Crisis affectedness, elite cues and IO public legitimacy

Bernd Schlipphak (), Paul Meiners and Osman Sabri Kiratli
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Bernd Schlipphak: University of Muenster
Paul Meiners: University of Muenster
Osman Sabri Kiratli: Bogazici University

The Review of International Organizations, 2022, vol. 17, issue 4, No 8, 877-898

Abstract: Abstract What effects do international crises have on the public legitimacy of International Organizations (IOs)? Deviating from previous research, we argue that such crises make those international organizations more salient that are mandated to solve the respective crisis. This results in two main effects. First, the public legitimacy of those IOs becomes more dependent on citizens’ crisis-induced worries, leading to a more positive view of those IOs. Second, as the higher salience also leads to higher levels of elite communication regarding IOs, elite blaming of the IOs during crises results in direct negative effects on public legitimacy beliefs on IOs. Finally, both the valence and content of the elite discourse additionally moderate the positive effects of crisis-induced worries. Implementing survey experiments on public legitimacy beliefs on the WHO during the COVID-19 crisis with about 4400 respondents in Austria, Germany and Turkey, we find preliminary evidence for the expectations derived from our salience argument. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for future research on IO legitimacy and IO legitimation.

Keywords: IO legitimacy; Public legitimacy; International crisis; Elite cues; Survey experiment; Public opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s11558-021-09452-y

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