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Journal of European Public Policy
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjpp20
The politics of IO authority transfers: explaining
informal internationalisation and unilateral
renationalisation
Christian Kreuder-Sonnen & Bernhard Zangl
To cite this article: Christian Kreuder-Sonnen & Bernhard Zangl (01 Mar 2024): The politics of
IO authority transfers: explaining informal internationalisation and unilateral renationalisation,
Journal of European Public Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2325008
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2325008
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The politics of IO authority transfers: explaining
informal internationalisation and unilateral
renationalisation
Christian Kreuder-Sonnen
a
and Bernhard Zangl
b
a
Institute of Political Science, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany;
b
Geschwister-
Scholl Institute of Political Science, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
ABSTRACT
In the wake of international organisations’(IOs) politicisation, treaty-based
transfers of authority to or from IOs have virtually come to a standstill.
Instead, we increasingly see instances of informal internationalisation and
unilateral renationalisation of IO authority. In this article, we introduce a
Political Contest Theory (PCT) that explains both phenomena at the same
time. PCT builds on the postfunctionalist assumption that, in the age of
politicisation, IO authority transfers activate a transnational cleavage between
communitarian and cosmopolitan factions fighting over the ‘right’locus of
political authority. Yet, beyond extant postfunctional theorising, PCT specifies
the mechanisms through and the conditions under which either the one or
the other faction may prevail. We argue that communitarians can rely on a
structural mobilisation advantage which allows them to assert unilateral
renationalisations, whereas cosmopolitans can rely on an institutional power
advantage which allows them to push through informal internationalisations.
Moreover, PCT highlights a pattern of mutual reinforcement between the
systematic advantages enjoyed by the opposing factions that is likely to
exacerbate the polarisation over IO authority transfers in the future.
ARTICLE HISTORY Received 1 August 2023; Accepted 21 February 2024
KEYWORDS IO authority; politicisation; constraining dissensus; transnational politics; cosmopolitanism;
communitarianism
1. Introduction
International organisations (IOs) are increasingly politicised. After long oper-
ating outside the purview of the general public, many IOs are now subject to
public contestation (de Vries et al., 2021; Hutter et al., 2016; Rixen & Zangl,
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDer-
ivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distri-
bution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the
Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
CONTACT Christian Kreuder-Sonnen christian.kreuder-sonnen@uni-jena.de Institute of Political
Science, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiß-Str. 3, Jena, 07743, Germany
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY
https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2325008
2013; Zürn et al., 2012). This trend has led to a shift in institutionalist theoris-
ing on IO authority from functionalist to post-functionalist approaches.
Whereas previously dominant functionalist theories assumed that the trans-
fer of authority from states to IOs was driven by increasingly complex trans-
national interdependencies (e.g., Keohane, 1984; Keohane & Nye, 1977;
Moravcsik, 1997), post-functionalist theories argue that the politicisation of
IOs has eroded the long-standing ‘permissive consensus’in member state
publics that allowed governments to translate the functional requirements
of complex interdependencies into IO authority transfers (e.g., Hooghe
et al., 2019; Hooghe & Marks, 2009; Zürn, 2018). In modern democracies, in
particular, a new cleavage has emerged between communitarian defenders
of national sovereignty and cosmopolitan supporters of international insti-
tutions (de Wilde et al., 2019; Hooghe & Marks, 2018). It finds expression in
a realignment of political parties that increasingly position themselves
along a nationalism-internationalism divide, making any IO authority transfer
a salient political issue (Kriesi et al., 2006). As a result, post-functionalists
argue, IO authority transfers are today plagued by a ‘constraining dissensus’
in member state publics that makes the internationalisation of authority
through the pooling of sovereignty in, or the delegation of governance
tasks to, IOs increasingly difficult (see Hooghe & Marks, 2009; Webber,
2019; Zürn, 2018).
Consistent with these post-functionalist expectations, treaty-based trans-
fers of authority to IOs have come to a virtual standstill over the past two
decades. During this period, hardly any IOs have undergone major treaty revi-
sions granting them more authority, nor have any new IOs been created with
significant authority. Thus, available datasets show a stagnation of IO auth-
ority over the past two decades (Hooghe et al., 2019; Zürn et al., 2021).
Beyond this treaty-based stagnation, however, IO authority has hardly been
stable. On the contrary, several IOs have experienced notable gains or
losses in authority, even if these are not reflected in formal treaty changes.
On the one hand, we see the informal internationalisation of authority. The
(self-)empowerment of the European Central Bank (ECB) to act as lender of
last resort during the euro crisis and the (self-)empowerment of the United
Nations’Security Council to issue generally binding legislative resolutions
for the international community are prominent cases. On the other hand,
we also see the unilateral renationalisation of IO authority. The withdrawal
of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) or the blockade
of the Dispute Settlement System of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
by the United States (US) are prominent examples.
Neither of these authority transfers per se is inconsistent with postfunc-
tionalist expectations. As Hooghe and Marks (2019, p. 1117) point out, ‘the
range of possible outcomes under postfunctionalism encompasses not only
the status quo or its punctuated reform, but also disintegration’. Similarly,
2C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
Zürn (2018) holds that both a deepening and a decline of IO authority are
possible outcomes of the increasing politicisation of IOs. However, beyond
identifying the further internationalisation and the renationalisation of auth-
ority as possible outcomes of IO politicisation, these theories so far do not
explain when (under what conditions) and how (through what mechanisms)
the internationalisation and the renationalisation of authority occur in the
context of IO politicisation. In this respect, post-functionalism is
underspecified.
