Towards a More Nuanced Understanding of How International Pooling of Authority May Affect the Perceived Legitimacy of Global Governance

Recent instances of political backlash against global governance efforts as well as conventional wisdom suggest that there is a link between shifting authority from the domestic to the global level, on the one hand, and the legitimacy of global governance institutions as perceived by citizens and other stakeholders on the other. We thus investigate whether and how increasing the authority of a global governance institution affects citizens’ legitimacy perceptions, using a population-based survey experiment in Germany and the United States (N=1600 each). The empirical focus is on climate change, a costly and paradigmatic global governance effort. The results show that certain shifts of political authority, such as changes to majority decision making at the international level and automatic implementation of international decisions domestically, do not significantly affect “average” citizens’ legitimacy perceptions of global governance institutions. This result is not due to citizens’ incapacity to understand the implications of increasing authority, namely, that increasing authority results in a loss of control over climate policy in Germany and the United States. Rather, legitimacy perceptions appear to be shaped by citizens’ perceptions of procedural and performance quality of such efforts as well as by their level of cognitive mobilization, namely their interest in international politics. In brief, we find that citizens relate perceived procedural and performance quality of global governance with their evaluation of its legitimacy, but that subtle shifts of authority from the domestic to the global level do not per se affect citizens’ legitimacy perceptions

Does international pooling of authority affect the perceived legitimacy of global governance?

Recent instances of political backlash against global governance efforts as well as conventional wisdom suggest that there is a link between shifting decision-making authority from the domestic to the global level, on the one hand, and the legitimacy of global governance institutions as perceived by citizens and other stakeholders on the other. We use a population-based survey experiment in Germany and the United States ( N = 1600 each) to investigate whether increasing the authority of a global governance institution negatively affects citizens' legitimacy perceptions. The empirical focus is on climate change, a costly and paradigmatic global governance effort. The results show that shifts of political authority, notably changes towards majority decision making at the international level and automatic implementation of international decisions domestically, do not, on average, significantly affect citizens' legitimacy perceptions of global governance institutions. Interestingly, the absence of the presumed negative effect is not due to citizens' incapacity to understand the implications of increasing international authority in the sense that increasing international authority results in a loss of control over climate policy in Germany and the United States. Rather, legitimacy perceptions appear to be shaped by citizens' perceptions of procedural and performance quality of such efforts in more general terms, and not by authority levels per se. Overall, these findings suggest that there could be more room for increasing the authority of global governance institutions, provided this can be done in ways that ascertain high procedural and output performance quality

Análisis de problemáticas urbanas a escala continental basado en datos abiertos: espacios verdes, forma urbana y sostenibilidad futura de las ciudades en África

Las próximas décadas serán de rápida urbanización y estrés climático en las ciudades africanas. Los espacios verdes pueden aumentar la resiliencia de las ciudades frente a las olas de calor, las inundaciones, los deslizamientos de tierra e incluso la erosión costera, además de mejorar la sostenibilidad al reparar la calidad del aire, proteger la biodiversidad y absorber carbono. Sin embargo, datos cuantitativos sobre la forma urbana, la disponibilidad de espacios verdes y la contaminación del aire son muy escasos y de difícil acceso para ciudades en África. En este trabajo usamos datos geoespaciales abiertos para analizar cuantitativamente las relaciones entre la forma urbana, la presencia de espacios verdes y la calidad del aire. Los resultados del análisis indican que la presencia de espacios verdes se relaciona con mejor calidad del aire, pero que deben estar acompañados de otras políticas para que su presencia sea realmente efectiva

Ensuring sustainability via accessible transport systems for all in Accra and Kumasi

Africa is rapidly urbanising, and transport systems often cannot keep pace, leading to disconnected cities that might entrench car dependency (and preference), along with gender and socioeconomic inequality. In Ghana, transport emissions have risen 75% between 2000 to 2016, along with congestion, pollution and traffic accidents – despite attempts to quell the problem via bans on aged vehicles or more recently, penalties. This paper builds on prior work and argues that putting accessibility at the centre of transport systems will foster sustainability in these cities, yet such data is difficult to find, especially gender-sensitive mobility data. This paper uses a novel approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, to study the accessibility across genders in Kumasi and Accra and identify future scenarios for sustainable and accessible systems. This working paper presents preliminary findings

Can Terrorism Abroad Influence Migration Attitudes at Home?

