Stefanie Walter

The contestation of international organizations (IOs) over past decades has inspired a rich research program. This essay takes stock of progress by reviewing key findings in existing scholarship and identifying critical areas for future study. We propose a typology that distinguishes between internal contestation, which criticizes the institutions or policies of an IO with the aim of reform, and external contestation, which challenges an IO’s foundational principles and very existence. Building on this conceptual distinction, we review the most important findings of existing research on three key themes: patterns of contestation, drivers of contestation, and responses to contestation. We also argue that this conceptualization helps us better understand the changing nature of contestation: while criticism of how IOs function has long been a staple of world politics, it recently appears to have shifted toward a deeper form involving more fundamental questioning of IOs themselves. We conclude by highlighting the need for dynamic theories and improved measurements to explain when and how IO contestation shifts from internal criticism to external rejection, and by outlining a forward-looking research agenda on organizational robustness, hegemonic contestation, and the relationship between IO contestation and the broader contestation of global governance.

The antagonism between far right and new left parties has transformed West European politics through increasing sociocultural conflict. We ask what this new cleavage implies for the politicization of inequalities. We contrast two diverging theoretical expectations. The first expects a tradeoff between sociocultural and socioeconomic inequalities, with new left voters emphasizing the former over the latter, and vice versa for far right voters. The second predicts a single dimension of inequality attitudes, from new left “universalists” being inequality averse to far right “particularists” being more inequality tolerant. Evidence based on survey data from Germany supports the second perspective. Even new left voters in the educated middle classes are more averse to all dimensions of inequality than (far) right voters. This implies that a successful new left agenda can simultaneously target various inequalities. However, in contexts of polarized party competition, divisive sociocultural conflicts may crowd out attention to traditional, less divisive socioeconomic inequalities.

S: How do international institutions respond to unilateral challenges by its member states, such as non-compliance, blocking of reforms, renegotiation requests, or withdrawal? This paper argues that this response depends on a trade-off between the risks of not accommodating the challenge, which could disrupt cooperation gains, and the risks of accommodating, which may embolden future challengers. International institutions aim to minimize costs, accommodating challenges when cooperation losses are high, and resisting when the risk of contagion is significant. When both risks are large, they face an “accommodation dilemma” and politically charged negotiations with the challenging country. We evaluate this framework with a comparative case study of fourteen referendum-endorsed challenges to international institutions, analyzing cases that varied in cooperation gains at risk and contagion risks. The analysis shows that across a range of different issues and institutions, the framework helps us better understand why member states respond differently to such challenges and why some challenges are resolved easily whereas others become conflictual. By developing a widely applicable theoretical framework and a versatile coding scheme, the paper contributes to a better understanding of how international institutions respond to contestation and the populist and nationalist backlash against global governance.

This data article introduces IOParlspeech, an original dataset of over 600,000 statements on international organizations (IOs) in parliamentary debates in six countries between 1990 and 2018. We explain the creation of the dataset and demonstrate the value of IOParlspeech through two exploratory studies. First, we examine which actors convey more positive and more negative sentiment regarding IOs in parliamentary discourse. Contributing to research on IO contestation, we demonstrate that parliamentarians from the radical right and left, as well as parliamentarians in opposition, use more negative language in their IO-related communication. Second, we explore the salience of IOs in national parliaments. Speaking to debates about the democratic deficit of IOs, we show that IOs with higher authority and those with an international parliamentary institution are more likely to be discussed in parliament. We conclude by suggesting further uses for IOParlspeech.

How do foreign political events shape voters’ evaluation of policies whose outcomes are hard to observe? We argue that policy-specific political processes abroad provide information about the policy's feasibility and desirability that allows voters to update their preferences. We analyze how key events in British Brexit politics affected attitudes towards the European Union in other European countries. The results of ‘unexpected events during survey' designs, a natural experiment, and a panel analysis show that events highlighting the difficulties of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union led to a higher support of European integration in remaining member states, whereas an event highlighting the opportunities of Brexit resulted in more Eurosceptic attitudes. The article demonstrates that foreign events can influence voters’ policy attitudes in other countries, highlighting the systemic consequences of events like Brexit.