The ambition of this paper is to outline a Political Contest Theory (PCT) that
provides the necessary specification for postfunctionalism. Our PCT shares
the postfunctionalist assumption that the politicisation of IOs has triggered
a (transnational) political contest between communitarian- and cosmopoli-
tan-leaning groups over the ‘right’locus of political authority (see also Koop-
mans & Zürn, 2019). Going beyond existing theories, however, PCT specifies
the conditions (and mechanisms) under which cosmopolitans are likely to
prevail –driving the informal internationalisation of authority –as well as
the conditions under which communitarians are likely to prevail –driving
states’unilateral renationalisation of IO authority. The core argument of
PCT is that, in their (transnational) contest over IO authority transfers, cosmo-
politan and communitarian groups can draw on specific strategic advantages
that allow them to achieve their respective ‘victories’. First, PCT contends that
communitarians enjoy a structural mobilisation advantage that allows them to
assert the renationalisation of authority from IOs, especially when citizens
have direct access to decision-making. Second, PCT contends that cosmopo-
litans enjoy an institutional power advantage that allows them to orchestrate
the internationalisation of authority through institutional backdoors,
especially in the face of transnational crises. Third, PCT suggests that the
use of their respective strategic advantages translates into a mutually reinfor-
cing (and thus individually self-defeating) dynamic that contributes to the
deepening of the transnational cleavage and thus the polarisation of IO
member-state societies, rendering both cosmopolitan and communitarian
victories increasingly unstable.
To develop the Political Contest Theory in response to the limitations of
current postfunctionalist theorising and ultimately to stimulate further
research on the (transnational) politics of IO authority transfers, we proceed
as follows. In Section 2, we show that IO authority transfers in the age of poli-
ticisation increasingly take the form of informal internationalisation and uni-
lateral renationalisation. In Section 3, we reconstruct postfunctionalist
theories on IO authority transfers and argue that they are underspecified
with respect to both the mechanisms and the conditions that lead to these
outcomes. In Section 4, we introduce PCT as an approach that specifies the
missing mechanisms and conditions and thereby amends postfunctionalist
theories of IO authority transfers. Drawing on examples from the EU and
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 3
the WTO, we provide plausibility probes for the main propositions of our
theory. The conclusion reflects on the broader research agenda that our
theory aims to stimulate.
2. Authority transfers in the age of politicisation
Defined as the ability to evoke deference among relevant audiences for
decisions, judgments or interpretations (Zürn et al., 2012, p. 86; see also
Barnett & Finnemore, 2004; Lake, 2010), IO authority has been on the rise
for decades. Whether measured in terms of pooling and delegation
(Hooghe et al., 2019) or autonomy and bindingness (Zürn et al., 2021), the
amount of IO authority shows a secular upward trend, propelled in particular
after World War II and after the Cold War (see Figure 1). However, the rise of
their international authority was accompanied by an increase in the politici-
sation of IOs. In the EU, politicisation already intensified in the 1990s (de
Wilde & Zürn, 2012; Hooghe & Marks, 2009), whereas the politicisation of
other IOs mostly followed since the 2000s (Zürn et al., 2012) and further inten-
sified since the 2010s (Hooghe et al., 2019, p. 103). Today, many IOs are poli-
ticised, especially those with significant and tangible authority, and in
particular when it comes to transferring further authority to these IOs.
Figure 1. Treaty-based IO authority transfers 1950–2019. Source: MIA authority v.4 (Data
available at https://garymarks.web.unc.edu/data/international-authority/.); graphs
depict the cumulative sum of annual pooling and delegation scores for a total of 76 IOs.
4C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
The increasing politicisation of IOs has curbed treaty-based authority
transfers to IOs. Since the mid-2000s, hardly any IOs have undergone
reforms of their founding treaties that would have provided for the del-
egation of additional competences or the pooling of more sovereignty. Nor
have any new IOs been created in this period that would have acquired
additional authority in new areas. On the other hand, treaty changes to trans-
fer authority back to IO member states have also remained a rare exception.
Accordingly, as shown in Figure 1, the updated Measure of International
Authority (MIA) dataset of Hooghe et al. (2019) indicates a more or less com-
plete standstill of IO authority in terms of formal pooling and delegation since
about 2005.
However, at the same time that formal transfers of authority to or from IOs
have come to a standstill, other non-treaty-based types of authority transfers
have proliferated that are not reflected in existing datasets: informal interna-
tionalisation and unilateral renationalisation of authority.
Informal internationalisation refers to IO authority transfers through insti-
tutional backdoors without formal treaty changes. We distinguish two main
forms:
.Transgressions: Here, authority is assumed by IOs through acts of (self-
)empowerment that bypass the ordinary procedures of IO treaty revision
(Kreuder-Sonnen & Zangl, 2015, p. 574). In some cases, these acts of
(self-)empowerment are jointly orchestrated by member state govern-
ments. For example, members of the UN Security Council progressively
expanded its powers to adopt binding legislation for the international
community as a whole or to impose punitive sanctions on individuals
(Kreuder-Sonnen, 2019a, ch. 4). In other cases, IO transgressions are
driven by supranational IO bodies. The self-empowerment of the ECB
during the euro crisis to act as a lender of last resort in the Eurozone is
one example (Heldt & Mueller, 2020; Scicluna, 2018) as is the self-empow-
erment of the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
to fill legal gaps in the WTO treaties and thus create obligations for the
member states (Condon, 2018; Howse, 2003).
.Shifting: Here, authority is transferred not to the formally responsible,
treaty-based IOs, but to other, predominantly non-treaty-based organisa-
tions, coalitions, or groupings of like-minded states that collectively
wield power not only over each of their members, but also over third
states (Vabulas & Snidal, 2013). Examples of shifts to informal IOs in
which like-minded states arrogate authority abound. For instance,
during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2010, leading states acted
through the informal G20 which took far-reaching decisions to address
the crisis on a global scale (Helleiner, 2016). Similarly, a US-led ‘coalition
of the willing’created the informal Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 5
to advance stricter interdiction principles on the high seas that were not
available under the relevant UN framework (Rodiles, 2020: ch. 4). And
during the Eurozone crisis, member states made the most consequential
decisions on loan provision, fiscal surveillance and structural reform not
in the Council of the EU but in the informal Eurogroup (Abels, 2019).
