Together or Not? Dynamics of Public Attitudes on UN and NATO

Abstract

This study investigates the driving forces of public endorsement of two major intergovernmental organizations—the UN and NATO. More specifically, I scrutinize the effects of two sets of independent variables on individual support for security intergovernmental organizations: respondents’ subjective evaluation of the domestic economic conditions and the gap between the home country’s foreign policy preferences and the mean preference within the said intergovernmental organization. For the empirical analysis, I employ cross-sectional survey data acquired from Pew Global Attitudes Surveys covering a sample of 37 countries and 10 waves spanning 2007–2017. The statistical analyses lend strong support for both hypotheses. Specifically, citizens who are dissatisfied with the national economic conditions are less likely to be in favor of intergovernmental organizations. The negative correlation between the perceptions of domestic economic performance and attitudes toward intergovernmental organizations is particularly compelling in countries that contribute more to the budget of that intergovernmental organization. Second, in countries where the foreign policy preferences converge with the other members of an intergovernmental organization, public opinion is more favorably disposed toward that intergovernmental organization.