Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

At what cost? Power, payments, and public support of international organizations

  • Published:
The Review of International Organizations Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The drivers of public support for international organizations (IOs) are multifaceted and contested. Focusing on the US, we argue that citizens weigh elite cues about the financial burden associated with funding IOs and the influence over IOs that such funding yields. Moreover, we identify political ideology as a powerful moderator – theorizing that conservatives should respond more positively to cues about US influence and more negatively to cues about financial costs than liberals. We find support for the core theory, but also counterintuitively find that the negative effect of the cost treatment manifests primarily amongst liberals as opposed to conservatives. A second, pre-registered experiment reveals that conservatives support increasing funding to IOs to secure US influence, and may even support increasing taxes to do so, especially when cued by a co-partisan. By contrast, liberals who learn that funding provides influence prefer to cut funding to IOs, even when cued by a co-partisan.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

The dataset generated by the survey research analyzed for the current study are available in the Dataverse repository and the Review of International Organizations’ webpage.

Notes

  1. Morse (2014), Greenhill (2020), Keohane (1984), Abbott and Snidal (1998), Hurd (1999), Martens et al. (2002), Barrett (2005), Milner (2006), Carnegie (2015), and Carnegie and Carson (2019).

  2. As quoted in (Milner & Dustin, 2012, 3).

  3. Morse (2014).

  4. Urpelainen and Van de Graaf (2015) and Pratt (2021).

  5. Morse (2014) and Clark (2022).

  6. von Borzyskowski and Vabulas (2019) and Carnegie et al. (2021).

  7. Guisinger and Saunders (2017), Voeten (2020), and Kaya et al. (2020).

  8. Guisinger and Saunders (2017) suggest that elite cues can drive a convergence between elite and mass opinion, while (Dellmuth et al., 2021) argue that individual-level differences between elites and the masses impede such a convergence.

  9. See Rho (2017) on trade liberalization; Heinrich et al. (2016) and Hurst et al. (2017) on foreign aid.

  10. See Buchanan and Keohane (2006), Dellmuth and Scholte (2018), and Dellmuth and Tallberg (2019) on legitimacy beliefs; Schlipphak et al. (2022) on IO salience; Kiratli (2021) on economic expectations and support for IOs.

  11. Zaller (1992) and Lenz (2012).

  12. Data from the Chicago Council’s Worldviews 2002 Report and Global Views poll from 2008 suggest these figures are broadly consistent with past decades.

  13. See von Borzyskowski and Vabulas (2019) and Carnegie et al. (2021). Though also see (Walter, 2021), who argues there is little evidence of a globalization backlash in opinion polls.

  14. Andersen et al. (2006).

  15. Clark and Dolan (2021).

  16. Kilby (2009) and Kersting and Kilby (2016).

  17. See Johnston (2008) and Ikenberry (2011).

  18. Jones (2018). Brutger and Morse (2015) also show that the US receives less onerous compliance burdens through the WTO.

  19. For related work on how ideology and elite rhetoric shape public attitudes toward the international order, see Lee and Prather (2020).

  20. Shendruk, Amandam, Laura Hillard, and Diana Roy. “Funding the United Nations.” Council on Foreign Relations. June 8, 2020. http://on.cfr.org/3odpzxs.

  21. Browne, Ryan. “Trump Administration to Cut its Financial Contribution to NATO.” CNN. November 28, 2019. https://cnn.it/3cuIKx4. Also see “Brazil’s President Says NGO Funding will be Tightly Controlled.” Reuters. January 7, 2019. https://reut.rs/2T2tvnk on Brazilian President Bolsonaro, who has made similar statements.

  22. Drezner (2008).

  23. This is consistent with the findings of Kiratli (2020), who argues that people may be particuarly dissatisfied when there is a gap between economic expectations and the perceived utility of IOs, which is especially pronounced for voters in countries that contribute more to IOs.