A key Eurosceptic argument is that countries can selectively retain only those aspects of European integration from which they benefit, while opting out of those aspects they dislike. How convincing is this “have your cake and eat it, too” argument to voters? This article argues that voters can learn about the feasibility of such a strategy by looking at the experience of countries that pursued a similar path. Positive experiences can strengthen voters’ support for a similar strategy, while negative experiences can deter them. This argument is tested in a study of the effects of the Brexit negotiations on public opinion in Switzerland. Drawing on a panel survey fielded between 2019 and 2021, the article shows that Brexit had a small but non-negligible impact on Swiss voters’ expectations about the EU’s resolve, as well as on vote intentions on two EU-related policy proposals. These findings confirm that voters learn from foreign political developments about the costs of non-cooperation.

In developing countries, trade is increasingly associated with greater returns to high-skilled labor and rising inequality. These empirical patterns are at odds with canonical models of trade in the developing world. What does this mean for the political economy of trade in these countries? We argue that although developing countries have a comparative advantage in low-skill products, these are produced by workers that are relatively high-skilled compared to their peers. Trade and global production benefit relatively skilled workers, particularly those exposed to exports and inward foreign direct investment in manufacturing. Our argument offers insight into why relatively skilled workers are most supportive of free trade and why inequality is rising in developing countries. We examine micro- and macro-level implications of our argument using cross-national survey data on policy preferences and aggregate data on trade and inequality. The findings have important implications for the political economy of trade and global production in developing countries.

In addition to offering education and conducting research, transferring knowledge from academia to society is the third core task of universities, their so-called Third Mission. A framework for transferring research results from science to society and integrating everyday problems into scientific research is a crucial starting point for academics seeking to generate solutions to socio-economic problems. At the beginning of the European University Alliance EURECA-PRO cooperation there were disparate understandings of Third Mission; as a result, related research and activities were variably conducted. Given that a common Third Mission strategy is a fundamental requirement for the establishment of the European University Alliance, EURECA-PRO is focused on all partner universities coming to a common Third Mission understanding. One way to pursue this goal is presenting EURECA-PRO scientific research from each university in video form. These videos have a clear and targeted focus on being relevant to everyday life; initial results show that this kind of science communication is both well accepted by scientists and supportive of developing a common Third Mission understanding within EURECA-PRO.

Despite years of crisis, the euro has enjoyed strong popular support across the Eurozone periphery. In light of the high costs of internal devaluation strategies, this begs the question why the public has remained in favor of the common currency. In this paper, we propose a theoretical mechanism that accounts for both voters’ pocketbook preferences and their sociotropic assessments over the noisy trade-offs associated with the outcomes of euro membership and euro exit. Using original survey data from three consecutive survey waves in Greece (conducted in July, September, and December 2015 respectively), we analyze the attitudes of Greek voters toward the euro in an environment of acute uncertainty, austerity, high unemployment, and economic recession. First, we juxtapose our uncertainty mechanism of popular euro attitudes against other explanations put forward in the literature and find strong support for our argument. Second, we conduct a survey experiment to tap into attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off and find that as uncertainty over policy outcomes diminishes, framing effects abate in significance, especially among those who voted No in the July 2015 referendum. Finally, we derive distinct sets of euro preferences for different “vulnerability profiles”. Over time, as the trade-offs of euro membership become more pronounced, we find a marked fall in euro support between July and December 2015.

Dieser Band unternimmt eine Bestandsaufnahme der internationalen politikwissenschaftlichen Forschung über die verschiedenen Facetten der De-Globalisierung. Er folgt auf den Band „Globalisierung. Forschungsstand und Perspektiven“ in die Buchreihe „Internationale Politische Ökonomie“ im Nomos Verlag (Schirm (Hrsg.) 2006). Zielsetzung dieses Bandes ist es, in jedem Kapitel zunächst den internationalen Forschungsstand zu rezipieren und anschließend die eigene Forschung der Autorin bzw. des Autors zu präsentieren. Der Band bietet daher sowohl eine breite Aufnahme der aktuellen internationalen politikwissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Debatte um De-Globalisierung als auch die spezifische Expertise der jeweiligen Autorinnen und Autoren. Der Kreis der Verfasserinnen und Verfasser repräsentiert einen zentralen Ausschnitt der deutschsprachigen IPÖ-Community, die überwiegend auf Englisch publiziert. Mit diesem Band sprechen wir nun explizit die im deutschsprachigen Raum Forschenden und Lehrenden an. This volume takes stock of international political science research on the various facets of de-globalisation. It follows the volume ‘Globalisation. State of Research and Perspectives’ in our book series ‘International Political Economy’ published by Nomos (Schirm (ed.) 2006). The aim of this volume is to first review the state of international research in each chapter and then to present each author's own research. The volume therefore offers both a broad survey of current international political science research on the debate about de-globalisation and the specific expertise of the respective authors.