This article demonstrates that public opinion on migration “at home” is systematically driven by terrorism in other countries. Although there is little substantive evidence linking refugees or migrants to most recent terror attacks in Europe, news about terrorist attacks can trigger more negative views of immigrants. However, the spatial dynamics of this process are neglected in existing research. We argue that feelings of imminent danger and a more salient perception of migration threats do not stop at national borders. The empirical results based on spatial econometrics and data on all terrorist attacks in Europe for the post-9/11 period support these claims. The effect of terrorism on migration concern is strongly present within a country, but also diffuses across states in Europe. This finding improves our understanding of public opinion on migration, spill-over effects of terrorism, and it highlights crucial lessons for scholars interested in the security implications of population movements

Public opinion and environmental policy output: a cross-national analysis of energy policies in Europe

This article studies how public opinion is associated with the introduction of renewable energy policies in Europe. While research increasingly seeks to model the link between public opinion and environmental policies, the empirical evidence is largely based on a single case: the US. This limits the generalizability of findings and we argue accordingly for a systematic, quantitative study of how public opinion drives environmental policies in another context. Theoretically, we combine arguments behind the political survival of democratic leaders with electoral success and environmental politics. Ultimately, we suggest that office-seeking leaders introduce policies that seem favorable to the domestic audience; if the public prefers environmental protection, the government introduces such policies in turn. The main contribution of this research is the cross-country empirical analysis, where we combine data on the public's environmental attitudes and renewable energy policy outputs in a European context between 1974 and 2015. We show that as public opinion shifts towards prioritizing the environment, there is a significant and positive effect on the rate of renewable energy policy outputs by governments in Europe. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic, quantitative study of public opinion and environmental policies across a large set of countries, and we demonstrate that the mechanisms behind the introduction of renewable energy policies follow major trends across European states

Research priorities for climate mobility

The escalating impacts of climate change on the movement and immobility of people, coupled with false but influential narratives of mobility, highlight an urgent need for nuanced and synthetic research around climate mobility. Synthesis of evidence and gaps across the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report highlight a need to clarify the understanding of what conditions make human mobility an effective adaptation option and its nuanced outcomes, including simultaneous losses, damages, and benefits. Priorities include integration of adaptation and development planning; involuntary immobility and vulnerability; gender; data for cities; risk from responses and maladaptation; public understanding of climate risk; transboundary, compound, and cascading risks; nature-based approaches; and planned retreat, relocation, and heritage. Cutting across these priorities, research modalities need to better position climate mobility as type of mobility, as process, and as praxis. Policies and practices need to reflect the diverse needs, priorities, and experiences of climate mobility, emphasizing capability, choice, and freedom of movement

Individuals' Preferences for Distributing the Costs of Climate Change Mitigation:: Domestically and Internationally

OECD countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 70 % by 2050 below 2010 levels and reach near zero emissions by the end of the century in order to prevent global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Achieving these mitigation targets will be costly, which raises the question: who should pay for mitigation? The objective of this dissertation is to better understand Americans’ preferences on domestically sharing the costs of climate change mitigation within the United States and on internationally sharing mitigation costs between countries. The first two chapters of this dissertation investigate American preferences on (1) financing mitigation domestically and (2) providing social assistance to individuals who are adversely affected by mitigation. The latter two chapters examine American preferences on (3) how to distribute the costs of climate change mitigation internationally (e.g., by historical responsibility, capacity) and (4) how to design a global climate governance framework for distributing costs (in terms of increasing or decreasing its authority). The first key finding is that Americans are willing to pay for climate mitigation domestically as well as internationally and importantly, their willingness to pay is motivated by factors other than cost. However, the framing of these costs and associated mitigation policies shapes individuals’ willingness to pay for mitigation. Overall, the results suggest that the United States could undertake ambitious mitigation commitments without risk of a strong public backlash if mitigation policies are framed tactfully

Effects of fairness principles on willingness to pay for climate change mitigation

Despite the shift from multilateral negotiations on legally binding mitigation commitments to the decentralized nonbinding Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) approach in global climate policy, governments and other stakeholders continue to insist that fairness principles guide the overall effort. Key recurring principles in this debate are capacity and historical responsibility. To keep global warming within the internationally agreed 2 °C limit, many countries will have to engage in more ambitious climate policies relative to current INDCs. Public support will be crucial in this respect. We thus explore the implications of different fairness principles for citizens’ preferences concerning burden sharing in climate policy. To this end, we implemented an online experiment in which participants (N = 414) played an ultimatum game. Participants were tasked with sharing the costs of climate change mitigation. The aim was to examine how participants’ willingness to pay for mitigation was influenced by capacity and historical responsibility considerations. The results show that fairness principles do have a strong effect and that participants applied fairness principles differently depending on their position at the outset. It turns out that participants paid more attention to other players’ capacity and historical responsibility when proposing a particular cost allocation and more attention to their own capacity and responsibility when responding to proposals by others. These and other findings suggest that framing climate policy in terms of internationally coordinated unilateral measures is likely to garner more public support than framing climate policy in terms of a global bargaining effort over the mitigation burden.ISSN:0165-0009ISSN:1573-148

Replication Data for: Can social norm interventions promote voluntary pro environmental action?

Provides replication data for Huber, Robert A., Brilé Anderson and Thomas Bernauer (2018) Can social norm interventions promote voluntary pro environmental action?. Environmental Science & Policy. 89: 231-246