  24. Our samples are are broadly representative based on education, income, gender, and age, as shown in Table A5.

  25. Hurst et al. (2017).

  26. E.g., De Vries (2018), Schneider (2019), and Kiratli (2021).

  27. E.g., Buchanan and Keohane (2006) and Dellmuth and Scholte (2018).

  28. See De Vries et al. (2021) on international instititons and Rho (2017) on trade, for instance.

  29. Milner and Dustin (2012), Gray (2018), and Tallberg and Zürn (2019).

  30. Cassata, Donna. “Seeking Showdown With Clinton, Gingrich Gets One With GOP.” CNN. March 18, 1998. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/18/cq/foreign.policy.html

  31. Webb, Whitney. “Leaked WikiLeaks Doc Reveals US Military Use of IMF, World Bank.” Mint News. February 7, 2019. https://bit.ly/3aMvna5

  32. Mutz and Kim (2017).

  33. Brutger and Rathbun (2021).

  34. Milner and Dustin (2012). While Milner and Tingley argue that publics prefer bilateral solutions to multilateral ones when they desire control, powerful states may possess comparable influence over IOs in some cases while yielding other benefits, such as a veil of legitimacy.

  35. For example, Rathbun et al. (2016).

  36. Dellmuth and Scholte (2018).

  37. Rathbun (2007).

  38. Schwartz (2012). Also see Rathbun et al. (2016).

  39. Brutger (2021).

  40. Brutger and Li (2022) and Casler and Groves (2021).

  41. Rathbun (2007).

  42. Hermann (1990) and Voss and Post (1988).

  43. Brutger and Kertzer (2018).

  44. Rathbun (2007).

  45. Barnea and Schwartz (1998), Hiel and Mervielde (2002), and Kugler et al. (2014).

  46. Rathbun (2007).

  47. Jost (2017).

  48. Casler and Groves (2021).

  49. We use social values theory to predict heterogenous effects across ideology (and partisanship), since ideology and partisanship are some of the most salient dimensions guiding the formation of political coalitions and the policy making process. While we could have attempted to directly measure core values, we follow recent scholarship, such as Brutger (2021) and Casler and Groves (2021), by focusing on the politically salient dimensions that are likely to be more meaningful to political audiences. For example, policy advisors and politicians seeking to build a domestic coalition are likely to ask whether liberals, moderates, and/or conservatives will support a policy, or in the American context whether Democrats and/or Republicans will support a policy. However, it is quite unlikely that political actors will consider whether individuals who are high or low in specific values, such as self-transcendence values, are likely to support or oppose a policy.

  50. As these examples suggest, the US is the largest contributor to organizations with various institutional design features. This logic then is not specific to any one voting scheme or governance framework.

  51. See e.g. Trump on NATO and the WHO — Browne, Ryan. “Trump Administration to Cut its Financial Contribution to NATO.” CNN. November 28, 2019. https://cnn.it/3cuIKx4

  52. Cassata, Donna. “Seeking Showdown With Clinton, Gingrich Gets One With GOP.” CNN. March 18, 1998. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/18/cq/foreign.policy.html

  53. Ibid.

  54. The experiment was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of California, Berkeley, under protocol 2019-07-12427.

  55. E.g., Clark and Dolan (2021).

  56. Smith, R. Jeffrey. “Republicans Seek to Curb UN Funding.” Washington Post. January 23, 1995. https://wapo.st/3jrktdH; “Trump Calls for World Bank to Stop Loaning to China.” Reuters. December 6, 2019. https://reut.rs/3iR3T7b

  57. See Guisinger and Saunders (2017) on elite cues and international issues.

  58. For examples of publications in leading political science journals using Dynata (SSI) studies, see e.g. Brutger and Kertzer (2018), Brutger and Strezhnev (2022), and Bush and Prather (2020). We discuss ethics and human subjects principles in detail in Appendix §8. The Appendix is available on the Review of International Organizations’ webpage.