More generally, observers see shifts to informal of IOs, at least in part, as
a response to the politicisation of formal IOs (Biedermann & Tantow,
2023; Roger, 2020).
Unilateral renationalisation refers to acts by individual IO members to
reduce pre-existing IO authority without the consent of their fellow
member states. Again, there are two main forms:
.Withdrawal is the most drastic form that IO member states can choose to
renationalise authority previously granted to an IO (von Borzyskowski &
Vabulas, 2019). While a member state’s unilateral withdrawal does not
necessarily reduce the depth of authority that the IO in question can exer-
cise, it does limit the breadth of its authority to a reduced number of
member states. Examples of such exits from IOs abound in recent years,
with Brexit, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, being the most prominent
one (e.g., Walter, 2021a). During his tenure, US President Trump sought
to withdraw from a number of IOs, including the WHO, UNFCCC, and
UNESCO (and added threats of withdrawal from NATO and the WTO). Par-
ticularly in Africa and South America, states are withdrawing from inter-
national courts, such as Venezuela from the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights in 2013 (Soley & Steininger, 2018), or Burundi from the
ICC in 2017 (Brett & Gissel, 2020).
.Disobedience, especially principled disobedience, is another way in which
states can unilaterally renationalise IO authority. Principled disobedience
means that individual member states systematically disregard inter-
national obligations arising from previous IO authority transfers. In the
EU, for example, member states simply ignored the authority of the
Commission and the Council which, had established a temporary emer-
gency relocation scheme for refugees during the so-called migration
crisis in 2015 (Scicluna, 2021). In recent years, Hungary and Poland in
particular have increasingly refused to accept the previously agreed
European acquis communautaire, especially as regards its rule of law
dimension (Kelemen, 2020). However, disobedience can also mean
that individual member states sabotage the IO by obstructing its
ability to act (Daßler et al., 2022). One example is the US blocking
of the appointment of judges to the Appellate Body of the WTO
by the US, which rendered the body unable to perform its functions
(Zaccaria 2022).
6C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
In sum, transfers of authority in the age of politicisation are characterised
by two important trends. First, a standstill of formal, treaty-based transfers of
authority to or from IOs, and second, the growth of non-treaty-based forms of
IO authority transfers, namely the informal internationalisation and the unilat-
eral renationalisation of authority. How can these patterns be explained?
3. Explaining authority transfers: postfunctionalist
indeterminacy
Only postfunctionalist theories have made a serious effort to theorise the
consequences of politicisation for IO authority transfers. Their central
premise is that, due to the politicisation of IOs, the functionalist assumption
of a direct supply for the demand of international authority stemming from
problems of interdependence can no longer be upheld (Hooghe et al.,
2019; Hooghe & Marks, 2009). Two approaches can be distinguished accord-
ing to the level at which they locate the main drivers of this development: An
IO-level approach argues that the increasing authority of IOs spurs their poli-
ticisation because it lacks democratic legitimacy (Zürn, 2018). As IOs’legitima-
tion narratives are predominantly technocratic, they do no longer square with
the intrusive authority exercised by these IOs, leading to a loss of legitimacy
and more societal resistance to IO authority (see also Börzel & Zürn, 2021;
Kreuder-Sonnen & Rittberger, 2023). In contrast, a domestic-level approach
argues that the politicisation of IOs activates and mobilises communitarian
attitudes held by large proportions of citizens in IO member states
(Hooghe & Marks, 2009; also Hooghe et al., 2019). As a result, IO authority
appears increasingly illegitimate to many citizens, ‘because it undermines
national self-rule and national culture’(Hooghe et al., 2019, p. 85).
Despite their differences, both postfunctionalist approaches agree that, in
the wake of the politicisation of IOs, a new ‘transnational’cleavage is forming
pitting communitarian against cosmopolitan groups on questions of IO auth-
ority (Hooghe & Marks, 2018; Hutter et al., 2016; Koopmans & Zürn, 2019;
Kriesi et al., 2006).
1
As a consequence, transfers of authority to IOs, which gov-
ernments used to be able to make on the basis of functional considerations
and in anticipation of their citizens’‘permissive consensus’are now subject to
intense public contestation. Their politicisation thus throws a wrench in the
works of IO authority transfers by creating a ‘constraining dissensus’in
member state publics that inhibits the internationalisation of authority
‘even when benefits of scale are considerable’(Hooghe et al., 2019, p. 103).
This postfunctionalist proposition fits particularly well with the empirical
observation of a standstill in formal, treaty-based IO authority transfers
over the last two decades. As the concept of the constraining consensus
suggests, governments are apparently less and less able to assert the del-
egation of competences to and the pooling of sovereignty in IOs in domestic
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 7
political processes. However, postfunctionalist theories also consider the
further internationalisation of authority as well as the renationalisation of
authority as possible. The domestic-level approach considers the renationali-
sation of IO authority to individual member states and even the disinte-
gration of IOs as a distinct possibility (Hooghe & Marks, 2019, p. 1117;
Webber, 2019; Pevehouse, 2020). Simply put, the stronger the activation
and mobilisation of communitarian attitudes, and thus the stronger the
opponents of international authority, the more likely it is that the transfer
of authority to IOs will not only stall, but be reversed. The IO-level approach,
by contrast, regards further steps towards the internationalisation of auth-
ority as a distinct possibility (Zürn, 2014;2018). In this view, further treaty-
based authority transfers are possible if IOs are able to assuage the demo-
cratic deficit perceived by the public. Their gradual democratisation should
make IO authority more legitimate and thus reduce citizens’resistance to
further authority transfers (see also Dingwerth et al., 2019; Rauh & Zürn,
2020; Rittberger & Schimmelfennig, 2006; Tallberg et al., 2013).
