development, health pandemics, and more. Yet current trends suggest that the legitimacy of global governance may be increasingly contested. Britain's decision to leave the European Union, disillusion with United Nations climate negotiations, pushback against the World Health Organization's handling of COVID-19, and the general rise of anti-globalist populism all signal substantial discontent with global governance institutions. An important research agenda therefore arises concerning legitimacy, legitimation, and contestation in global governance. This book series seeks to advance that agenda. The three volumes explore to what degree, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions are regarded as legitimate. The books address this question through three complementary themes: (1) sources of legitimacy for global governance institutions; (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation around global governance institutions; and (3) consequences of legitimacy for the operations of global governance institutions. The series presents the combined theoretical, methodological, empirical, and policy takeaways of the Legitimacy in Global Governance (LegGov) program. LegGov is a six-year endeavor (2016-21) involving 16 researchers at Stockholm, Lund, and Gothenburg Universities. The program is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and is coordinated by Jonas Tallberg at Stockholm University. LegGov has previously published the volume Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences with Oxford University Press in 2018. Whereas that work set out LegGov's agenda and strategy, this series presents the program's extensive findings in three integrated books. The first book, Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance, is co-authored by Lisa Dellmuth, Jan Aart Scholte, Jonas Tallberg, and Soetkin Verhaegen. This volume addresses patterns and sources of legitimacy in global governance: how far, and why, do citizens and elites around the world regard global governance to be legitimate? The book offers the first full comparative study of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance, covering multiple international organizations, countries, and sectors of society. The analysis builds on two parallel surveys of citizen and elite opinion, which enables a unique comparison between levels and drivers of legitimacy beliefs in the two groups. The book identifies a consistent gap between elite and citizen assessments PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix As we will show in this book, it has happened more often than not that a multilateral institution became stronger in the wake of a legitimacy crisis. On that journey, we have collected many debts from scholars, institutions, and informants. We are grateful to fantastic colleagues from the LegGov research group in Lund, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. Our thanks go to the program coordinator, Jonas Tallberg, and his colleagues in the steering committee, Karin Bäckstrand and Jan Aart Scholte, for their challenges, encouragement, and support to our work.
This dataset and do-file allows for replicating the results of the article 'Elite Communicati... more This dataset and do-file allows for replicating the results of the article 'Elite Communication and the Popular Legitimacy of International Organizations' published in the British Journal of Political Science. Article abstract: This article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the effects of elite communication on citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of international organizations (IOs). Departing from framing and cueing theory, we develop novel hypotheses about the effects of elite communication under the specific conditions of global governance. We test these hypotheses through a population-based survey experiment conducted among almost 10,000 residents of three countries in relation to five IOs. The evidence suggests four principal findings. First, communication by national governments and civil society organizations has stronger effects on legitimacy perceptions than communication by IOs themselves. Second, elite communication affects legitimacy perce...
While domestic political parties engage in growing contestation over international organizations ... more While domestic political parties engage in growing contestation over international organizations (IOs), we know little about the effects of party cues on citizen perceptions of IO legitimacy. This paper is an effort to address this gap. We develop an argument for why citizens should be responsive to party cues when forming legitimacy beliefs toward IOs, and when those effects should be particularly strong. We conduct two vignette experiments in the US and Germany, focused on party cues regarding military spending on NATO and refugees accepted under the UN convention. We find that citizens draw on party cues when developing legitimacy beliefs toward IOs, but that these effects are conditioned by political context and individual characteristics. Party cue effects are stronger in the more polarized US political environment and for citizens with more positive attitudes toward international cooperation to start with.
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-ejt-10.1177_1354066121994320 for Explaining elite perceptions of ... more Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-ejt-10.1177_1354066121994320 for Explaining elite perceptions of legitimacy in global governance by Soetkin Verhaegen, Jan Aart Scholte and Jonas Tallberg in European Journal of International Relations
Over especially the past two decades, international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly ... more Over especially the past two decades, international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly transparent and open to non-state actors. How can this development be explained? What are the principal patterns in IO transparency and openness? How does transparency and openness impact on the accountability, effectiveness, and legitimacy of IOs? These are questions that are gaining increasing attention in scholarship on IOs, and the purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of this emerging field of research. The central arguments of this chapter are four-fold. First, research on transparency and openness has largely developed in response to real-world developments in global governance. As IOs have undergone a revolution in transparency and openness, scholars have sought to understand the origins of this transformation and its implications. Second, multiple theoretical approaches to the study of transparency and openness have evolved in parallel. A particular feature of the ev...
