Public Demand for the Democratization of International Organizations

• In Event: Public Opinion About International Events and Organizations

Abstract

While a now extensive amount of research attempts to explain the adoption of democratic procedures by IOs across issue areas, the mass public’s attitudes towards such a move are less studied. Who amongst the publics worldwide call for and welcome the IOs’ move towards more democratic governance?

The latest wave of the World Value Survey (WVS, 2017-2020) newly introduced a question that allows us to gauge mass attitudes to IO democracy. The question reads as follows: “Nowadays there’s a lot of talk about international organizations. People sometimes say that international organizations should prioritize improving people’s lives, even if this may imply that decisions are not made democratically. What do you think should international organizations prioritize, being effective or being democratic?” Our preliminary analysis covering over 40 countries and more than 60,000 individuals finds that while 1) individuals across the globe differ significantly in their prioritization between IO’s procedural democracy and functional efficiency, 2) neither regime type (citizens in democracy vs. autocracy) nor the wealth of nations (citizens in developing vs. developed countries) seems to explain the variation. Why then do some people demand greater democracy in international organizations (IOs)’ decision making while others care more about their functional effectiveness?

Acknowledging that most citizens typically have limited knowledge of IOs and do not have well-developed attitudes towards them, we begin by discussing how lay individuals might interpret IO democracy. We suggest that individuals understand and interpret IO democracy in two distinct perspectives depending on the social context. The first perspective concerns citizen representation in IOs. IOs should be open to citizens (via NGOs and civil society participation) and responsive to citizen preferences rather than allowing the elites to make all important decisions. The second perspective focuses on national representation. IOs should fairly represent all member countries, rather than allowing some powerful member states to make all important decision.

We derive our expectations about public demand for IO from both of the perspectives. From the first perspective (i.e., citizen representation in IO), we posit that individuals who value active civic participation in domestic governance will also prioritize IO democracy. This is because individuals are expected to extrapolate their values in domestic governance to international governance. In addition, particularly for the citizens of democratic regimes, we expect that their perceived democratic deficit drives higher demand for IO democracy. That is, IO democracy will be sought by citizens as a remedy for their own countries’ failure to fully accommodate citizen preferences in decision-making. These dissatisfied citizens are likely to demand for substantive democracy, and such an attitude, again, can be extrapolated to the level of IO governance.

From the second perspective (i.e., national representation in IOs), citizens demand for IO democracy would be driven primarily based on their country’s under-representation and a desire for enhanced representation in the decision-making procedures of IO. In general, citizens do not have full knowledge or information regarding the membership or voting-related rules of IOs. However, there are many information shortcuts available to assess their country’s visibility such as their co-national being the head of major IOs or the headquarters of major IOs being located in their country. These shortcuts allow the ill-informed citizens to build idea on their national representation. Thus, we expect citizens of the countries less visible in major IOs to demand greater IO democracy. Also, we expect those citizens who have high confidence in their national democracy and national government to exhibit greater demand for IO democracy. This is because by enhancing the representation of their trustworthy national government, citizens might expect the IO to become more trustworthy.

We test these expectations using the data from the latest wave of WVS (2017-2020). The sample includes the publics of over 40 countries encompassing both advanced democracies such as the U.S. and Germany to authoritarian developing countries such as Iraq and the Philippines. We are in the process of refining our expectations and developing fine-grained indicators to measure relevant concepts.

Authors

• Hyo Won Lee, Incheon National University

• Sijeong Lim, Korea University