  59. For descriptive statistics and respondents per treatment, see Appendix Tables A3 and A4. For respondent screening procedures, see Appendix §2.1.

  60. See Appendix Table A1.

  61. See Appendix Table A5.

  62. See Brutger et al. (2022), which shows that salient cue-givers can generate larger treatment effects.

  63. We specifically make use of IO mandates from their founding documents and websites.

  64. As shown below, the influence treatments specify the formal rules that give control through the ability to veto, which allow the US to exert significant influence. This means that the treatment potentially combines public concerns about control and influence in IOs, which is representative of how the issues are frequently discussed by the media and elites, and is appropriate given the close connection between control and influence. For more on state influence and control in IOs, see Novosad and Werker (2014) and Stone (2011).

  65. News coverage similarly juxtaposes discussions of US influence with cost considerations – see e.g. Harris, Gardiner. “Trump Administration Withdraws US From U.N. Human Rights Council.” New York Times. June 19, 2018. https://nyti.ms/3e7vK15; Armus, Teo. “Trump Threatens to Permanently Cut WHO Funding.” May 19, 2020. Washington Post. https://wapo.st/2Y3R9CC.

  66. See Brutger et al. (2022), which finds that longer treatment text reduces the size of average treatment effects.

  67. We randomized whether respondents who received this treatment received the influence or cost condition first.

  68. These results also hold when we include socio-demographic covariates (Appendix Table A7).

  69. The measure of ideology and a discussion of its use is provided in Appendix §2.4

  70. In the subset analysis, each respondent is coded as liberal if they selected “slightly liberal,” “liberal,” or “extremely liberal” with conservatives coded in the corresponding manner.

  71. With respondents’ stronger priors toward the UN, we also recognize that conservatives have become muchmore negative toward the UN, especially since the 9/11 attacks (Pushter, 2016).

  72. See e.g. Mutz (2020) on trust in IOs, Hurd (1999), Tallberg and Zürn (2019), and Dellmuth and Tallberg (2019) on legitimacy, and Bechtel and Scheve (2013) and Brutger and Rathbun (2021) on fairness in international climate and economic policy.

  73. We randomized the order of the main dependent variable and the potential mediators, as recommended.

  74. Dellmuth and Scholte (2018).

  75. Brutger and Rathbun (2021).

  76. Brutger and Rathbun (2021).

  77. Dellmuth and Scholte (2018).

  78. See Imai et al. (2011) and Keele (2015).

  79. Once again, we re-scale the seven-point conservatism variable to a 0-1 scale for ease of interpretation.

  80. Notably, the average fairness, legitimacy, and trust values are much higher for liberals than conservatives. Specifically, liberals average 3.64, 3.45, and 3.91 out of five for fairness, trust, and legitimacy respectively, while conservatives average 3.10, 2.91, and 3.23.

  81. Had we directly measured whether individuals place a higher value on equality versus equity, we would have likely found a larger negative effect of the influence treatment on those who prioritize equality. This means that the potential bias of proxying for core values with ideology may lead to our estimates being relatively conservative, since ideology is not as precise a measure of the underlying value.

  82. Jost (2017).

  83. Our sample is balanced on key observables, as is shown in Appendix Figure A8. To enhance data quality we implemented a series of respondent screening questions and procedures, which we detail in the Appendix Section 6.1, along with a discussion of some of the strengths and limitations of the sample. Descriptive statistics for the sample can be found in Appendix Table A9. Comparisons to Census benchmarks can be found in Table A5.

  84. Cassata, Donna. “Seeking Showdown With Clinton, Gingrich Gets One With GOP.” CNN. March 18, 1998. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/18/cq/foreign.policy.html

  85. House Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Related Agencies, Foreign Assistance and Related Programs Appropriations for 1982: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, 97th Congress, First Session.