Thus, postfunctionalist theories do accept the renationalisation and the
internationalisation of authority as distinct possibilities. However, they still
have difficulties to explain the occurrence of both phenomena. To be sure,
domestic-level approaches can argue that the outcome depends on the pre-
dominance of either communitarian or cosmopolitan groups within IO
member states. But when and how communitarians or cosmopolitans
might achieve such predominance remains an open question. Moreover,
IO-level versions might argue that the internationalisation or renationalisa-
tion of IO authority depends on the democratisation of IO authority. Yet,
this argument does not seem to fit with empirical observations. Attempts
by IOs to increase their democratic legitimacy are abundant, but do not sig-
nificantly alleviate societal contestation. On the contrary, further internatio-
nalisation of authority is not made possible by more permissive public
attitudes, but is orchestrated through (undemocratic) institutional backdoors
that circumvent popular resistance. So, the question remains: When (under
what conditions) do we see the internationalisation of authority (and why
is it mostly informal) and when do we see the renationalisation of authority
(and why is it mostly unilateral)? Our PCT aims to provide an answer to
these questions.
4. Political contest theory: mobilisation vs institutional power
advantage
To better grasp today’s IO authority transfers, we propose a Political Contest
Theory that specifies the conditions under which (and the mechanisms
through which) either communitarian or cosmopolitan coalitions can assert
the renationalisation or internationalisation of authority, respectively. While
8C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
the main thrust of the paper is theoretical, we nevertheless provide plausi-
bility probes for our theory (Eckstein, 1975). The PCT applies to IOs that are
strongly politicised. This is our scope condition. To lend empirical plausibility
to the main propositions of our theory, we therefore draw on cases of promi-
nent and authoritative IOs that are highly politicised. We discuss the UK’s exit
from the EU as a case of unilateral renationalisation of authority, and the ECB’s
decision to act as a lender of last resort in the Eurozone as a case of informal
internationalisation of authority. In addition, we discuss the ups and downs of
the authority of the WTO Appellate Body to lend plausibility to our prop-
osition that the drivers of internationalisation and renationalisation of auth-
ority are mutually reinforcing. To be sure, the mentioned plausibility
probes do not offer comprehensive explanations of each case, but they do
attempt to show that our mechanisms are present and our conditions have
effects, at least in the cases discussed here. In the conclusion, we discuss
ways to further assess the validity of our PCT.
4.1. The cosmopolitan–communitarian contest
The basic assumption of PCT is that, when IOs are politicised, transfers of auth-
ority to or from IOs are characterised by a (transnational) political contest
between communitarian and cosmopolitan coalitions. Attempts to transfer
authority to or from IOs activate the transnational cleavage. Of course, PCT
does not expect to find only true cosmopolitans and true communitarians
on either side of the cleavage. There are middle positions of citizens who
support IOs without being fully-fledged cosmopolitans, just as there are citi-
zens who are IO sceptics without being fully-fledged communitarians.
However, once the issue of IO authority transfers is publicly debated, citizens
align themselves with camps that support either cosmopolitan or communi-
tarian positions. This is how the cleavage becomes manifest (Lipset & Rokkan,
1967). It spurs a contest between two coalitions that pit cosmopolitan and
communitarian positions against each other. These positions can be outlined
as follows:
2
.Communitarians will typically argue against transferring authority to IOs or
in favour of renationalising authority. As self-appointed guardians of their
respective national communities, they fear that IO authority will threaten
not only the sovereignty of their member states, but also their democracy.
They also claim that democracy cannot be established beyond the nation-
state, because it presupposes an identity-based community of solidarity –
the demos –that cannot be established beyond the national community
(Dahl, 1999). Since IOs can thus never be democratic, national democracy
must be protected from the inherently undemocratic authority of IOs
(Nagel, 2005). To preserve the nation’s democratic control over its own
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 9
destiny, international authority must remain shallow. When IO authority
exceeds this limit, states must be prepared to withdraw from IOs or
disobey their IO commitments in order to reassert their sovereignty. In
conflict, states must protect domestic democracy from international
authority.
.Cosmopolitans, by contrast, will typically favour authority transfers to
IOs. Aiming at global solidarity among equal citizens of the world, cos-
mopolitans promote the internationalisation of authority because it
helps to overcome the unjust discrimination between national citizens
and foreign citizens that is inherent in national authority (Held, 1995).
Moreover, cosmopolitans also see the internationalisation of authority
as a means to rectify the democracy problem created by global interde-
pendencies. For it allows citizens to influence –via their own govern-
ments –other IO member states’policies that affect them (Zürn,
2000). Thus, it is only through the transfer of authority to IOs that a
just and democratic global order is achievable. Indeed, cosmopolitans
acknowledge that authority transfers to IOs may compromise domestic
democratic control, but they claim that this can be compensated for by
democratising IOs. Institutionalised procedures that promote public
deliberation and representation in IOs would then progressively foster
solidarity among global citizens, making cosmopolitan democracy poss-
ible (Risse, 2010).
The question is which coalition is able to prevail under what conditions.
4.2. The communitarian mobilisation advantage
Our first proposition is that the political contest over IO authority transfers is
characterised by a structural mobilisation advantage for the communitarian
side. PCT suggests that communitarian elites will find it easier to mobilise
popular support for their positions than their cosmopolitan counterparts. In
general, communitarianism appears to be on the rise. Existing literature has
highlighted a communitarian backlash against globalisation (see Walter,
2021b) due to sectoral economic and social decline (e.g., Broz et al., 2021)
or repulsion for culturally progressive norms (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). More-
over, most people have deep-seated national identities but at best superficial
transnational identities (Hooghe & Marks, 2009; Polyakova & Fligstein, 2016).
In this context, Dellmuth and Tallberg (2023) show that negative elite com-
munication about IOs is generally more effective than positive communi-
cation in shaping citizens’legitimacy beliefs: ‘When elites criticize IOs by
invoking democratic deficits or poor performances, they therefore get
through more easily to citizens than when they endorse the same organisa-
tions’(Dellmuth & Tallberg, 2023, p. 13).
