The article focuses on the politicization of international authority as a thus far little understood development in world politics. We first define the concept and show that there is an empirical trend towards politicization of international institutions. We then argue that the increasing authority of international institutions has led to their politicization and we relate this hypothesis to alternative explanations. The validity of the authority–politicization nexus is illustrated by the rise of international authority in parallel to politicization. We go on to distinguish different policy functions such as rule definition, monitoring, interpretation, and enforcement in order to show that especially those international institutions with a high level of authority meet with strong contestation of their competencies. We conclude the article by exploring various avenues for future politicization research.

Much of what can be subsumed under the label 'political cosmopolitanism' calls for the empowerment of international institutions because of increased global interdependencies. Surprisingly, however, few scholars have asked whether ordinary citizens share this way of thinking. Do people believe that international institutions are desirable because of their superior capacity to solve transnational problems? To address this question, falsifiable hypotheses about the quality of and scope conditions for a minimally defined 'public political cosmopolitanism' are derived from the literature and tested using the results of a representative survey of German citizens. I show that there is significant support for what I call the 'interdependence model' of cosmopolitan politicization: German citizens' perception of transnational interdependencies (in terms of functional sensitivity as well as moral commitments) fosters beliefs in the capacity of international institutions to solve problems. Remarkably, this relationship is moderated by citizens' sense of their own vulnerability, that is, their beliefs that the national government is incapable of solving such problems. The interdependence model has significant explanatory power, spanning different levels of education, and thus disproves claims that cognitive mobilization is a crucial scope condition for cosmopolitan politicization.

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Die in diesem Papier zusammengefassten Überlegungen wurden zu verschiedenen Gelegenheiten innerhalb und außerhalb des Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) zur Diskussion gestellt. Profitiert haben wir ganz besonders von unseren Kollegen in der Abteilung »Transnationale Konflikte und Internationale Institutionen« am WZB, Helmut Weidner und

Why do citizens support or reject the idea of global authority? The article addresses this question by examining individual attitudes about UN authority in a comparative perspective. Using data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (2005)(2006)(2007), the analysis shows that global public support for UN authority largely depends on a cosmopolitan understanding of global interdependence and moral universalism. However, the analysis of contextual variables also suggests that a "particularist" calculus of national costs and benefits explains citizens' support for (and rejection of) UN authority to a significant extent. Most remarkably, citizens of powerful states favor UN authority much more than do those from weaker countries -a possible indication that UN authority is expected to further privilege the former to the disadvantage of the latter.