Social legitimacy is central to the effectiveness of international organizations (IOs). Yet, so far, we have little systematic knowledge about what drives citizens' attitudes towards IOs. In this article, we examine why and to what extent elite communication affects citizens' confidence in three global and two regional IOs. We draw on previous theoretical accounts about priming, cueing, and the relationship between mass and elite opinion to develop hypotheses about the causal effects of elite messages on citizen confidence in IOs. We test these hypotheses in a statistical analysis of new data from a population-based survey experiment conducted in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our findings will enhance our understanding of the sources of the social legitimacy of IOs and contribute to a broader literature on legitimacy in global governance.