10 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
Moreover, and even more importantly, we argue that it is easier for com-
munitarians to mobilise popular support because their ‘solution’to the IO
democratic deficit, which both communitarians and cosmopolitans point
to, is more readily realisable than that of the cosmopolitans. While the com-
munitarian solution of re-nationalising IO authority can be pursued unilater-
ally, i.e., by each member state for itself, the cosmopolitan ‘solution’of IO
democratisation can only be realised multilaterally, i.e., by all member
states together. Thus, when cosmopolitans call for the democratisation of
an IO, this demand is always subject to the condition that they obtain the
necessary support of the entire membership of the IO in question –a
weighty proviso that often seems insurmountable. If, by contrast, communi-
tarians call for the renationalisation of IO authority, this demand is not subject
to such a proviso. After all, the national withdrawal from an IO or the disobe-
dience of IO obligations does not require the consent of other member states.
Importantly, we do not assume that all citizens have a full understanding
of decision-making procedures in IOs and thus the capacity to rationally
evaluate elite proposals for feasibility (see also Dellmuth, 2016). Instead,
building on theories of elite cues in public opinion formation (see Dellmuth
& Tallberg, 2023; Ghassim, 2022), we argue that it is easier for communitarians
to point to a presumably fundamental flaw in cosmopolitan promises of
democratic reform that undermines cosmopolitans’ability to positively cue
citizens toward (increased) IO authority. Communitarians, by contrast, can
offera‘solution’to the democratic deficit of IOs that seems prima facie feas-
ible and is hardly contestable on this ground –an invaluable mobilisation
advantage. Communitarians can therefore credibly campaign on the
promise of democratisation through renationalisation, while the cosmopoli-
tan promise of democratising IOs might appear much less credible –and
thus hollow –from the outset. In the vocabulary of social movement research,
then, we find a political opportunity structure that strengthens the mobilis-
ation chances of communitarians while undermining those of cosmopolitans
(e.g., McAdam, 1996).
Because of this mobilisation advantage, we contend that communitarians
are able to achieve partial victories in the political contest over IO authority
transfers. However, PCT does not expect the communitarian mobilisation
advantage to always translate into a renationalisation of IO authority.
Rather, we expect the mobilisation advantage to be more or less relevant
depending on various context conditions. One key condition that we
expect to strongly influence the relevance of the mobilisation advantage is
the extent to which citizens have direct access to decision-making on IO auth-
ority transfers (access condition). For example, when IO authority transfers are
subject to national referenda or general elections, the communitarian mobil-
isation advantage can unfold its full potential (Hooghe & Marks, 2019, p. 1117;
de Vries et al., 2021). In such circumstances, their mobilisation advantage
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 11
helps communitarians in both garnering popular support and in mobilising
their supporters to go to the polls and vote. Accordingly, ‘[s]ince 2010,
voters have voted down proposals for more or continued international
cooperation in the majority of referendums’(Copelovitch et al., 2020,p.
1121). When citizens are excluded from the decision-making process, com-
munitarian mobilisation matters only indirectly and its effect is mediated
through institutions. This may explain why major EU integration projects
have failed to gain majority support in national referenda such as in the
1992 Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty or the 2005 French and
Dutch referenda on the Constitutional Treaty, while the Lisbon Treaty could
enter into force in 2009 after parliamentary approval.
3
The communitarian mobilisation advantage may also help explain the by
far most famous case of the renationalisation of IO authority: Brexit. The pol-
itical contest over whether the UK should leave the EU was fought out
between a communitarian coalition that advocated to ‘take back control’
to re-store popular sovereignty (and thus domestic democracy) and a cosmo-
politan coalition that emphasised the functional benefits of EU membership
(Clarke et al., 2017; Schimmelfennig, 2022). In this struggle, the Leave cam-
paign was able to draw on deep-seated national identities, while the
Remain campaign had to make do with the comparatively thin European
identities of most British citizens. Therefore, the Leave campaign’s framing
of (European) migration as a threat to national identity gained a lot of traction
among communitarian-leaning voters (Dennison & Geddes, 2018), while the
Remain campaign failed to construct a positive identification of Britons with
the EU with similar traction.
Moreover, the Remain campaign’s promise to bring about a more demo-
cratic EU in line with British preferences was hardly credible. As it would
have required the consent of all member states, any substantive democrati-
sation of the EU seemed to be utopian from the outset. This perception was
reinforced by Prime Minister Cameron’s failed attempt to secure substantive
concessions from the EU at the February 2016 European Council, which had
aimed to persuade British citizens to vote for ‘remain’(Rankin, 2016). In con-
trast, the Leave campaign’s promise to restore domestic democracy seemed
much more realistic. The prospect of renationalising the authority once
granted to the EU seemed the easiest way to restore the popular sovereignty
of British citizens.
Because the decision whether to leave or remain was made in a UK-wide
referendum, the resulting mobilisation advantage could unfold its full poten-
tial, generating both additional voter support and better turnout for the
Leave campaign. In fact, voter support for Brexit increased substantially
over the year leading up to the referendum. When the referendum was
announced in September 2015, the Remain campaign had about 48
percent voter support according to the rolling average of Brexit polls –and
12 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
it also finished at about 48 percent support in June 2016 (Financial Times,
2016). The Leave campaign, by contrast, started at about 38% but steadily
gained voter support over the year ending at 46 percent just before the refer-
endum, with the number of undecided voters falling from 14 to 6 percent
(Financial Times, 2016). Moreover, the fact that a majority of Britons ulti-
mately voted to leave the EU even though opinion polls consistently pre-
dicted a slim advantage for the Remain campaign, suggests that the Leave
campaign was also better able to mobilise its supporters to actually go to
the polls than the Remain campaign (Hobolt, 2016, p. 1262). Apparently,
the Leave campaign’s communitarian promise to gain democracy through
renationalisation was more credible, and thus better able to mobilise voter
support and turn-out, than the Remain campaign’s promise of democratic
reforms in the EU.
