Elite Concerns and Attitudes about Problem Solving through International Organizations

Abstract The world faces a range of transformations and challenges that require problem solving through international organizations (IOs). Domestic elites play a key role in shaping whether and how IO governance happens, making it important to understand their attitudes toward IOs. A growing literature on elite opinion about IOs has largely focused on elite legitimacy beliefs and how these are shaped by concerns about institutional procedures and performance, while there has been only limited study of other significant attitudes elites have about IOs and the broader concerns shaping these. This article studies how elites’ security concerns affect their attitudes regarding the confidence they have in, and the importance they ascribe to, IO problem solving. This is examined through the case of Swedish elites’ attitudes toward the IOs providing governance over the Arctic, drawing on novel survey and interview data. The article finds limited evidence that elites’ specific national security concerns affect their attitudes toward IO problem solving. In contrast, it finds more extensive evidence that elites’ general security concerns affect their attitudes toward IOs. The main contribution to the literature on elite opinion in global governance is a first theorization and empirical examination of the connection between elite concerns and their attitudes toward IO problem solving.