Public Preferences for National and International Risk Management

The proliferation of transboundary risks challenges the nation state’s problem-solving capacity and requires effective international risk management. Yet the transfer of competencies and resources to international organizations (IOs) is increasingly contested. This paper examines to what extent citizens support international risk management by IOs and regional organizations such as the European Union (EU) or the United Nations (UN). Distinguishing rules-based and resource-based risk management as well as ex ante risk prevention and ex post crisis relief, we argue that citizens favor an implicit division of labor between the nation state and IOs. At the national level, citizens support resource-based risk prevention efforts. At the international level, however, redistributive and moral hazard concerns lead to stronger support for rules-based risk management. International resource-based risk management is supported by citizens primarily when it is aimed at ex post crisis relief. We test these expectations using an original public opinion survey with embedded experiments in eight OECD countries. Our findings will clarify the conditions under which international risk management can strengthen IO legitimacy and resolve the tension between transboundary risk proliferation and public and political contestation.