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The first image reversed: IGO signals and mass political attitudes

The Review of International Organizations volume 13, pages 595–619 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

This paper considers the argument that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) send signals to the mass public, legitimizing certain policy options, and/or helping assure voters about the competence of the elected government. It discusses why the reception of IGO signals may be problematic within the mass public: many individuals lack the attention and knowledge to process them. And among those who are attentive and knowledgeable, pre-existing negative attitudes about IGOs may lead them to process the signal differently than intended. Using an experimental research design, it presents evidence consistent with an IGO signaling effect from two different scenarios. In an economic scenario, a negative signal from the World Trade Organization reduces support for the government’s economic policy. In a security scenario, a positive signal from the United Nations Security Council increases support for the government’s military policy. However, both IGO signals are conditional on certain individual-level attributes, and the IGO signal in the security scenario is generally stronger than in the economic scenario.

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Notes

  1. Especially Chapman’s version of this argument includes several additional hypotheses, although this is the basic proposition that we seek to test here since it is the one most directly parallel to the signaling argument advanced by Mansfield et al. (2002). We will later discuss his related hypothesis that there should be a greater boost to public opinion when the authorization comes from a more conservative IGO.

  2. It is important to state in advance that Chapman (2012) offers a somewhat contrary hypothesis expecting that an approval signal will have a greater positive effect on public opinion when it comes from a more conservative, or ideologically-distant, multilateral security institution. Ideological distance may one reason why certain citizens view the UN unfavorably.

  3. Consistent with this understanding, we find in our population-based sample of voting-age Americans that only 36% are willing to report themselves as familiar with, or knowledgeable about, the World Trade Organization, while 55% report the same about the United Nations.

  4. A pilot study using the same basic research design was conducted in July 2015 using a convenience sample. Using a population-based sample, the survey experiments presented in this paper were conducted in March 2016. This experimental project received approval from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Colorado at Boulder on February 25, 2016. Our pre-registration for this study can be found at https://osf.io/ek4zx/.

  5. Testing for a priming effect, we found that the order in which the scenarios were presented had no statistically significant effect on the attitudinal dependent variable for either scenario. If there were priming, then it should have a greater effect on the first scenario since the second scenario is even further distant from the questions for the moderating variables.

  6. While Mansfield et al. (2001) ultimately test their argument in terms of PTA formation, their theory applies to all free trade agreements, including the World Trade Organization. It also includes active signals sent by this IGO: “the WTO…can announce…whether the executive in each country is in compliance with the agreement” (ibid, 489). We thus fit our scenario to an active signal sent by this global trade IGO, making it more parallel to the active signal sent by the global security IGO (the United Nations Security Council) in our conflict scenario to be presented below.

  7. Among all respondents, only 4.8% responded as strongly opposed, 14.3% as slightly opposed, 46.4% as uncertain, 26.0% as slightly supportive, and 8.6% as strongly supportive of the government’s revised economic policy. The fact that the model response was “uncertain” might be read as consistent with our contention that the mass public has trouble understanding economic issues. To preview, uncertain will not be the modal response in our conflict scenario.

  8. After the question for our dependent variable, we asked all respondents which of the following was a component of the government’s revised economic policy: 1) a tariff policy that the World Trade Organization reports as NON-compliant with free trade rules, 2) a tariff policy that the World Trade Organization reports as compliant with free trade rules, or 3) the scenario did not discuss the government’s tariff policy. If the respondent answered this question correctly, then we treat them as passing the treatment check.

  9. The results are different for the sub-sample that failed the treatment check. Interestingly, both treatments are statistically significant in this group, which suggests that our respondents were reacting to something even if they could not recall to what exactly. But both treatments, including WTO Compliant, enter with negative signs that are statistically indistinguishable from each other. This result suggests that for more disinterested citizens, any reference to the WTO, either positive or negative, could make them less supportive of the government’s economic policy, which is consistent with our descriptive evidence showing that only a quarter of our respondents hold favorable attitudes about this global economic IGO.

  10. This scenario was designed to match very generically the 1990–91 Gulf War. In terms of relative capabilities, we want the reader to believe that the United States has the military advantage, so that their (non)support might be based more on the IGO signal.

  11. Among all respondents, 8.1% strongly opposed, 15.5% slightly opposed, 26.5% were uncertain, 32.5% slightly supported it, and 17.4% strongly supported the government’s decision to use military force.

  12. Our conflict treatment check is directly parallel to the economic treatment check, asking respondents to identify to which of the three possible treatments they had been exposed. A correct answer passes the treatment check.

  13. The results are different for the sub-sample failing the treatment check. Similar to what we observed in our economic scenario, both treatments, including UN Support, enter with a negative sign for those who cannot correctly identify their randomized treatment, although only the UN Nonsupport coefficient achieves statistical significance. These results would suggest that merely mentioning the United Nations makes more disinterested citizens less supportive of the government’s military policy, consistent with our descriptive evidence showing that a majority of American citizens do not have a favorable attitude about this global security IGO.

  14. http://news.gallup.com/poll/1963/amer...orthwhile.aspx.

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Acknowledgements

The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City or the views of the Federal Reserve System. Earlier versions of this research were presented in the Government Department at the University of Texas at Austin in March 2015, at the MPSA Annual Conference in April 2015, at the APSA Annual Conference in September 2015, and at the PEIO Conference in January 2016. We thank several anonymous reviewers, Bethany Albertson, Craig Louis Arceneaux, Eric Arias, Ryan Brutger, Terry Chapman, Stephen Chaudoin, Ryan Dawkins, Mike Findley, Jeff Harden, Leslie Johns, Ayse Kaya, Moonhawk Kim, Amy Liu, Pat McDonald, Helen Milner, Dan Nielsen, Angel Saz-Carranza, Rachel Wellhausen, Jenny Wolak, and Scott Wolford for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank the Center to Advance Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences (CARTSS) at the University of Colorado at Boulder for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    David H. Bearce

  2. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA

    Thomas R. Cook

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Correspondence to David H. Bearce.

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Bearce, D.H., Cook, T.R. The first image reversed: IGO signals and mass political attitudes. Rev Int Organ 13, 595–619 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-017-9293-0

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Keywords

  • International organizations
  • World Trade Organization
  • The United Nations
  • Signaling
  • Mass public