4.3. The cosmopolitan institutional power advantage
Our second proposition is that the political contest over IO authority transfers
is also marked by an institutional power advantage for cosmopolitans. Our PCT
contends that, in the contemporary context of world politics, cosmopolitans
have an institutional power advantage because members (or allies) of their
transnational coalition typically hold crucial decision-making positions in
IOs. To begin with, the executive heads of IOs –their directors, presidents
or secretaries-general –are generally leaning cosmopolitan rather than com-
munitarian. To become IO leaders, they need the support of a broad base of
member states. Since communitarian candidates are typically suspected of
being biased in favour of their home country, global support is much
easier to muster for candidates with cosmopolitan attitudes, who are typically
seen as being unbiased. Moreover, cosmopolitans also tend to control the
bureaucracies or judiciaries of IOs (see also Zürn, 2022, p. 800). Cosmopolitans
are more likely to be attracted by employment in the international working
environment of IOs, while at the same time the international working
environment of IOs is likely to socialise its employees into cosmopolitan atti-
tudes (Murdoch et al., 2019 Wolf, 1973;). This makes the bureaucracy of IOs, as
well as their judiciaries, more likely to hold cosmopolitan rather than commu-
nitarian views.
In addition, also the bureaucracies of the foreign ministries which rep-
resent their states in IOs are generally dominated by cosmopolitans. Cos-
mopolitans tend to self-select into the working environment of these
ministries precisely because they deal with international issues; and
through socialisation processes, this working environment is then likely
to further reinforce their cosmopolitan attitudes. For this reason, the diplo-
matic corps of states is often seen as an expression of a distinct inter-
national society (Bull, 1977, pp. 156–177). Finally, governments of
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 13
democratic member states as well as judicial actors or experts tend to hold
substantively more cosmopolitan positions than members of their dom-
estic parliaments (Zürn, 2022, pp. 799–800; see also de Wilde et al.,
2019). And government representatives –and the broader elites from
which they are selected –are more likely to be in favour of IO authority
than ordinary citizens (Dellmuth et al., 2022).
Thus, there is a built-in cosmopolitan institutional power advantage in IOs
–an advantage that applies not only to their supranational, but also to their
intergovernmental bodies. We suggest that this institutional power advan-
tage creates opportunities for cosmopolitans to achieve partial victories in
the contest over IO authority transfers. In particular, they can use their insti-
tutional power to orchestrate authority transfers through institutional back-
doors evading public participation through IO transgressions or shifts
towards informal IOs. Again, PCT does not expect this institutional power
advantage to always translate into cosmopolitan victories. Rather, we
expect it to be more or less relevant depending on contextual conditions.
One key condition that we assume to strongly influence the relevance of
the institutional power advantage is the presence or absence of a transna-
tional crisis that requires supranational management capacities (crisis con-
dition) (see also Kreuder-Sonnen & Rittberger, 2023, pp. 69–70). Indeed, the
literature on ‘covert integration’in the EU (Héritier, 2014) and ‘mission
creep’of IOs more generally (e.g., Littoz-Monnet, 2021; Pollack, 2000) often
assumes that such outcomes are most likely to occur outside the limelight
of crises and the political attention that accompanies them. For highly politi-
cised IOs, however, we expect the opposite to be true. Under crisis conditions,
cosmopolitans have a strong incentive to capitalise on their institutional
power advantage and assert authority transfers –potentially even through
IO self-empowerment –to effectively address the impending threat.
Moreover, crises provide cosmopolitans with arguments to justify orchestrat-
ing authority transfers through institutional backdoors that bypass public
participation (Heupel et al., 2021 White, 2019;). Taken together, this may
explain why many of the more recent IO authority transfers, including the
empowerment of the UN Security Council after 9/11 or the establishment
of emergency credit facilities to save the euro, were orchestrated in
times of crises through institutional backdoors (Kreuder-Sonnen, 2019b;
Kreuder-Sonnen & Zangl, 2015).
The cosmopolitan institutional power advantage may also help explain
one of the most politicised cases of IO authority transfers in the recent
past: the empowerment of the ECB to act as a lender of last resort during
the euro crisis. The risk of the sovereign default by some of its members
posed a serious threat not only to the financial stability in the Eurozone,
but also to the common currency and even the EU itself. However, the Euro-
pean Treaties mostly excluded precisely those measures that were deemed
14 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
necessary to contain the crisis (i.e., bailouts for indebted member states)
(Scicluna, 2015; Tuori & Tuori, 2014). Moreover, a transnational communitar-
ian coalition in many (esp. northern) Eurozone member states agitated
against treaty revisions that would have granted the EU the authority to
employ these measures (Börzel & Risse, 2018). To overcome the resulting
deadlock, a cosmopolitan-leaning coalition in the EU used its institutional
power advantage to save the Union’s common currency by orchestrating
authority transfers through the institutional backdoors of ECB self-empower-
ment. With a silent nod from the cosmopolitan-leaning heads of the most
powerful member states –Germany and France –as well as from the Com-
mission, ECB president Draghi famously declared in July 2012 that the Bank
was prepared to do ‘whatever it takes’to save the Euro (Kreuder-Sonnen,
2019a, pp. 139–141). Stretching its mandate as stipulated by the EU Treaties,
the ECB announced its OMT program allowing the unlimited purchase of
government bonds of highly indebted member states (Heldt & Mueller,
2020). In the end, the cosmopolitan institutional power advantage
enabled a strong increase in authority for the ECB through the institutional
backdoor of condoned Treaty reinterpretation that successfully eclipsed the
popular resistance against empowering the ECB in many (esp. northern)
member states.
