Ubiquitous but heterogeneous: International organizations' influence on public opinion in China, Brazil, Japan, and Sweden.

This article investigates the influence of international organizations' (IOs) approval—specifically the United Nations (UN)—on public support for the use of force across four countries: Brazil, China, Japan, and Sweden. Using survey experiments, the study confirms that UN authorization generally increases public support for military action in these diverse national contexts, extending prior findings beyond the usual focus on Western great powers. However, the effect varies significantly by individual factors such as educational attainment and foreign policy orientation—particularly militant internationalism—and by country, with Chinese respondents (from an autocratic, UN Security Council permanent member state) showing a smaller response to UN approval than respondents from the other democratic countries. These results highlight both the broad persuasiveness and the heterogeneous nature of IO endorsement effects on public attitudes toward military force.