This article examines what contemporary elites think about global governance and what these attit... more This article examines what contemporary elites think about global governance and what these attitudes might bode for the future of global institutions. Evidence comes from a unique survey conducted in 2017–19 across six elite sectors (business, civil society, government bureaucracy, media, political parties, research) in six countries (Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, the United States) and a global group. Bearing in mind some notable variation between countries, elite types, issue-areas and institutions, three main interconnected findings emerge. First, in principle, contemporary leaders in politics and society hold considerable readiness to pursue global-scale governance. Today's elites are not generally in a nationalist-protectionist-sovereigntist mood. Second, in practice, these elites on average hold medium-level confidence towards fourteen current global governance institutions. This evidence suggests that, while there is at present no legitimacy cri...
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in globa... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N analysis of such commitments, building on a unique dataset on IO policy decisions over the time period 1980–2015. Distinguishing between deep norm commitment and shallow norm recognition, the analysis produces several novel findings. We establish that IOs’ deeper commitments to liberal norms primarily are driven by internal conditions: democratic memberships and institutional designs more conducive to norm entrepreneurship. In contrast, legitimacy standards in the external environment of IOs, often invoked in existing research, mainly account f...
This article addresses a significant gap in the literature on legitimacy in global governance, ex... more This article addresses a significant gap in the literature on legitimacy in global governance, exploring whether, in what ways, and to what extent institutional qualities of international organisations (IOs) matter for popular legitimacy beliefs towards these bodies. The study assesses the causal significance of procedure and performance as sources of legitimacy, unpacks these dimensions into specific institutional qualities, and offers a comparative analysis across IOs in three issue areas of global governance. Theoretically, the article disaggregates institutional sources of legitimacy to consider democratic, technocratic, and fair qualities of procedure and performance. Empirically, it examines the effects of these institutional qualities through a population-based survey experiment in four countries in different world regions with respect to IOs in economic, security, and climate governance. The findings demonstrate that both procedure- and performance-related aspects of IO poli...
While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recog... more While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recognized, conceptualized, and explained in standard accounts of international cooperation. This special issue aims to advance the empirical study of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It engages with the question of when, how, and why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO's authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then discuss sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, preview the articles of the special issue, and chart next steps for this research agenda.
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy ... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship can tell us a lot about the specific trajectories of each of these norms, we know little about the broader patterns and sources of norm adoption by international organizations (IOs). This paper offers the first comparative large-N analysis of the spread and adoption of policy norms among IOs. Theoretically, we develop a diffusion argument, focused on prior adoption of norms among peers of IOs, while also assessing the influence of independent factors. Empirically, the paper maps and explains the spread of eight policy norms across 27 IOs over the time period 1980 to 2015 based on a unique dataset. The analysis establishes that variation in norm adoption across IOs is explained mainly by a combination of three factors: the fit between an IO’s policy mandate and the norm; prior adoption of a norm by IOs in the same issue area; and prior adoption of a norm by IOs with overlapping memberships. Norm adoption clearly involves diffusion, but also strong issue area determinacy. These findings have important implications for research on norms, diffusion, and IOs.
This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct demo... more This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct democracy vs. representative democracy) on citizens' preferences toward public spending. Exogenous variation in institutions comes from a regression discontinuity design, which exploits a discrete change in the probability that a municipality has representative democracy based on a legally stipulated population threshold in the Swiss canton (state) of Vaud. Fiscal policy preferences by municipality are measured by vote shares on Swiss national referendums and initiatives that, if approved, would have increased public spending. Relative to direct democracy, representative democracy reduces vote shares in favor of spending by around 5 percentage points. The effect is not due to sorting on other observables or to feedback from changes in local policies. These findings demonstrate the importance of preferences as a channel through which political decision-making institutions can affect public policies.
Contemporary society has witnessed major growth in global governance, yet the legitimacy of globa... more Contemporary society has witnessed major growth in global governance, yet the legitimacy of global governance remains deeply in question. This book offers the first full comparative investigation of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. Empirically, it provides a comprehensive analysis of public and elite opinion toward global governance, building on two uniquely coordinated surveys covering multiple countries and international organizations. Theoretically, it develops an individual-level approach, exploring how a person’s characteristics in respect of socioeconomic status, political values, geographical identification, and domestic institutional trust shape legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. The book’s central findings are threefold. First, there is a notable and general elite–citizen gap in legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. While elites on average hold moderately high levels of legitimacy toward international organizations, the general...
