When global cooperation fails to deliver, solidarity declines with it
New polling across 31 countries shows falling support for international institutions — not because people reject cooperation, but because they don't see it working. The gap reveals something fundamental about governance at any scale.
Democracy Without Borders’ latest Global Solidarity Report surveyed 22,000 people across 31 countries and found support for international cooperation declining across nearly every demographic. Between 2024 and 2025, fewer people identified as global citizens, fewer wanted taxes funding global problems, and even majority support for enforcement powers in international institutions weakened. Younger generations, often assumed to be more globally minded, now show no more internationalist sentiment than their grandparents.
The pattern mirrors a truth The Garden has explored in other governance contexts: institutions succeed when people feel ownership and see results. Democracy Without Borders notes that shutting down public hospitals would be politically unthinkable in most countries, yet the USA and Argentina have treated withdrawal from the World Health Organization as a legitimate choice. The difference isn’t abstract — it’s whether citizens experience an institution as protecting their interests or as something distant and imposed.
The decline appears driven less by ideology than by delivery. Around one-third of respondents still identify as global citizens, and 57% want international bodies to have enforcement powers — a foundation to build on. But growing inequality has eroded trust in collective decision-making at every scale, and international institutions become convenient scapegoats when national governments fail to address it. The researchers point to the UN tax convention currently underway as evidence that cooperation on borderless challenges like financialised wealth remains possible, even as political headwinds strengthen.
The finding connects global governance to the oldest question in democratic practice: when people stop believing that others will contribute fairly or that institutions can improve their lives, participation drops and polarisation rises. Solidarity — whether local or planetary — depends on the same quiet foundation of trust, shared purpose, and visible results. Right now, that foundation is weakening because cooperation isn’t delivering at the scale the problems demand.