Summary

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. This journal article by Nicholas Olczak and Lisa Dellmuth at Stockholm University contributes to the literature on elite opinion in global governance with a first theorization and empirical examination of the connection between elite concerns and their attitudes toward IO problem solving.

Key messages

• Considering other elite concerns, we find that elites who have a greater level of concern about environmental degradation in the Arctic and about human rights violations in the Arctic ascribe more importance to the Arctic Council. This echoes the similar finding about a connection between level of concern about the environment and confidence in the Arctic Council.
• It again indicates the validity of our argument about how other types of elite concerns share a similar mechanism to that operating for security concerns. The Arctic Council will therefore probably draw support from those elites worried about environmental and human rights issues, because they see it as more important. This also contrasts with the findings for confidence, where elites concerned about human rights had greater confidence in the UN. While these elites see the Arctic Council as important, they do not appear to have so much conviction about its ability to solve these problems.

Conclusion

First, we found only weak evidence for our hypothesis that elites’ national security concerns lead them to have less confidence in and ascribe less importance to IO problem solving. Second, the analysis yields evidence supporting the expectation that elites who have greater general security concerns also have greater confidence in and ascribe more importance to IO problem solving in general. Third, the analysis offered some evidence to support the expectation that greater general security concerns lead elites to have more confidence in, and ascribe more importance to, IOs with a mandate in security. In line with expectations, we find that the surveyed Swedish elites who have greater concern about the militarization of the Arctic tend to ascribe more importance to NATO and the UN, the two IOs in our sample with a clear mandate in security.

Citation and funder

Nicholas Olczak, Lisa Dellmuth (2025). Elite Concerns and Attitudes about Problem Solving through International Organizations, Global Studies Quarterly, Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2025, ksaf020, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksaf020

This article is a deliverable of the Mistra Geopolitics programme, funded by MISTRA – the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.