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxfo... more Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Book Series Preface Legitimacy appears crucial if global governance is to deliver on the many challenges confronting contemporary society: climate change, economic development, health pandemics, and more. Yet current trends suggest that the legitimacy of global governance may be increasingly contested. Britain's decision to leave the European Union, disillusion with United Nations climate negotiations, pushback against the World Health Organization's handling of COVID-19, and the general rise of anti-globalist populism all signal substantial discontent with global governance institutions. An important research agenda therefore arises concerning legitimacy, legitimation, and contestation in global governance. This book series seeks to advance that agenda. The three volumes explore to what degree, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions are regarded as legitimate. The books address this question through three complementary themes: (1) sources of legitimacy for global governance institutions; (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation around global governance institutions; and (3) consequences of legitimacy for the operations of global governance institutions. The series presents the combined theoretical, methodological, empirical, and policy takeaways of the Legitimacy in Global Governance (LegGov) program. LegGov is a six-year endeavor (2016-21) involving 16 researchers at Stockholm, Lund, and Gothenburg Universities. The program is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and is coordinated by Jonas Tallberg at Stockholm University. LegGov has previously published the volume Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences with Oxford University Press in 2018. Whereas that work set out LegGov's agenda and strategy, this series presents the program's extensive findings in three integrated books. The first book, Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance, is co-authored by Lisa Dellmuth, Jan Aart Scholte, Jonas Tallberg, and Soetkin Verhaegen. This volume addresses patterns and sources of legitimacy in global governance: how far, and why, do citizens and elites around the world regard global governance to be legitimate? The book offers the first full comparative study of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance, covering multiple international organizations, countries, and sectors of society. The analysis builds on two parallel surveys of citizen and elite opinion, which enables a unique comparison between levels and drivers of legitimacy beliefs in the two groups. The book identifies a consistent gap between elite and citizen assessments PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix As we will show in this book, it has happened more often than not that a multilateral institution became stronger in the wake of a legitimacy crisis. On that journey, we have collected many debts from scholars, institutions, and informants. We are grateful to fantastic colleagues from the LegGov research group in Lund, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. Our thanks go to the program coordinator, Jonas Tallberg, and his colleagues in the steering committee, Karin Bäckstrand and Jan Aart Scholte, for their challenges, encouragement, and support to our work.
This dataset and do-file allows for replicating the results of the article 'Elite Communicati... more This dataset and do-file allows for replicating the results of the article 'Elite Communication and the Popular Legitimacy of International Organizations' published in the British Journal of Political Science. Article abstract: This article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the effects of elite communication on citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of international organizations (IOs). Departing from framing and cueing theory, we develop novel hypotheses about the effects of elite communication under the specific conditions of global governance. We test these hypotheses through a population-based survey experiment conducted among almost 10,000 residents of three countries in relation to five IOs. The evidence suggests four principal findings. First, communication by national governments and civil society organizations has stronger effects on legitimacy perceptions than communication by IOs themselves. Second, elite communication affects legitimacy perce...
While domestic political parties engage in growing contestation over international organizations ... more While domestic political parties engage in growing contestation over international organizations (IOs), we know little about the effects of party cues on citizen perceptions of IO legitimacy. This paper is an effort to address this gap. We develop an argument for why citizens should be responsive to party cues when forming legitimacy beliefs toward IOs, and when those effects should be particularly strong. We conduct two vignette experiments in the US and Germany, focused on party cues regarding military spending on NATO and refugees accepted under the UN convention. We find that citizens draw on party cues when developing legitimacy beliefs toward IOs, but that these effects are conditioned by political context and individual characteristics. Party cue effects are stronger in the more polarized US political environment and for citizens with more positive attitudes toward international cooperation to start with.
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-ejt-10.1177_1354066121994320 for Explaining elite perceptions of ... more Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-ejt-10.1177_1354066121994320 for Explaining elite perceptions of legitimacy in global governance by Soetkin Verhaegen, Jan Aart Scholte and Jonas Tallberg in European Journal of International Relations
Over especially the past two decades, international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly ... more Over especially the past two decades, international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly transparent and open to non-state actors. How can this development be explained? What are the principal patterns in IO transparency and openness? How does transparency and openness impact on the accountability, effectiveness, and legitimacy of IOs? These are questions that are gaining increasing attention in scholarship on IOs, and the purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of this emerging field of research. The central arguments of this chapter are four-fold. First, research on transparency and openness has largely developed in response to real-world developments in global governance. As IOs have undergone a revolution in transparency and openness, scholars have sought to understand the origins of this transformation and its implications. Second, multiple theoretical approaches to the study of transparency and openness have evolved in parallel. A particular feature of the ev...
This article examines what contemporary elites think about global governance and what these attit... more This article examines what contemporary elites think about global governance and what these attitudes might bode for the future of global institutions. Evidence comes from a unique survey conducted in 2017–19 across six elite sectors (business, civil society, government bureaucracy, media, political parties, research) in six countries (Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, the United States) and a global group. Bearing in mind some notable variation between countries, elite types, issue-areas and institutions, three main interconnected findings emerge. First, in principle, contemporary leaders in politics and society hold considerable readiness to pursue global-scale governance. Today's elites are not generally in a nationalist-protectionist-sovereigntist mood. Second, in practice, these elites on average hold medium-level confidence towards fourteen current global governance institutions. This evidence suggests that, while there is at present no legitimacy cri...