  86. Hennigan, W.J. “We Reject Globalism: President Trump Took American First to the United Nations.” Time. September 25, 2018. https://bit.ly/3Bo85UO

  87. Schlipphak et al. (2022)

  88. Brutger (2021).

  89. Brewer (2001) and Druckman (2001)

  90. See e.g., Zaller (1992).

  91. See e.g., Hiscox (2006).

  92. See e.g. Cassata, Donna. “Seeking Showdown With Clinton, Gingrich Gets One With GOP.” CNN. March 18, 1998. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/18/cq/foreign.policy.html and the 2018 US budgetary documents at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2018-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2018-BUD.pdf.

  93. Since the survey provided information about funding departments (Defense, Education, Transportation, etc.) we felt that the most similar comparison was to include funding for the State Department and related foreign policy allocations, as opposed to the specific line-item for the IO funding.

  94. See Ibid p. 50.

  95. The results broken down by IO can be found in Appendix Figures A1–A2, and they remain generally consistent with the aggregate results.

  96. We tuned the models to ensure that exclusivity and semantic coherence were high. For democrats, we run the model with six topics. For republicans, we run it with five topics.

  97. Guisinger and Saunders (2017).

  98. Dellmuth et al. (2021).

  99. See e.g. Stone (2011), Clark and Dolan (2021), Kaya (2015), and Clark (2021).

  100. See Barnett (1999) and Johnson (2014).

  101. See e.g., Pratt (2021) and Gray (2018).

  102. See Brooks (2008) and Ikenberry (2011).

  103. See Zvogbo (2019), Kaya et al. (2020), and Voeten (2020) respectively.

  104. See Voeten (2005), Greenhill (2020), and Brutger (2021).

  105. See Kilby (2011) and Lim and Vreeland (2013).

  106. See Brutger et al. (2022).

References

  • Abbott, K. W., & Snidal, D. (1998). Why states act through formal international organizations. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42(1), 3–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andersen, T. B., Hansen, H., & Markussen, T. (2006). US Politics and World Bank IDA-lending. The Journal of Development Studies, 42(5), 772–794.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnea, M. F, & Schwartz, S. H (1998). Values and voting. Political Psychology, 19(1), 17–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, M. N. (1999). Martha finnemore the politics, power, and pathologies of international organizations. International Organization, 53(4), 699–732.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, S. (2005). Environment and statecraft: The strategy of environmental Treaty-Making Oxford. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bechtel, M. M, & Scheve, K. F (2013). Mass support for global climate agreements depends on institutional design. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(34), 13763–13768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer, P. R. (2001). Value words and lizard brains: Do citizens deliberate about appeals to their core values?. Political Psychology, 22(1), 45–64. 10.1111/0162-895X.00225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, S. G. (2008). William curti wohlforth world out of balance: International relations and the challenge of american primacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brutger, R. (2021). The power of compromise: Proposal power, partisanship, and public support in international bargaining. World Politics, 73(1), 128–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brutger, R., & Strezhnev, A. (2022). International investment disputes, media coverage, and backlash against international law. Journal of Conflict Resolution, https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221081925.

  • Brutger, R., & Rathbun, B. (2021). Fair share? Equality and equity in American attitudes toward trade. International Organization, 75(3), 880–900.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brutger, R., & Kertzer, J. D (2018). A dispositional theory of reputation costs. International Organization, 72(3), 693–724.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brutger, R., Kertzer, J. D., Renshon, J., Tingley, D., & Weiss, C. M. (2022). Abstraction and detail in experimental design. American Journal of Political Science, Forthcoming.

  • Brutger, R., & Morse, J. C (2015). Balancing law and politics: Judicial incentives in WTO dispute settlement. The Review of International Organizations, 10(2), 179–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brutger, R., & Li, S. (2022). Institutional design, information transmission, and public opinion: making the case for trade. Journal of Conflict Resolution. FirstView.

