Citizen Opinion on International Cooperation

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Supportive attitudes among the public toward international cooperation is essential for solving global problems. This is a central insight in International Relations and public opinion scholarship on the topic. This panel seeks to think afresh about how to understand and explain why some citizens support international processes and organizations more than others. In line with this year’s APSA theme on diversity, the panel is coherent in focus, but diverse in theoretical starting points, methods, and empirics. Its productive combination of papers promises significant advances in our understanding of the factors and conditions shaping citizen opinion on international cooperation.

Theoretically, the papers develop a rich set of explanations, ranging from economic concerns to social identity, institutional trust, and elite framing. Methodologically, the papers present novel survey and experimental data, varyingly focusing on specific countries (the U.S.) and a broad range of diverse countries in different cultural contexts and world regions, including Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, and Russia. Empirically, the papers cover multiple international issues and processes, from international trade and climate change to the legitimacy of international organizations and state withdrawals from such organizations.

A first paper examines survey-experimental data on what determines citizen opinion toward international trade, specifically dealing with competition and antitrust policy. A second paper focuses on Brexit effects on public support for international cooperation in non-EU countries in a panel survey study. The third paper explains citizen legitimacy beliefs toward a range of international organizations, including the International Criminal Court, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, World Bank, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization. The fourth paper deals with U.S. public opinion toward withdrawals from international organizations, with a particular focus on framing related to the role of the U.S. in the world.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• Michael R. Tomz Stanford University

Discussant

• Lora Anne Viola Free University of Berlin

Individual Presentations

• International Economic Relations and Antitrust Policy - Ryan Brutger, University of California, Berkeley; Amy Pond

• Explaining Citizen Legitimacy Beliefs Toward International Organizations - Lisa Maria Dellmuth, Stockholm University; Jan Aart Scholte, University of Gothenburg; Jonas Tallberg, Stockholm University; Soetkin Verhaegen, UCLouvain

• U.S. Public Opinion Toward Withdrawal from International Organizations - Felicity Vabulas, Pepperdine University; Inken von Borzyskowski, University College London (UCL)

• International Law, Foreign Policy, and Public Demands for Punishing Torture - A. Burcu Bayram, University of Arkansas; Eric Keels, Air War College; Efe Tokdemir, Bilkent University

• Recalibrating the Costs of Non-cooperation: How Brexit affects Preferences Towards European Integration in Non-member States - Giorgio Malet, University of Zurich; Stefanie Walter, University of Zurich