4.4. The dynamic interplay between communitarian and
cosmopolitan ‘victories’
While the above propositions explain the informal internationalisation and
the unilateral renationalisation independently of each other (see Figure 2),
our third PCT proposition is about the dynamic interplay of these authority
transfers (see Figure 3). We hold that the internationalisation of authority
pushed by cosmopolitans and the renationalisation of authority pushed by
communitarians dynamically drive each other not only toward ever more
Figure 2. Explaining informal internationalisation and unilateral renationalisation.
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 15
polarisation and thus an ever-deeper cleavage, but also toward ever more
unstable outcomes.
On the one hand, PCT claims that the renationalisation of IO authority, or
even just the blocking of further authority transfers to IOs, driven by the
mobilisation advantage of communitarians, is likely to create ever more
incentives for cosmopolitans to use their institutional power advantage.
They are incentivised not only to push for the internationalisation of auth-
ority, but also to accept that it is informally orchestrated in procedurally ques-
tionable ways (see also Schimmelfennig, 2022). While mainstream parties
may increasingly shift to demarcationist positions in response to communi-
tarian electoral gains (Abou-Chadi & Krause, 2020; Meijers, 2017), we
submit that, when push comes to shove, cosmopolitan-leaning governments
and, of course, IO bureaucracies will seek to preserve the benefits of IO auth-
ority. Since the avenues for ordinary transfers of authority to IOs are blocked
by communitarian dissent, cosmopolitans are incited to push reforms
through institutional backdoors in order to protect (or even promote) IO
authority in times of crisis. Thus, the more communitarians can use their
mobilisation advantage to complicate further or undo prior authority trans-
fers to IOs, the more cosmopolitans are incited to (ab-)use their institutional
power advantage to enforce authority transfers to IOs. This mechanism was
evident in the ECB case above, where cosmopolitans were driven to orches-
trate authority transfers to the Bank through undue self-empowerment,
because communitarian mobilisation impeded the ordinary treaty revisions
required to save the euro (Schimmelfennig, 2014).
On the other hand, PCT argues that such transfers of authority to IOs
through institutional backdoors are likely to generate increasing communi-
tarian mobilisation not only against further authority transfers to IOs, but
Figure 3. Mutual reinforcement of informal internationalisation and unilateral
renationalisation.
16 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
also for the renationalisation of IO authority. After all, the internationalisation
of authority that cosmopolitans informally assert through institutional back-
doors plays right back into the hands of the communitarian critique of unde-
mocratic IOs run by elites out of touch with ordinary citizens (Kreuder-
Sonnen, 2018; White, 2019). It thus reinforces the ability of communitarians
to mobilise public support. Hence, the more cosmopolitans use their insti-
tutional power advantage to pursue authority transfers to IOs, the stronger
the communitarian mobilisation advantage and the more likely communitar-
ians are to succeed in renationalising IO authority. This mechanism was also
relevant in the Brexit case where the allegedly undemocratic authority trans-
fers during the euro crisis helped communitarians convince citizens that the
UK should leave the EU.
The full feedback loop of the dynamic, mutually reinforcing (yet individu-
ally self-undermining) interplay of communitarian and cosmopolitan ‘vic-
tories’can be observed in the WTO. To begin with, it can be argued that
the politicisation and eventual stalemate of the WTO negotiations during
the so-called Doha Round launched in 2001 led to an undue self-empower-
ment of the organisation’s Appellate Body (AB). While the stalemate in
trade liberalisation had many causes (Jones, 2010), one of them was certainly
the politicisation of the WTO ever since the famous Battle of Seattle in 1999
(Rauh & Zürn, 2020; Rixen & Zangl, 2013). This politicisation was initially trig-
gered by a transnational cosmopolitan coalition that criticised global injus-
tices and democratic deficiencies at the WTO (Tarrow, 2005), but was soon
accelerated by communitarian factions in various member states, especially
in the US and the EU, that criticised the WTO’s free trade agenda for
‘selling out on democracy’(Dingwerth et al., 2019, p. 68). In any case, the
mobilisation of communitarian critics made it increasingly difficult for the
US and the EU to find an agreement among themselves that they could
sell to the entire WTO membership. The resulting deadlock in the Doha
Round turned into an institutional crisis of the WTO (Dingwerth et al., 2019,
p. 84; Tarasofsky & Palmer, 2006) and thus incited the cosmopolitan-
leaning AB to step in. Through its own rulings, the AB gradually expanded
its authority from the realm of applying existing law ‘into the realm of law-
making’(Bahri, 2019, p. 303). To ensure the smooth functioning of the
WTO, AB judges issued rulings with legislative content (Condon, 2018;
Howse, 2003). They thus autonomously expanded the authority of the WTO
through the institutional backdoor of judicial precedent.
However, as expected by PCT, the self-empowerment of the cosmopolitan-
leaning AB contributed to a further mobilisation of communitarians against
the WTO. In fact, nothing has been more effective in mobilising against the
allegedly undemocratic nature of the WTO than pointing to the judicial acti-
vism of the unelected AB judges who overturn democratic decisions made by
their member states (Rixen & Zangl, 2013; Zaccaria 2022). In the US, where
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 17
President Barak Obama had already begun to block the appointment of AB
judges, a communitarian coalition led by then-US President Donald Trump
exploited this trope (Kruck et al., 2022, pp. 353–355). Arguing that the WTO
judges inappropriately interfered with US sovereignty and treated the US
‘very badly’(Micklethwait et al., 2018), Trump threatened to withdraw from
the organisation in 2018, an option that became increasingly popular
among US voters. By 2020, polls showed that a majority of US citizens
would vote to withdraw from the WTO (Kim & Durkin, 2020). In the end,
the US did not withdraw, but the Trump administration decided to block
the appointment of judges to the AB, effectively rescinding the WTO’s auth-
ority to adjudicate disputes between its members (Zaccaria 2022). Thus, the
previous self-empowerment of the cosmopolitan-leaning court actually
helped the Trump administration to further mobilise communitarian
support for the sabotage of the WTO which effectively renationalised pre-
viously internationalised authority.
