Rising Nationalism, the Far Right and the Impact on International Organisation Resources

There is increasing pressure for international organisations to justify their ‘added value’, a need to respond to more vocal criticism from political elites and citizens, who are seen to be mistrustful due to their perceived inefficiencies, policy failures and liberal bias. Such concerns are embedded in wider shifts involving the rise of populist parties and leaders, heighted nationalist sentiment, and sections of the public hostile to regional integration, globalisation, and immigration. This paper argues that the legitimacy concerns expressed by societal actors – including governments, political parties and public opinion – regarding international organisations (IOs) has led to more scrutiny of their policy decisions and a push for greater control over their autonomy including in their financing. It aims to test whether political ideology associated with the far right including nationalism has led to the politicisation of opposition to IO’s such as the reduction of resources allocated to these organisations, or the selection of recipient countries based on similar values or ideology to that of the far right. An important question to ask is are far-right governments’ or governments with far-right values more likely to give foreign aid to those that hold similar values. Additionally, are recipient countries with far-right parties in government or that share similar values more reluctant to accept foreign aid? While the implications are less pronounced and visible implications of the politicisation of the backlash than withdrawing membership, it can have important implications for the functioning of the organisations and lead to further backlash in terms of their output legitimacy, as they would be unable to fulfil their remit. This could result in diminished effectiveness of the IOs, lower levels of responsiveness to demands by member states and citizens and could limit policy innovation and problem solving on transnational issues. This impact on the resources of IOs due to the politicisation of legitimacy concerns is expected to vary over time and across IOs with some IOs more affected than others, depending on the severity of backlash against their activities.