  • Buchanan, A., & Keohane, R. O. (2006). The legitimacy of global governance institutions. Ethics and International Affairs, 20(4), 405–437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bush, S. S., & Prather, L. (2020). Foreign meddling and mass attitudes toward international economic engagement. International Organization, 74(3), 584–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carnegie, A. (2015). Power plays: How international institutions reshape coercive diplomacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carnegie, A., & Carson, A. (2019). The disclosure dilemma: Nuclear intelligence and international organizations. American Journal of Political Science, 63(2).

  • Carnegie, A., Clark, R., & Zucker, N. (2021). Global governance under populism: the challenge of information suppression. Working paper. https://bit.ly/3y3uw12.

  • Casler, D., & Groves, D. (2021). In Perspective taking through partisan eyes. International Political Economy Society. https://www.internationalpoliticaleconomysociety.org/sites/default/files/paper-uploads/2021-10-14-00_10_16-caslerdon@gmail.com.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct 2022.

  • Chaudoin, S., Livny, A., & Gaines, B. (2019). Survey design, order effects and causal mediation analysis. Working Paper. http://www.stephenchaudoin.com/cma_cgl.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct 2022.

  • Clark, R. (2021). Pool or Duel? Cooperation and competition among international organizations. International Organization, 75, 1133–1153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, R. (2022). Bargain down or shop around? Outside options and IMF conditionality. Journal of Politics, Forthcoming. https://bit.ly/34C6f83.

  • Clark, R., & Dolan, L. (2021). Pleasing the principal: U.S. Influence in World Bank policymaking. American Journal of Political Science, 65(1), 36–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vries, C. E. (2018). Euroscepticism and the future of the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Vries, C. E., Hobolt, S. B, & Walter, S. (2021). Politicizing international cooperation: The mass public, political entrepreneurs, and political opportunity structures. International Organization, 75(2), 306–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dellmuth, L., Scholte, J. A., Tallberg, J., & Verhaegen, S. (2021). The elite-citizen gap in international organization legitimacy. American Political Science Review. Forthcoming.

  • Dellmuth, L. M., & Scholte, J. P. (2018). Individual Sources of Legitimacy Beliefs: Theory and Data. In Jonas Tallberg Karin Bäckstrand (Eds.) Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Dellmuth, L. M., Tallberg, J., & Scholte, J. A. (2019). Institutional sources of legitimacy for international organisations: Beyond procedure versus performance. Review of International Studies, 45(4), 627–646.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drezner, D. W. (2008). The realist tradition in American public opinion. Perspectives on Politics, 6(1), 51–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Druckman, J. N. (2001). On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? Journal of Politics, 63(4), 1041–1066. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghassim, F. (2022). The effects of self-legitimation and delegitimation on public attitudes toward international organizations: A worldwide survey experiment. Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Conference.

  • Goren, P., Schoen, H., Reifler, J., Scotto, T., & Chittick, W. (2016). A unified theory of value-based reasoning and US public opinion. Political Behavior, 38(4), 977–997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, J. (2018). Life, Death, or Zombie? The Vitality of International Organizations. International Studies Quarterly, 62(1), 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenhill, B. (2020). How can international organizations shape public opinion? Analysis of a pair of Survey-Based experiments. The Review of International Organizations, 15(3), 165–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guisinger, A., & Saunders, E. (2017). Mapping the boundaries of elite cues: How elites shape mass opinion across international issues. International Studies Quarterly, 61(3), 425–441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heinrich, T., Kobayashi, Y., & Bryant, K. A. (2016). Public opinion and foreign aid cuts in economic crises. World Development, 77, 66–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hermann, C. F. (1990). Changing course: When governments choose to redirect foreign policy. International Studies Quarterly, 34(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hiel, A. V., & Mervielde, I. (2002). Explaining conservative beliefs and political preferences: A comparison of social dominance orientation and authoritarianism. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32(5), 965–976.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hiscox, M. J. (2006). Through a glass and darkly: Attitudes toward international trade and the curious effects of issue framing. International Organization, 60(3), 755–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurd, I. (1999). Legitimacy and authority in international politics. International Organization, 53(2), 379–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurst, R., Tidwell, T., & Hawkins, D. (2017). Down the rathole? Public support for US foreign aid. International Studies Quarterly, 61(2), 442–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ikenberry, J. G. (2011). Crisis of the world order. In liberal leviathan: The origins, crisis, and transformation of the American world order, 1–32.