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in globa... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N analysis of such commitments, building on a unique dataset on IO policy decisions over the time period 1980–2015. Distinguishing between deep norm commitment and shallow norm recognition, the analysis produces several novel findings. We establish that IOs’ deeper commitments to liberal norms primarily are driven by internal conditions: democratic memberships and institutional designs more conducive to norm entrepreneurship. In contrast, legitimacy standards in the external environment of IOs, often invoked in existing research, mainly account f...
This article addresses a significant gap in the literature on legitimacy in global governance, ex... more This article addresses a significant gap in the literature on legitimacy in global governance, exploring whether, in what ways, and to what extent institutional qualities of international organisations (IOs) matter for popular legitimacy beliefs towards these bodies. The study assesses the causal significance of procedure and performance as sources of legitimacy, unpacks these dimensions into specific institutional qualities, and offers a comparative analysis across IOs in three issue areas of global governance. Theoretically, the article disaggregates institutional sources of legitimacy to consider democratic, technocratic, and fair qualities of procedure and performance. Empirically, it examines the effects of these institutional qualities through a population-based survey experiment in four countries in different world regions with respect to IOs in economic, security, and climate governance. The findings demonstrate that both procedure- and performance-related aspects of IO poli...
While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recog... more While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recognized, conceptualized, and explained in standard accounts of international cooperation. This special issue aims to advance the empirical study of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It engages with the question of when, how, and why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO's authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then discuss sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, preview the articles of the special issue, and chart next steps for this research agenda.
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy ... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship can tell us a lot about the specific trajectories of each of these norms, we know little about the broader patterns and sources of norm adoption by international organizations (IOs). This paper offers the first comparative large-N analysis of the spread and adoption of policy norms among IOs. Theoretically, we develop a diffusion argument, focused on prior adoption of norms among peers of IOs, while also assessing the influence of independent factors. Empirically, the paper maps and explains the spread of eight policy norms across 27 IOs over the time period 1980 to 2015 based on a unique dataset. The analysis establishes that variation in norm adoption across IOs is explained mainly by a combination of three factors: the fit between an IO’s policy mandate and the norm; prior adoption of a norm by IOs in the same issue area; and prior adoption of a norm by IOs with overlapping memberships. Norm adoption clearly involves diffusion, but also strong issue area determinacy. These findings have important implications for research on norms, diffusion, and IOs.
This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct demo... more This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct democracy vs. representative democracy) on citizens' preferences toward public spending. Exogenous variation in institutions comes from a regression discontinuity design, which exploits a discrete change in the probability that a municipality has representative democracy based on a legally stipulated population threshold in the Swiss canton (state) of Vaud. Fiscal policy preferences by municipality are measured by vote shares on Swiss national referendums and initiatives that, if approved, would have increased public spending. Relative to direct democracy, representative democracy reduces vote shares in favor of spending by around 5 percentage points. The effect is not due to sorting on other observables or to feedback from changes in local policies. These findings demonstrate the importance of preferences as a channel through which political decision-making institutions can affect public policies.
Global problems—like climate change, health pandemics, financial crises, and military conflicts—d... more Global problems—like climate change, health pandemics, financial crises, and military conflicts—demand global solutions. This insight has spurred major growth of global governance over the past 75 years. Yet is this system of global governance fit for purpose in combating today’s transboundary problems? The SNS Democracy Council 2023 examines this question with a focus on three preconditions for wellfunctioning global governance: power, effectiveness, and legitimacy. This report explores these themes in a comparative perspective, analyzing a broad range of international organizations in different policy areas, with an in-depth look at global climate governance as an illustrative case. The Council concludes that contemporary global governance is unable to deliver at its full potential and outlines strategies for making global governance more fit for purpose in the future.
Global problems—like climate change, health pandemics, financial crises, and military conflicts—d... more Global problems—like climate change, health pandemics, financial crises, and military conflicts—demand global solutions. This insight has spurred major growth of global governance over the past 75 years. Yet is this system of global governance fit for purpose in combating today’s transboundary problems? The SNS Democracy Council 2023 examines this question with a focus on three preconditions for wellfunctioning global governance: power, effectiveness, and legitimacy. This report explores these themes in a comparative perspective, analyzing a broad range of international organizations in different policy areas, with an in-depth look at global climate governance as an illustrative case. The Council concludes that contemporary global governance is unable to deliver at its full potential and outlines strategies for making global governance more fit for purpose in the future
Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance offers the first full comparative study... more Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance offers the first full comparative study of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. Empirically, it provides a comprehensive analysis of public and elite opinion toward global governance, building on two uniquely coordinated surveys covering multiple countries and international organizations. Theoretically, it develops an individual-level approach, exploring how a person's characteristics in respect of socioeconomic status, political values, geographical identification, and institutional trust shape legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. The book's central findings are three-fold. First, there is a notable and general elite-citizen gap in legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. While elites on average hold moderately high levels of legitimacy toward international organizations, the general public is decidedly more skeptical. Second, individual-level differences in interests, values, identities, and trust dispositions provide significant drivers of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance, as well as the gap between them. Most important on the whole are differences in the extent to which citizens and elites trust domestic political institutions, which systematically shape how they assess the legitimacy of international organizations. Third, both patterns and sources of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs vary across organizations and countries. These variations suggest that institutional and societal contexts condition attitudes toward global governance. The book's findings shed important light on future opportunities and constraints in international cooperation, suggesting that current levels of legitimacy point neither to a general crisis of global governance nor to a general readiness for its expansion.
