IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/revint/v15y2020i1d10.1007_s11558-018-9325-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How can international organizations shape public opinion? analysis of a pair of survey-based experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Greenhill

    (University at Albany, SUNY)

Abstract

How, and under what conditions, can International Organizations (IOs) shape public opinion? The impact of IOs on public support for war has been studied closely by international relations scholars, yet their effects on environmental or human rights issues has not. This is surprising given the extent to which the success of these initiatives will depend upon cooperation through international institutions. This article examines how IOs can influence popular support for two policies aimed at solving global collective action problems: (1) the REDD+ deforestation initiative; and (2) efforts to resettle Syrian refugees. The results presented here use a pair of survey-based experiments to test whether public support for these policies can be affected by the recommendations made by various organizations and their member states. Somewhat surprisingly, the results suggest that endorsements by the United Nations have a greater effect on the US public than do endorsements by organizations known for their technical expertise, or by prominent international NGOs. These findings call into question some of the assumptions we commonly make about the perceived legitimacy of international organizations.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Greenhill, 2020. "How can international organizations shape public opinion? analysis of a pair of survey-based experiments," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 165-188, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:revint:v:15:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11558-018-9325-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11558-018-9325-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11558-018-9325-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11558-018-9325-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garrett, Geoffrey, 1995. "The politics of legal integration in the European Union," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(01), pages 171-181, December.
    2. Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede & Ward, Michael D., 2006. "Diffusion and the International Context of Democratization," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 911-933, October.
    3. Nielson, Daniel L. & Tierney, Michael J., 2003. "Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 241-276, April.
    4. Kenneth W. Abbott & Duncan Snidal, 1998. "Why States Act through Formal International Organizations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 42(1), pages 3-32, February.
    5. Mcentire, Kyla Jo & Leiby, Michele & Krain, Matthew, 2015. "Human Rights Organizations as Agents of Change: An Experimental Examination of Framing and Micromobilization," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(3), pages 407-426, August.
    6. Gourevitch, Peter, 1978. "The second image reversed: the international sources of domestic politics," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 881-912, October.
    7. Thompson, Alexander, 2006. "Coercion Through IOs: The Security Council and the Logic of Information Transmission," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, January.
    8. Chapman, Terrence L., 2009. "Audience Beliefs and International Organization Legitimacy," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 733-764, October.
    9. Tana Johnson, 2011. "Guilt by association: The link between states’ influence and the legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 57-84, March.
    10. Simmons, Beth A. & Elkins, Zachary, 2004. "The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(1), pages 171-189, February.
    11. Terrence L. Chapman, 2007. "International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics, and Institutional Legitimacy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(1), pages 134-166, February.
    12. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    13. Burley, Anne-Marie & Mattli, Walter, 1993. "Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 41-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen & Hans H. Tung & Chien-Huei Wu & Wen-Chin Wu, 2023. "WHO approves? Relative trust, the WHO, and China’s COVID-19 vaccines," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 499-521, July.
    2. Terrence L. Chapman & Huimin Li, 2023. "Can IOs influence attitudes about regulating “Big Tech”?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 725-751, October.
    3. Inken Borzyskowski & Felicity Vabulas, 2024. "Public support for withdrawal from international organizations: Experimental evidence from the US," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 809-845, October.
    4. Joshua Alley, 2023. "Elite Cues and Public Attitudes Towards Military Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 67(7-8), pages 1537-1563, August.
    5. Christoph Mikulaschek, 2023. "The responsive public: How European Union decisions shape public opinion on salient policies," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 645-665, December.
    6. Asif Efrat & Omer Yair, 2023. "International rankings and public opinion: Compliance, dismissal, or backlash?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 607-629, October.
    7. Ryan Brutger & Richard Clark, 2023. "At what cost? Power, payments, and public support of international organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 431-465, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dreher, Axel & Sturm, Jan-Egbert & Vreeland, James Raymond, 2009. "Global horse trading: IMF loans for votes in the United Nations Security Council," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 742-757, October.
    2. Darren Hawkins & Wade Jacoby, 2008. "Agent permeability, principal delegation and the European Court of Human Rights," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, March.
    3. Carsten Hefeker & Michael Neugart, 2016. "Policy deviations, uncertainty, and the European Court of Justice," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 547-567, December.
    4. Besir Ceka and Brian Burgo, 2014. "Discovering Cooperation: A Contractual Approach to Institutional Change in Regional International Organizations," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers p0388, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    5. Hicks, Robert L. & Parks, Bradley C. & Tierney, Michael J., 2005. "Explaining the Allocation of Bilateral and Multilateral Environmental Aid to Developing Countries," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19346, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Kenneth Abbott & Duncan Snidal, 2010. "International regulation without international government: Improving IO performance through orchestration," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 315-344, September.
    7. Gunitsky, Seva, 2014. "From Shocks to Waves: Hegemonic Transitions and Democratization in the Twentieth Century," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(3), pages 561-597, July.
    8. Michal Parízek, 2017. "Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations staffing," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 559-583, December.
    9. Christian Houle & Mark A. Kayser, 2019. "The Two-step Model of Clustered Democratization," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(10), pages 2421-2437, November.
    10. Martin Gassebner & Michael J. Lamla & James Raymond Vreeland, 2013. "Extreme Bounds of Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(2), pages 171-197, April.
    11. Michael W. Manulak, 2017. "Leading by design: Informal influence and international secretariats," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 497-522, December.
    12. Samuel Brazys & Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Tianyang Song, 2019. "Which Wheel Gets the Grease? Constituent Agency and Sub-national World Bank Aid Allocation," Working Papers 201907, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    13. Susanne K. Schmidt, 2000. "Only an Agenda Setter?," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 37-61, February.
    14. Nicolas Lampach & Arthur Dyevre, 2020. "Choosing for Europe: judicial incentives and legal integration in the European Union," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 65-86, August.
    15. Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt, 2018. "Self-legitimation in the face of politicization: Why international organizations centralized public communication," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 519-546, December.
    16. Wolf, Sebastian, 2011. "Euratom Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Non-Integration," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 15, December.
    17. M. Rodwan Abouharb & David Cingranelli & Mikhail Filippov, 2019. "Too Many Cooks: Multiple International Principals Can Spoil the Quality of Governance," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-22, May.
    18. Iftikhar Lodhi, 2021. "Globalisation and public policy: bridging the disciplinary and epistemological boundaries [Which synthesis? Strategies of theoretical integration and the neorealist-neoliberal debate]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 40(4), pages 522-544.
    19. Ryan Federo & Angel Saz-Carranza, 2017. "Devising Strategic Plans to improve Organizational Performance of Intergovernmental Organizations," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(2), pages 202-212, May.
    20. Baccini, Leonardo, 2012. "Democratization and trade policy: an empirical analysis of developing countries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 44924, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human rights; Environment; Deforestation; Refugees; UN; OECD;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:revint:v:15:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11558-018-9325-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.