• Projekt

    Understanding Global Governance

    Most citizens do not know much about International Organizations (IOs). Even for the case of the European Union (EU), arguably the IO with the strongest media presence, factual knowledge about it is much lower than for national political institutions. Yet, citizens are more and more frequently asked to form attitudes towards IOs. Whether it is in the context of electoral campaigns, on the occasion of referendums or simply during an international crisis with a strong involvement from an IO; research on the politicization of IOs shows that these institutions no longer exist decoupled from politics on the national level. Still, many German citizens do not know the basic facts about the EU and the UN. This contrast between low knowledge and rising awareness about IOs could lead to the conclusion, that citizens base their attitudes towards IOs exclusively on either their beliefs about national politics or that they rely on the public position of trusted political elites.
    We know very little about the role of information during attitude formation on IOs. Compared to other topics, IOs are complex and abstract, which makes it very unlikely that citizens can remember detailed information about them. Politicization has led to a considerable increase of media attention on IOs, but there have been no studies evaluating if the higher salience of a topic also leads to an increase of available information in the media. However, even if high-quality information were available, it would not be a guarantee that citizens use said information to form attitudes. Currently, there is no systematic research on the usage of information about IOs. Therefore, the central research question of my proposal is: How do citizens use information to form attitudes towards Inter-national Organizations? Understanding how citizens use information could help us understand how the actions and abilities of IOs can be better communicated.

  • Werdegang

    seit 2019 Mitglied der Graduate School of Politics (GraSP) der WWU Münster.
    seit 2018 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Professur für empirische Methoden der Sozialforschung, Institut für Politikwissenschaft der WWU Münster.
    2016-2018 Studium M.A. Angewandte Politikwissenschaft an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg und am Institut d'Études Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence
    2016-2017 Studentische Hilfskraft am Lehrstuhl Governance im Mehrebenensystem an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Prof. Dr. Diana Panke).
    2013-2016 Studium B.A. Angewandte Politikwissenschaft an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg und am Institut d'Études Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence.

  • Publikationen

    Konferenzbeiträge

    Meiners, Paul; Schlipphak, Bernd (2019): „Domestic Politics and Regional Organizations: Analyzing Domestic Elite (De)Legitimization, Public Knowledge and Citizens’ Attitudes“. Jahrestagung Arbeitskreis Europa- und Regionalismusforschung der DVPW, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Gießen, Deutschland, 03.05.2019.


    Meiners, Paul (2019): „Political Knowledge about International Organizations“. ECPR Joint Sessions, UCLouvain, Mons, Belgien, 11.04.2019.


    Henn, Julia; Bloemen, Henrike; Meiners, Paul (2019): „Interkulturelle Herausforderungen und Chancen für Lehrende in binationalen Studiengängen“. Jahrestagung Arbeitskreis Hochschullehre der DVPW, WWU Münster, Münster, Deutschland, 26.02.2019.

  • Weiteres

    Forschungsinteresse:

    • Global Governance
    • Politisches Verhalten
    • Experimentelle Methoden