Once staunch advocates of international cooperation, political elites are increasingly divided ov... more Once staunch advocates of international cooperation, political elites are increasingly divided over the merits of global governance. Populist leaders attack international organizations for undermining national democracy, while mainstream politicians defend their importance for solving transboundary problems. Bridging international relations, comparative politics, and cognitive psychology, Lisa Dellmuth and Jonas Tallberg explore whether, when, and why elite communication shapes the popular legitimacy of international organizations. Based on novel theory, experimental methods, and comparative evidence, they show that elites are influential in shaping how citizens perceive global governance and explain why some elites and messages are more effective than others. The book offers fresh insights into major issues of our day, such as the rise of populism, the power of communication, the backlash against global governance, and the relationship between citizens and elites. It will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, political science, and experimental and survey research methods.
Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingl... more Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international organizations across issue areas, policy functions and world regions from 1950 to 2010. Addressing the question of where, how and why international organizations offer transnational actors access to global policy-making, this book has implications for critical issues in world politics. When do states share authority with private actors? What drives the design of international organizations? How do activists and businesses influence global politics? Is civil society involvement a solution to democratic deficits in global governance?
Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingl... more Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international organizations across issue areas, policy functions and world regions from 1950 to 2010. Addressing the question of where, how and why international organizations offer transnational actors access to global policy-making, this book has implications for critical issues in world politics. When do states share authority with private actors? What drives the design of international organizations? How do activists and businesses influence global politics? Is civil society involvement a solution to democratic deficits in global governance?
The nature of global governance is changing, as are the standards by which we judge its legitimac... more The nature of global governance is changing, as are the standards by which we judge its legitimacy. Whereas international institutions were long the exclusive preserve of national governments, the past decades have witnessed a gradual and partial shift from interstate cooperation to more complex forms of governance, involving participation by transnational actors, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), advocacy networks, party associations, philanthropic foundations, and multinational corporations. Increasingly, states and international institutions are engaging transnational actors as policy experts, service providers, compliance watchdogs, and stakeholder representatives. This volume analyzes the reasons behind, and consequences of, the growing involvement of transnational actors in established international institutions. It provides comparative analyses of varying transnational access and participation in different international organizations and issue-areas. Combining normative democratic theory and empirical research, it offers innovative interpretations of the democratic legitimacy of current arrangements.
Jonas Tallberg offers a novel perspective on some of the most fundamental questions about interna... more Jonas Tallberg offers a novel perspective on some of the most fundamental questions about international cooperation and European Union politics. In the first systematic theoretical and empirical exploration of the influence wielded by chairmen of multilateral negotiations, Tallberg develops a rationalist theory of formal leadership and demonstrates its explanatory power through carefully selected case studies of EU negotiations. His provacative analysis establishes that Presidents, while performing vital functions for the EU, simultaneously exploit their privlieged political position to favor national interests. Extending the scope of the analysis to international negotiations on trade, security and the environment, Tallberg further demonstrates that the influence of the EU Presidency is not an isolate occurrence but the expression of a general phenomenon in world politics - the power of the chair.
What drives the political and legal enforcement of member state compliance within the European Un... more What drives the political and legal enforcement of member state compliance within the European Union? European Governance and Supranational Institutions examines the role of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice in compliance politics, tracing development since the 1970s and describing strategies for strengthening the EU's enforcement system. The author shows how supranational institutions have played an independent role in the creation of a European enforcement system, which is exceptionally effective compared to that of other international organizations. This books makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of European governance. Drawing on principal-agent theory, Tallberg uses a novel principal-supervisor-agent model, specifically designed to explain strategic interaction in the enforcement phase of international cooperation. Charting previously undocumented processes, the book unveils the dynamics of compliance politics. It will appeal to all those interested in the European Union and international relations theory.
EU är en integrerad del av svenskt samhällsliv, precis som Sverige är en del av EU:s politiska sy... more EU är en integrerad del av svenskt samhällsliv, precis som Sverige är en del av EU:s politiska system. Svenska ministrar, parlamentariker, tjänstemän, intressegrupper och väljare medverkar alla på olika sätt i EU:s politiska processer, samtidigt som de beslut som fattas i något av EU:s olika organ får politiska, ekonomiska och sociala konsekvenser i Sverige.
Trots detta är det få som känner till det komplicerade maskineri som utgör EU:s politiska system. Den här boken syftar till att göra EU:s politiska maskineri begripligt. Hur fungerar egentligen EU? Vad gör EU:s olika institutioner? Vem har makt och inflytande i EU:s politiska process? Hur omsätts konkurrerande intressen i gemensam EU-politik?
Boken vänder sig främst till universitetsstuderande i ämnen med krav på en grundläggande förståelse av EU, men är även lämplig som referensverk för den svenska statsförvaltningen. Denna femte och reviderade upplaga tar även upp finanskrisens effekter för EU som politiskt system.
I denna heltäckande grundbok ges en introduktion till studiet av internationella relationer. Boke... more I denna heltäckande grundbok ges en introduktion till studiet av internationella relationer. Boken redogör för de dominerande teoretiska perspektiven inom internationella relationer, för de processer som formar den internationella fördelningen av makt och resurser, samt för de mest framträdande politikområdena i världspolitiken idag. Genom sitt breda anslag behandlar boken frågor som: Varför uppstår krig? Vad har globaliseringen för politiska effekter? Vem har makt i internationell politik? Hur kan utvecklingsländerna hävas ur fattigdom? Vilka motiv driver transnationella terroristnätverk? När har normer och internationella institutioner betydelse?
While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recog... more While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recognized, conceptualized, and explained in standard accounts of international cooperation. This special issue aims to spearhead the empirical study of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It addresses the overarching question of when, how, and why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. It engages with this question comparatively, mapping and explaining patterns in legitimacy and legitimation across multiple dimensions. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO’s authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then theorize sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, and preview the articles of the special issue in the context of the broader research problems they address.
While popular legitimacy is central to international cooperation, existing research offers few in... more While popular legitimacy is central to international cooperation, existing research offers few insights into the process by which citizens come to perceive of international organizations (IOs) as more or less legitimate. This article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the role of elite communication in shaping the popular legitimacy of IOs. We build on framing theory to develop an argument about why citizens should be susceptible to elite communication about IOs, and when those effects should be particularly strong. We empirically evaluate the causal effects of elite communication through a survey experiment conducted among almost 10,000 residents of three countries in relation to five IOs. Four principal conclusions stand out. First, elite communication affects citizens' perceptions of IO legitimacy, irrespective of whether it invokes the procedures or the performances of IOs as grounds for criticism or endorsement. Second, communication by relatively more credible elites has stronger effects on the popular legitimacy of IOs. Third, negative messages are more effective than positive messages in shaping citizens' legitimacy perceptions. Fourth, elite communication is more effective when it targets IOs with which citizens are relatively less familiar.
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy ... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence, spread, and adoption of a broad range of new policy norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship can tell us a lot about the specific trajectories of each of these norms, we know little about the broader patterns and sources of norm adoption by international organizations (IOs). This paper offers the first comparative large-N analysis of the spread and adoption of policy norms among IOs. Theoretically, we develop a diffusion argument, focused on prior adoption of norms among peers of IOs, while also assessing the influence of independent factors. Empirically, the paper maps and explains the spread of eight policy norms across 27 IOs over the time period 1980 to 2015 based on a unique dataset. The analysis establishes that variation in norm adoption across IOs is explained mainly by a combination of three factors: the fit between an IO's policy mandate and the norm; prior adoption of a norm by IOs in the same issue area; and prior adoption of a norm by IOs with overlapping memberships. Norm adoption clearly involves diffusion, but also strong issue-area determinacy. These findings have important implications for research on norms, diffusion, and IOs.
While popular legitimacy is central to international cooperation, existing research offers few in... more While popular legitimacy is central to international cooperation, existing research offers few insights into the process by which citizens come to perceive of international organizations (IOs) as legitimate or not. This paper offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the role of elite communication in shaping the popular legitimacy of IOs. We build on framing theory to develop an argument about why citizens should be susceptible to elite communication about IOs, and when those effects should be particularly strong. We empirically evaluate the impact of elite communication through a survey experiment conducted among almost 10,000 residents of three countries in relation to five IOs. Four principal conclusions stand out. First, elite communication affects citizens' perceptions of IO legitimacy, irrespective of whether it invokes the procedures or the performances of IOs as grounds for criticism or endorsement. Second, communication by relatively more credible elites has stronger effects on the popular legitimacy of IOs. Third, negative messages are more effective than positive messages in shaping citizens' legitimacy perceptions. Fourth, elite communication is more effective when it targets IOs that citizens are relatively less familiar with.