  • Imai, K., Keele, L., Tingley, D., & Yamamoto, T. (2011). Unpacking the black box of causality: Learning about causal mechanisms from experimental and observational studies. American Political Science Review, 105(4), 765–789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, T. (2011). Guilt by association: The link between states’ influence and the legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations. The Review of International Organizations, 6(1), 57–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, T. (2014). Organizational progeny: Why governments are losing control over the proliferating structures of global governance. Transformations in governance. Oxford University Press.

  • Johnston, A. I. (2008). Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980-2000. Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, B. (2018). American Sovereignty Is Safe From the UN. Foreign Affairs.

  • Jost, J. T. (2017). Ideological asymmetries and the essence of political psychology. Political Psychology, 38(2), 167–208. 10.1111/pops.12407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaya, A. (2015). Power and Global Economic Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kaya, A., Handlin, S., & Gunaydin, H. (2020). Populism and Voter Attitudes Toward International Organizations: Cross-Country and Experimental Evidence on the International Monetary Fund. Political Economy of International Organization Annual Meeting 2020. https://bit.ly/3hqfdXy.

  • Keele, L. (2015). Causal mediation analysis: Warning! Assumptions ahead. American Journal of Evaluation, 36(4), 500–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keohane, R. O. (1984). After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kersting, E., & Kilby, C. (2016). With a little help from my friends: Global electioneering and World Bank lending. Journal of Development Economics, 121, 153–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilby, C. (2009). The political economy of conditionality: An empirical analysis of World Bank loan disbursements. Journal of Development Economics, 89(1), 51–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilby, C. (2011). Informal influence in the Asian development bank. The Review of International Organizations, 6(3-4), 223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kiratli, O. S. (2020). Together or not? Dynamics of public attitudes on UN and NATO. Political Studies, 0032321720956326.

  • Kiratli, O. S. (2021). Politicization of aiding others: The impact of migration on european public opinion of development aid. Journal of Common Market Studies, 59(1), 53–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kugler, M., Jost, J. T, & Noorbaloochi, S. (2014). Another look at moral foundations theory: Do authoritarianism and social dominance orientation explain liberal-conservative differences in “moral” intuitions?. Social Justice Research, 27(4), 413–431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, M., & Prather, L. (2020). Selling international law enforcement: elite justifications and public values. Research and Politics Forthcoming.

  • Lenz, G. S. (2012). Follow the leader? how voters respond to politicians’ policies and performance. In Chicago studies in American politics Chicago. London: The University of Chicago Press.

  • Lim, D. Y. M., & Vreeland, J. R. (2013). Regional organizations and international politics: Japanese influence over the asian development bank and the UN security council. World Politics, 65(1), 34–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martens, B., Mummert, U., Murrell, P., & Seabright, P. (2002). The institutional economics of foreign aid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Milner, H. V. (2006). Why multilateralism? foreign aid and domestic Principal-Agent problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Milner, H. V., & Dustin, H. (2012). Tingley the choice for multilateralism: Foreign aid and american foreign policy. Review of International Orgnanizations, 8(3), 313–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morse, J. C. (2014). Robert keohane contested multilateralism. Review of International Organizations, 9(4), 385–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mutz, D. C. (2020). Institute for the study of citizens and politics panel study, 2016-2020. https://asc.upenn.edu/research/research-centers/institute-study-citizens-and-politics. Accessed 1 Oct 2022.

