All spending is not equal: How the EU can increase public support for the EU

People who live in regions that receive high levels of EU funding might be expected to have more positive attitudes toward the EU. However, as Adam William Chalmers and Lisa Maria Dellmuth demonstrate, this relationship is not as simple as it might appear. Drawing on a recent study, they illustrate that a region’s needs make a large difference to the effectiveness of EU funding in building public support: where funding meets a clearly defined need for the local population it has a far more positive effect

The effect of EU spending on support for the integration process depends on how ‘European’ citizens feel

It is often assumed that citizens in states receiving large levels of EU spending are more likely to be supportive of their country’s EU membership. Based on a recent study, Adam William Chalmers and Lisa Maria Dellmuth write that while this principle makes intuitive sense, the reality is more complex. They find that the extent to which citizens already hold a European identity and the level of their political awareness both have a key impact on how fiscal transfers affect support for the EU

EU funding policies may be undermined by regional authorities using structural fund allocations to win votes at the local level

More than half of the EU budget is dedicated to Structural Funds, which are allocated across EU regions with the aim of promoting economic and social development. Lisa Dellmuth, Michael Stoffel and Dominik Schraff write that the use of decentralised authorities to allocate structural funding can create substantive problems for the EU’s policy goals. They illustrate that the distribution of funds often reflects local political concerns, with districts that support the regional government’s party receiving disproportionate shares of funding

Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance

Contemporary society has witnessed major growth in global governance, yet the legitimacy of global governance remains deeply in question. This book offers the first full comparative investigation of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. Empirically, it provides a comprehensive analysis of public and elite opinion toward global governance, building on two uniquely coordinated surveys covering multiple countries and international organizations. Theoretically, it develops an individual-level approach, exploring how a person’s characteristics in respect of socioeconomic status, political values, geographical identification, and domestic institutional trust shape legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. The book’s central findings are threefold. First, there is a notable and general elite–citizen gap in legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. While elites on average hold moderately high levels of legitimacy toward international organizations, the general public is decidedly more skeptical. Second, individual-level differences in interests, values, identities, and trust dispositions provide significant drivers of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance, as well as the gap between the two groups. Most important on the whole are differences in the extent to which citizens and elites trust domestic political institutions, which shape how these groups assess the legitimacy of international organizations. Third, both patterns and sources of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs vary across organizations and countries. These variations suggest that institutional and societal contexts condition attitudes toward global governance. The book’s findings shed light on future opportunities and constraints in international cooperation, suggesting that current levels of legitimacy point neither to a general crisis of global governance nor to a general readiness for its expansion

Bargaining success in the reform of the Eurozone

This article provides a systematic assessment of bargaining success in the reform of the Eurozone 2010 to 2015. Theoretically, we develop an argument about preferences and institutions as determinants of bargaining success and contrast this argument with an alternative account privileging states' power resources. Empirically, we conduct a statistical analysis of new data covering all key reform proposals. Our findings are threefold. First, contrary to a conventional narrative of German dominance, the negotiations produced no clear winners and losers. Second, while power resources were of limited importance, holding preferences that were centrist or close to the European Commission favored bargaining success-particularly when adoption only required the support of a qualified majority. Third, these descriptive and explanatory results reflect dynamics of compromise and reciprocity

International bureaucrats’ attitudes toward global climate adaptation

Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement has fueled debates about how the international bureaucrats driving international organizations’ engagement with climate adaptation ought to address adaptation challenges. While previous research has predominantly focused on the structural constraints in adaptation governance, this paper develops a distinct argument about the cognitive frames through which international bureaucrats view climate risks. The evidence comes from a survey among bureaucrats in three organizations that have engaged with adaptation to different extents: United Nations Environment, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the World Health Organization. The results suggest that the majority of the surveyed bureaucrats view climate risks as a multidimensional problem. The evidence indicates that bureaucrats are more likely to view climate risks through multiple than through single issue frames, the more certain they perceive the knowledge about climate impacts in their issue area to be. By way of conclusion, the paper sketches broader implications for adaptation and international bureaucracy research

The knowledge gap in world politics : Assessing the sources of citizen awareness of the United Nations Security Council

The past decades have seen a significant expansion in the scope and authority of international organisations (IOs), raising questions about who participates and is represented in the public contestation of IOs. An important precondition for citizens to become critically involved in the public debate about an IO is that they are aware of the politics of that IO. This article sheds light on this largely unexplored issue, asking why some citizens are more aware of IOs than others. This question is examined in the context of a powerful international organization, the United Nations Security Council. A multilevel analysis of citizens in seventeen Asian and European countries suggests that citizen knowledge about the Council is shaped by citizens’ individual income, cosmopolitan identity, and income inequality. Higher levels of knowledge are found among the wealthier, and there is some evidence that income inequality depresses knowledge among poorer citizens. Furthermore, citizens identifying with groups or individuals across nation-state borders are more likely to be aware of the Council. The article sketches broader implications for the study of the politicization of IOs and citizen representation in the public contestation of IOs

The cash divide: the allocation of European Union regional grants

To promote economic and social cohesion, the European Union (EU) structural funds part-finance public investment programmes in European regions with about E30 billion per year. This article develops an explanation for the apportionment of structural funds across EU regions. It is argued that the Commission’s decisions on regional transfer levels reflect its bureaucratic interest and potentially undermine EU goals. Using a new data set on regional transfer payments in the EU-15 from 2000 to 2006, and qualitative interviews with decision-makers, this argument is tested and corroborated. In doing so, it is shown that the recipient regions’ level of economic affluence is necessary, but no sufficient explanatory factor for regional transfer levels. In contrast to previous findings in the literature, the empirical record does not suggest that regional partisan politics has an effect on the size of regional transfer levels