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

Brian Greenhill ()
Additional contact information
Brian Greenhill: University at Albany, SUNY

The Review of International Organizations, 2020, vol. 15, issue 1, No 6, 165-188

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Human rights; Environment; Deforestation; Refugees; UN; OECD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F53 L31 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11558-018-9325-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:revint:v:15:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11558-018-9325-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... iology/journal/11558

DOI: 10.1007/s11558-018-9325-4

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of International Organizations is currently edited by A. Dreher

More articles in The Review of International Organizations from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().