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Contested Global Governance

Over the summer, Bart Bes has published two articles dealing with the consequences of contestation in global governance. The articles have been published in the journals ”European Journal for Political Research” and ”Global Policy”.

European Journal of Political Research

Together with Christian Rauh (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and Martijn Schoonvelde (University College Dublin), Bes investigated how European executives communicate European integration in the face of EU politicization in their constituencies. 

They find that, in the absence of strong Eurosceptic parties, national politicians undermine European integration in response to public Euroscepticism, whereas European Commissioners, under the same conditions, defend it. These responses intensify disproportionally with growing public Euroscepticism, but are moderated by the strength of Eurosceptic parties. 

When Eurosceptic parties come closer to absorbing the Eurosceptic potential in public opinion, executive communication turns more defensive again but also involves less clear rhetorical signals. 

Read the article on the European Journal for Political

Global Policy

Together with Thomas Sommerer (Stockholm University) and Hans Agné (Stockholm University), Bes assessed the assumption that Global Governance Institutions (GGI) need legitimacy to perform effectively. 

More specifically, they assess how crises of legitimacy affect the staff and financial resources of 21 GGIs from 1985 to 2015. 

They find that the effects of legitimacy crises on GGI resourcefulness are interesting but surprisingly weak, often GGI specific, and dependent on time and the source of the challenge. Specially, they find that elite criticism of GGIs lead to deep resource cuts in the short and medium term, while the effect of mass protests takes longer.  

Read the article on the Global Policy
 

Bart Bes’ personal page