International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their capacity to adopt new... more International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their capacity to adopt new policies. While some are efficient decision-making machineries, others are plagued by gridlock. How can such variation be explained? This paper offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the decision-making capacity of IOs. Empirically, we map and evaluate the decision-making capacity of 20 IOs over the time period 1980-2015. The dataset operationalizes decision-making capacity as the annual policy output of an IO's main interstate decision-making body. Theoretically, we advance a rational institutionalist argument centered on three features of the decision-making setting: the number of states, the heterogeneity of their preferences, and the decision rules that govern policy adoption. Broadly in line with the theory, the analysis demonstrates that IOs' decision-making capacity is adversely affected by large memberships and high preference heterogeneity, and that demanding decision rules aggravate the problem of preference heterogeneity. We find no support for the realist expectation that hegemons pave the way for international cooperation, or for the constructivist expectation that attention to the number of actors and their preferences is misplaced.
International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their decisionmaking perfor... more International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their decisionmaking performance, or the extent to which they produce policy output. While some IOs are efficient decision-making machineries, others are plagued by deadlock. How can such variation be explained? Examining this question, the article makes three central contributions. First, we approach performance by looking at IO decision-making in terms of policy output and introduce an original measure of decision-making performance that captures annual growth rates in IO output. Second, we offer a novel theoretical explanation for decision-making performance. This account highlights the role of institutional design, pointing to how majoritarian decision rules, delegation of authority to supranational institutions, and access for transnational actors (TNAs) interact to affect decision-making. Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. While previous literature addresses single IOs, we explore decision-making across a broad spectrum of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. Our analysis indicates that IO decisionmaking performance varies across and within IOs. We find broad support for our theoretical account, showing the combined effect of institutional design features in shaping decision-making performance. Notably, TNA access has a positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater, and delegation has a positive effect when TNA access is higher. We also find that pooling has an independent, positive effect on decision-making performance. All-in-all, these findings suggest that the institutional design of IOs matters for their decision-making performance, primarily in more complex ways than expected in earlier research.
cholars and policy makers debate whether elites and citizens hold different views of the legitima... more cholars and policy makers debate whether elites and citizens hold different views of the legitimacy of international organizations (IOs). Until now, sparse data has limited our ability to establish such gaps and to formulate theories for explaining them. This article offers the first systematic comparative analysis of elite and citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of IOs. It examines legitimacy beliefs toward six key IOs, drawing on uniquely coordinated survey evidence from Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, and the United States. We find a notable elite-citizen gap for all six IOs, four of the five countries, and all of six different elite types. Developing an individual-level approach to legitimacy beliefs, we argue that this gap is driven by systematic differences between elites and citizens in characteristics that matter for attitudes toward IOs. Our findings suggest that deep-seated differences between elites and general publics may present major challenges for democratic and effective international cooperation.
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in globa... more Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N analysis of such commitments, building on a unique dataset on IO policy decisions over the time period 1980 to 2015. Distinguishing between deep norm commitment and shallow norm recognition, the analysis produces several novel findings. We establish that IOs' deeper commitments to liberal norms primarily are driven by internal conditions: democratic memberships and institutional designs more conducive to norm entrepreneurship. In contrast, legitimacy standards in the external environment of IOs, often invoked in existing research, mainly account for shallower recognition or "talk" of norms.
While extensive research shows that policies and institutions spread across states through proces... more While extensive research shows that policies and institutions spread across states through processes of diffusion, we know little about diffusion among international organizations (IOs). This article advances the state of the field by developing a novel approach for the study of diffusion among IOs. This approach consists of three components: a theoretical focus on connectivity among IOs as pathways for diffusion; a conceptual differentiation between alternative types of convergence effects; and a methodological strategy combining dyadic and spatial analysis of diffusion.. The article illustrates the usefulness of this approach through an empirical case: the diffusion of participatory governance arrangements among IOs, 1970-2010. The analysis shows that connectivity among IOs contributes to convergence, which typically is manifested through imitation of very specific institutional models. The article has implications both for the study of IOs and for the general study of diffusion.
This article examines the extent to which economic or political factors shaped government prefere... more This article examines the extent to which economic or political factors shaped government preferences in the reform of the Economic Monetary Union. A multilevel analysis of EU member governments’ preferences on 40 EMU reform issues negotiated between 2010 and 2015 suggests that countries’ financial sector exposure has significant explanatory power. Seeking to minimize the risk of costly bailouts, countries with highly exposed financial sectors were more likely to support solutions involving high degrees of European integration. In contrast, political factors had no systematic impact. These findings help to enhance our understanding of preference formation in the EU and the viability of future EMU reform.
This article provides a systematic assessment of bargaining success in the reform of the Eurozone... more This article provides a systematic assessment of bargaining success in the reform of the Eurozone 2010 to 2015. Theoretically, we develop an argument about preferences and institutions as determinants of bargaining success and contrast this argument with an alternative account privileging states’ power resources. Empirically, we conduct a statistical analysis of new data covering all key reform proposals. Our findings are three-fold. First, contrary to a conventional narrative of German dominance, the negotiations produced no clear winners and losers. Secondly, while power resources were of limited importance, holding preferences that were centrist or close to the European Commission favoured bargaining success—particularly when adoption only required the support of a qualified majority. Thirdly, these descriptive and explanatory results reflect dynamics of compromise and reciprocity.
