This chapter summarizes the empirical findings of the book and outlines its broader implications for our understanding of politics. It reviews evidence in the book showing that elite communication affects the way citizens perceive of the legitimacy of IOs. When elites endorse or criticize international organizations in public, citizens take notice and adjust their opinions. In addition, it concludes that elites are more likely to shape citizen opinion toward international organizations under some conditions than others. Key moderating factors pertain to all three key components of the communicative context: elites, messages, and citizens. The chapter then discusses the broader implications of the book for current debates in four areas: legitimacy and legitimation, drivers of public opinion, elite influence and democracy, and the contemporary backlash against global governance.

This chapter explores the conditions under which global elites are influential in shaping citizens’ legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. It distinguishes between member governments, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations as three sets of global elites, evaluates whether these elites impact legitimacy beliefs through their communication, and identifies the conditions under which such communication is more successful. The chapter examines theoretical expectations comparatively across five prominent global or regional international organizations, including the European Union, International Monetary Fund, and United Nations. At the heart of the empirical investigation is a survey-embedded experiment in three countries (Germany, the UK, and the US). The analysis shows that communication by more credible elites (member governments and NGOs) has stronger effects on citizens’ legitimacy perceptions than communication by less credible elites (international organizations themselves).

This chapter presents the books theory of elite communication effects on public opinion in global governance. It begins by defining legitimacy beliefs and introducing its favored empirical measure of such beliefs. In developing the book’s theory, the chapter starts from what is distinctive about the global setting in which elites and their messages may impact public opinion. The core of the argument is presented in two steps. The first step explains why elite communication can be expected to shape citizens’ legitimacy beliefs, given that citizens rely on cognitive heuristics when forming opinions. The second step specifies when elite communication can be expected to be particularly influential, identifying conditions associated with all three components of the communicative setting – elites, messages, and citizens.

This chapter focuses on domestic elites and examines the conditions under which political parties influence public perceptions of international organization legitimacy. While it is well-known that political parties are powerful communicators about domestic political matters, less is known about the effects of party cues on global political issues. The chapter explores this topic based on two survey experiments on party communication regarding two international organizations (North Atlantic Treaty Organization and United Nations). The experiments are embedded in surveys conducted in two countries (Germany and the US), which vary in the degree of political polarization. The chapter finds that party cues tend to shape legitimacy beliefs toward NATO and the UN in the highly polarized US setting, while few effects are detected in the less polarized German context.

This chapter sets the stage for the book by providing an empirical overview of citizen legitimacy beliefs, elite legitimacy beliefs, and elite communication in global governance. It shows that citizen legitimacy beliefs vary across countries, international organizations, and over time, but that there is no secular decline in international organization legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. It further demonstrates that elites are divided in their legitimacy beliefs, but that they on average moderately support international organizations. Elite communication in global governance tends to be negative in tone in the context of the international organizations studied, but also involves a broadening of narratives about international organizations and a pattern of fluctuations over time.

This chapter outlines the key paradox motiving the book: while world politics features growing elite contestation over international organizations, we know little about the effects of such communication on citizens legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. The chapter explains the theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions of the book, and outlines its core argument and findings in brief. It motivates the survey-experimental and comparative research design developed to study elite communication effects on legitimacy beliefs in this book. By providing a review of previous research on legitimacy, legitimation, public opinion, and elite influence, this introductory chapter relates to some of the most important debates in contemporary international relations research.

This chapter examines whether and to what extent information about the procedures and performances of international organizations affects citizens legitimacy beliefs. It examines this issue comparatively across seven international organizations in different issue areas, including the African Union, European Union, United Nations Security Council, and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The survey is conducted in four countries in diverse world regions (Germany, the Philippines, South Africa, and the US). The analysis shows that information about both procedures and performances impact legitimacy beliefs. Moreover, citizens update their legitimacy beliefs in line with information about democracy, effectiveness, and fairness in global governance.

This chapter examines how information on the authority and purpose of international organizations influences citizen legitimacy beliefs toward global governance. Advancing on previous research that primarily has studied effects of procedures and performances on citizens legitimacy beliefs, this chapter uses a conjoint experimental design to assess how different institutional qualities matter when simultaneously communicated to citizens. The chapter explores this issue across hypothetical international organizations in two countries (Germany and the US). It finds that citizens form legitimacy beliefs in line with information about authority and purpose in international organizations. However, this relationship depends on citizens’ political priors. Information about an international organization’s authority has a weaker negative effect on legitimacy beliefs among internationalist citizens. Moreover, the effect of information about an international organization’s social purpose depends on citizens’ political values. These conditioning effects are only found in the more polarized context of the US and not in Germany.

This chapter reviews the types, use, production, accessibility and efficacy of data visuals contained in IPCC assessments and special reports, drawing upon available published literature. Visuals of different types are key to the communication of IPCC assessments. They have been subject to academic interest among social and cognitive scientists. Furthermore, wider societal interest in the IPCC has increased, especially since the publication of its Fifth Assessment Report. In response, the IPCC has revisited its approach to communication including visuals, which has resulted in a greater professionalisation of its visualisations — involving information designers and cognitive scientists — and in new forms of co-production between authors and users.

This chapter addresses the role, and importance, of individual counseling and psychotherapy in providing psychological assistance and support to patients who are struggling with infertility and loss. Depression and anxiety are the two most frequent emotional sequelae of the infertility experience. The chapter therefore speaks not only to what factors contribute to making fertility counselors effective in their work, but also addresses specific treatment approaches that can yield positive outcomes in working with this unique population. These approaches include psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive–behavioral therapy (including dialectical behavior therapy and trauma-focused therapy), and supportive counseling. A brief history and description of each approach is presented in addition to a discussion of ways in which these psychotherapeutic treatments can be effective in working with fertility patients. Each of these approaches can be longer term or time-limited, often depending on the needs and preferences of the patient. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of appropriate professional mental health training as well as an understanding of the unique medical treatments that are an inherent part of the personal experiences of fertility patients. A strong therapeutic alliance is critical to effective individual treatment, and each psychotherapy approach provides strategies for assisting individuals who are emotionally challenged by infertility.

After Wittgenstein, the most immediately visible – though by no means the only – philosopher addressed in Wallace’s work is the neopragmatist Richard Rorty, whose book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature provided the title for one of Wallace’s later stories, a narrative concerned with the nature and revelation of truth. Indeed, the pragmatic concept that truth is a matter of vocabulary became one of the central pillars of Wallace’s own philosophy, as critics, including Hayes-Brady and Tracey, have shown. This chapter offers some context for reading the pragmatic strain that animates especially Wallace’s later works, including treatment of the liberal ironist and the question of the constituted other. Opening with an introduction to the history of the American pragmatic tradition, we move on to consider its direct and implicit presences in Wallace’s work, concluding with the proposal of a pragmatic model for reading Wallace’s writing in both thematic and structural frames.