Socialization Information & the Underpinnings of Institutionalized Cooperation

• In Event: Public Opinion and Individual Preferences on International Collaboration

Abstract

While numerous international relations theories stipulate how international organizations (IOs) facilitate interstate cooperation, less literature has examined how IOs might alter individual-level interactions. Participation in IO meetings and plenary sessions is likely to impact diplomats' views of the IO and attitudes toward cooperation with other states. This paper proposes leveraging exogenous variation in countries' eligibility for election onto the UN Security Council to probe whether IO participation socializes diplomats to view cooperation more favorably. We theorize that non-permanent Council membership could promote three types of pro-cooperation outcomes: perceived institutional legitimacy, affinity to other states, and tactical ability to achieve strategic goals. We test two sets of observable implications of our argument with a text analysis of Security Council members' speeches in the General Assembly and with survey data on public opinion in non-permanent member countries. We then propose a research design for a panel survey of diplomatic elites to evaluate how foreign policy professionals update their opinions after participating in IO negotiations: a diff-in-diff analysis examines change in attitudes among UN diplomats who serve on the Security Council, on the one hand, and compares it to attitudinal change among UN diplomats from similar countries that were ineligible to serve on the Council.

A core area of inquiry in IR is the examination of how IOs affect cooperation between states. Early rationalist institutionalism highlighted the tangible benefits of cooperation through IOs, which reduce information asymmetries and transaction costs (Keohane 1984). Constructivist theories, meanwhile, pointed to socialization effects, as IOs shape how states understand their identities and interests (Wendt 1992, Johnston 2001). Subsequent literature has built on both lines of reasoning, showing that IOs reshape how governments interpret their incentives and preferences (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Dai 2007; Johnston 2008).
While recent scholarship breaks down paradigmatic boundaries, many arguments remain firmly rooted in a state- or coalition-centric approach to international cooperation. Empirical models often treat the state as a unit or analyze how industries and interest groups alter the equilibrium, with little attention to individual-level outcomes. Yet IO negotiations and plenary sessions involve senior government officials, who learn and change their approaches in ways that likely affect future cooperative outcomes. Such individual-level attitude shifts and socialization may be the microfoundations of international cooperation.
This paper opens the black box of cooperation theory to analyze individual-level attitudinal and behavioral changes among government elites. We examine the conditions under which IO participation shifts diplomats' views of an institution and promotes cooperation. Participating in an IO could change how diplomats view the IO’s legitimacy. Sustained collaboration may also create a club feeling and may lead delegates to perceive each other as an in-group. Finally, engagement with an IO yields information that makes it easier for diplomats to achieve strategic goals.

These hypotheses are difficult to test since states’ entry into or exit from IOs is endogenous to government elites’ attitudes. We overcome this challenge by investigating an institution where most members serve on non-renewable two-year terms: the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). We leverage exogenous variation in countries' eligibility for election onto the UNSC to compare the states that join the Council in 2024 (treatment group) with countries that were not eligible to fill these seats in 2024 (control group). The latter countries are politically ineligible to fill a seat after having served on this body in the recent past. We plan to conduct a panel survey of diplomats at the UN in New York from countries in the treatment and control groups. To examine attitudinal changes over time, we will administer a baseline survey in 2023 (before the treatment group joins the Council) and two surveys in 2024. By comparing attitudinal changes over time and across groups - a diff-in-diff strategy - we will test competing theories of institutionalized cooperation.

As an initial test of our core theoretical contention, namely that IO membership alters individual-level attitudes and behavior, we conduct two tests. First, we conduct a text analysis of UN General Assembly speeches, examining whether diplomats' speeches become more similar in content when their countries share membership in the Security Council. We conclude that they do, and that these changes in elite behavior are sticky and last beyond the end of simultaneous terms on the Council. Second, we analyze how public opinion about the United Nations shifts when countries join the Security Council. The results of both analyses are consistent with our argument.

Authors

• Richard Clark, University of Notre Dame

• Christoph Mikulaschek, Harvard University

• Julia C. Morse, University of California, Santa Barbara