Recent public opinion research has established an empirical regularity of unusual stability and s... more Recent public opinion research has established an empirical regularity of unusual stability and strength: citizen beliefs in the legitimacy of national and international institutions are highly linked. The dominant nterpretation of this link holds that citizens draw on their perceptions of national institutions as a heuristic when forming opinions about international institutions. This article proposes an alternative mechanism, privileging social trust as an antecedent factor contributing to both national and international legitimacy beliefs. Using original survey data on citizen attitudes toward four international institutions in three countries, the article provides evidence for social trust as an antecedent factor, while granting no support for the dominant nterpretation. The article suggests three broader implications: social trust has more far-reaching consequences for international cooperation than previously understood; political efforts to affect the legitimacy of international institutions are constrained by individual predispositions; and a comparative approach is central to the study of public attitudes toward international institutions.
While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recog... more While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recognized, conceptualized, and explained in standard accounts of international cooperation. This special issue aims to advance the empirical study of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It engages with the question of when, how, and why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO’s authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then discuss sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, preview the articles of the special issue, and chart next steps for this research agenda.
As political authority shifts to the global level, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) increasi... more As political authority shifts to the global level, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) increasingly attempt to influence policy-making within international organisations (IOs). This article examines the nature and sources of NGOs' advocacy strategies in global governance. We advance a twofold theoretical argument. First, NGO advocacy can be described in terms of inside and outside strategies, similar to interest group lobbying in American and European politics. Second, NGOs' chosen combination of inside and outside strategies can be explained by their organisational goals and membership base. Empirically, this argument is corroborated through a large-n analysis of original data from structured interviews with 303 NGO representatives active in relation to the United Nations (UN), complemented by 19 semi-structured interviews with UN and state officials. The article's findings have implications for the theory and practice of NGO involvement in global governance.
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Papers by Jonas Tallberg
major growth of global governance over the past 75 years. Yet is this system of global governance fit for purpose in combating today’s transboundary problems? The SNS Democracy Council 2023 examines this question with a focus on three preconditions for wellfunctioning global governance: power, effectiveness, and legitimacy. This report explores these themes in a comparative perspective, analyzing a broad range of international organizations in different policy areas, with an in-depth look at global climate governance as an illustrative case. The Council concludes that contemporary global governance is unable to deliver at its full potential and outlines strategies for making global governance more fit for purpose in the future.
major growth of global governance over the past 75 years. Yet is this system of global governance fit for purpose in combating today’s transboundary problems? The SNS Democracy Council 2023 examines this question with a focus on three preconditions for wellfunctioning global governance: power, effectiveness, and legitimacy. This report explores these themes in a comparative perspective, analyzing a broad range of international organizations in different policy areas, with an in-depth look at global climate governance as an illustrative case. The Council concludes that contemporary global governance is unable to deliver at its full potential and outlines strategies for making global governance more fit for purpose in the future
Trots detta är det få som känner till det komplicerade maskineri som utgör EU:s politiska system. Den här boken syftar till att göra EU:s politiska maskineri begripligt. Hur fungerar egentligen EU? Vad gör EU:s olika institutioner? Vem har makt och inflytande i EU:s politiska process? Hur omsätts konkurrerande intressen i gemensam EU-politik?
Boken vänder sig främst till universitetsstuderande i ämnen med krav på en grundläggande förståelse av EU, men är även lämplig som referensverk för den svenska statsförvaltningen. Denna femte och reviderade upplaga tar även upp finanskrisens effekter för EU som politiskt system.
Femte upplagan
why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. It engages with this question comparatively, mapping and explaining patterns in legitimacy and legitimation across multiple dimensions. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO’s authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then theorize sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe
the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, and preview the articles of the special issue in the context of the broader research problems they address.
2015 suggests that countries’ financial sector exposure has significant explanatory power. Seeking to minimize the risk of costly bailouts, countries with highly exposed financial sectors were more likely to support solutions involving high degrees of European integration. In
contrast, political factors had no systematic impact. These findings help to enhance our understanding of preference formation in the EU and the viability of future EMU reform.
nterpretation of this link holds that citizens draw on their perceptions of national institutions as a heuristic when forming opinions about international institutions. This article proposes an alternative mechanism, privileging social trust as an antecedent factor contributing to both national and international legitimacy beliefs. Using original survey data on citizen attitudes toward four international institutions in three countries, the article provides evidence for social trust as an antecedent factor, while granting no support for the dominant
nterpretation. The article suggests three broader implications: social trust has more far-reaching consequences for international cooperation than previously understood; political efforts to affect the legitimacy of international institutions are constrained by individual predispositions; and a comparative approach is central to the study of public attitudes
toward international institutions.
international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO’s authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then discuss sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, preview the articles of the special issue, and
chart next steps for this research agenda.