  • Mutz, D. C, & Kim, E. (2017). How ingroup favoritism affects trade preferences. International Organization, 71(4), 827–850.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Novosad, P., & Werker, E. (2014). Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat.

  • Pratt, T. (2021). Angling for influence: Institutional proliferation in development banking. International Studies Quarterly, 65(1), 95–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pushter, J. (2016). Favorable views of the UN prevail in Europe, Asia and U.S. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/20/favorable-views-of-the-un-prevail-in-europe-asia-and-u-s/.

  • Rathbun, B. C. (2007). Hierarchy and community at home and abroad: Evidence of a common structure of domestic and foreign policy beliefs in american elites. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51(3), 379–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rathbun, B., Kertzer, J. D., Reifler, J., Goren, P., & Scotto, T. J. (2016). Taking foreign policy preferences seriously: Personal values and foreign policy attitudes. International Studies Quarterly, 60(1), 124–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rho, Sungmin & Michael T. (2017). Why don’t trade preferences reflect economic self-interest? International Organization, 71(S1), S85–S108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheve, Kenneth & David S. (2016). Taxing the rich. In Taxing the Rich. Princeton University Press.

  • Schlipphak, B., Meiners, P., & Kiratli, O. S. (2022). Crisis Affectedness, Elite Cues and IO Legitimacy. Review of International Organizations, Forthcoming.

  • Schneider, C. J. (2019). The responsive union: National elections and European governance. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), 2307–0919. https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, R. W. (2011). Controlling institutions: International organizations and the global economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tallberg, J., & Zürn, M. (2019). The legitimacy and legitimation of international organizations: introduction and framework. Review of International Organizations, 581–606.

  • Urpelainen, J., & Van de Graaf, T. (2015). Your place or mine? Institutional capture and the creation of overlapping international institutions. British Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 799–827.

  • Voeten, E. (2005). The political origins of the UN Security Council’s ability to legitimate the use of force. International Organization, 59(3), 527–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voeten, E. (2020). Populism and backlashes against international courts. Perspectives on Politics, 18(2), 693–724.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Borzyskowski, I., & Vabulas, F. (2019). Hello, Goodbye: When Do States Withdraw from International Organizations? Review of International Organizations, 14(2), 335–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voss, J. F., & Post, T. A. (1988). On the Solving of Ill-structured Problems. In M. H. Chi, R. Glaser, & M. J. Farr (Eds.) The Nature of Expertise (pp. 261-285). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

  • Walter, S. (2021). The backlash against globalization. Annual Review of Political Science, 24, 421–442.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zaller, J. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge [England]. Cambridge University Press.

  • Zvogbo, K. (2019). Human rights versus national interests: Shifting US public attitudes on the international criminal court. International Studies Quarterly, 63(4), 1065–1078.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Don Casler, Lisa Dellmuth, Lindsay Dolan, Noel Johnston, Julia Morse, Tyler Pratt, Jonas Tallberg, Felicity Vabulas, and Noah Zucker for helpful comments on previous drafts. We also thank participants at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and 2021 Annual Meetings of the International Studies Association and Political Economy of International Organization conference for constructive feedback. All remaining errors are our own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Ryan Brutger

  2. Department of Government, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

    Richard Clark

Authors
  1. Ryan Brutger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Richard Clark
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Author contributions to research design, analysis, and writing: R.B. 50%, R.C. 50%. The order of the authors is alphabetical.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Clark.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interests

The authors are not aware of any conflicts of interest related to this research project. The research conducted here complies with the American Political Science Association’s Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research. The research was approved by the IRB at the University of California, Berkeley under protocol 2019-07-12427.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Axel Dreher

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (PDF 218 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Brutger, R., Clark, R. At what cost? Power, payments, and public support of international organizations. Rev Int Organ 18, 431–465 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-022-09479-9

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-022-09479-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation