Description
In recent years, various crises such as the financial crisis, Brexit, and the covid-19 pandemic have shed light on citizens’ dissatisfaction with International Organisations (IOs). Yet, despite their crucial importance for IOs’ legitimacy, individual citizens’ connection to these organisations remains understudied. This article contributes to the literature on emotion research in International Relations (IR) by exploring the everyday emotions of ordinary individuals about international organisations and their repercussions on world politics, moving beyond the state or community level to examine how citizens actually experience international politics. It does so by theorising emotional attachments to IOs and demonstrating how they shape perceptions and preferences that have an impact on the future of organisations, contributing to the “everyday turn” in emotion research in IR. Using the European Union as a case study, it analyses 21 focus groups with individuals from four different countries (Belgium, France, Italy, and Portugal) and provides a deeper understanding of the micro-political foundation that enables and legitimises government action, and against whose background international relations are conducted.