In sum, while the WTO’s stalemate (driven in part by the communitarian
mobilisation advantage) provided ever more incentives for the cosmopoli-
tan-leaning AB to engage in the internationalisation of authority through
institutional backdoors, the procedurally questionable authority transfers to
the WTO (driven by the cosmopolitan institutional power advantage) led to
ever more communitarian mobilisation for the renationalisation of WTO auth-
ority, which ultimately brought its entire dispute settlement system to a
standstill. The two mechanisms apparently reinforced each other.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we argued that in order to understand IO authority transfers in
the age of politicisation, it is imperative to study the (transnational) politics
between communitarian and cosmopolitan coalitions that accompany
decisions to renationalise or further internationalise authority. Based on
this assumption, we outlined a Political Contest Theory which argues that
communitarians enjoy a mobilisation advantage that allows them to push
for the unilateral renationalisation of IO authority (especially when citizens
have direct access to decision-making), while cosmopolitans (still) enjoy an
institutional power advantage that allows them to enforce the informal inter-
nationalisation of authority through institutional backdoors (especially in
times of transnational crises). Importantly, these two mechanisms reinforce
each other, leading to an increasing public polarisation across IO member
states that renders both communitarian and cosmopolitan victories increas-
ingly unstable.
Since our PCT turned out to be able to help explain some of the most
famous cases of renationalisation of IO authority, as well as some of the
most prominent cases of recent internationalisation of authority (and their
18 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
inter-relationships!), we suggest that future research examine the politics of
IO authority transfers more broadly.
First, future research should further explore the conditions under which
cosmopolitans and communitarians are able or unable to successfully
exploit their respective advantages and thus win their partial victories.
Above, we argued that communitarians will prevail when issues of IO auth-
ority are addressed in political arenas to which individual citizens have
direct access. And we argued that cosmopolitans will prevail especially in
crises that functionally require immediate IO authority transfers. But we
recognise that there are ulterior conditions that shape the opportunity struc-
tures in the political contest between communitarians and cosmopolitans. A
research program that examines these conditions seems essential to a better
understanding of the watershed moment many IOs face in the age of
politicisation.
Second, we suggest that future research studies the dynamic interplay
between the partial victories of cosmopolitan and communitarian coalitions.
Above, we have suggested that processes of renationalisation pushed by
communitarians and internationalisation pushed by cosmopolitans are
mutually reinforcing, thus leading to an alternation of renationalisation and
internationalisation, as well as an increasingly insurmountable polarisation
within and across modern democracies that are subject to IO authority.
However, we also do not assume that this is an indefinite process. Most
importantly, we acknowledge that the two sides of the feedback loop are
not entirely balanced: while communitarians should invariably gain power
as informal internationalisation gives them further mobilisation potential,
cosmopolitans are merely incentivized to use their institutional power as uni-
lateral renationalisations make global governance more difficult. Hence, com-
munitarian power is likely to grow, whereas cosmopolitan power is more
likely to be consumed. In the long run, the overall balance of power may
shift from cosmopolitan to communitarian coalitions. Once communitarians
become powerful enough to constitute most member state governments
and influence the composition of domestic and international bureaucracies,
the cosmopolitan institutional power advantage will be gone. Accordingly,
the feedback loop is self-reinforcing only up to a certain threshold of commu-
nitarian power.
Third, we also suggest a more normative research agenda that examines
the conditions under which it might be possible to reduce the polarisation
between cosmopolitans and communitarians. In our view, one way forward
seems to be a learning process on both sides. Cosmopolitans in power may
learn that the internationalisation of authority through institutional back-
doors is self-defeating, as it encourages attempts to re-nationalise IO auth-
ority. Communitarians, on the other hand, may learn that the
renationalisation of authority is self-defeating, since problems of
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 19
interdependence do not simply disappear when states withdraw from the IOs
that help address those problems. Both cosmopolitans and communitarians
may learn to be more modest in order to avoid the backlash they are currently
provoking. We therefore suggest to conduct research that seeks to under-
stand the conditions under which learning modesty becomes possible.
Notes
1. The cleavage has received different denominations in the literature, such as
integrationist-demarcationist (Kriesi et al., 2006), GAL-TAN (Hooghe et al.,
2002); and communitarian-cosmopolitan (Zürn & de Wilde, 2016). While all
these denominations point to the same observation, we opted for the latter
as it best describes the political ideologies at play when it comes to the con-
testation of IO authority. See also de Wilde et al., 2019.
2. Note that the cosmopolitan and communitarian positions outlined in the fol-
lowing represent political shortcuts from the much more elaborate political
philosophies of communitarianism and cosmopolitanism. See also Zürn & de
Wilde, 2016.
3. Importantly, we do not claim to explain (let alone predict) the outcome of refer-
enda. We merely state that referenda allow the communitarian mobilisation
advantage to unfold. In individual cases, other non-theorised factors may
affect the outcome.
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Workshop ‘International Institutions:
Backlash and Resilience’at the University of Zurich in November 2021, the ‘Europe in the
World’seminar series at the European University Institute (EUI) in February 2022, and
colloquia at LMU Munich, FSU Jena, as well as the German Institute for International
and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin in 2023 and 2024. We would like to thank the partici-
pants in these forums for their valuable feedback, in particular Rafael Biermann, Mette
Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Yoram Haftel, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Stephanie Hofmann, Tobias
Lenz, Charles Roger, Lora Viola, and Stefanie Walter. In addition, we are grateful for
helpful comments by Benjamin Daßler, Andreas Kruck, Christian Rauh, Philip Tantow,
and three anonymous referees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Christian Kreuder-Sonnen is a Junior Professor of Political Science and International
Organizations at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
Bernhard Zangl is Professor of Global Governance and Public Policy at Ludwig Maxi-
milian University Munich, Germany.
20 C. KREUDER-SONNEN AND B. ZANGL
ORCID
Christian Kreuder-Sonnen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0397-3452
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