Interdependence and Political Cooperation: the UN votes

The fundamental question of this project is to analyze the relation between interdependence and political cooperation in international organizations. More specifically, it observes how the degree of interdependence among countries may affect their behavior in international institutions, and in particular the United Nations. The hypothesis tests whether countries with greater interdependence will cast a similar vote in the UN General Assembly more frequently than countries with lower levels of interdependence. Expected contributions of this research include: to give the concept of interdependence a more comprehensive dimension in comparison to the common use of the literature (usually measured by variables related to trade) and to classify votes according to the main themes discussed in General Assemblies (International Defense and Security, Human Rights, Environment, International Trade and Economics, Migration, Health and others) and additional features (such as total abstention and polarization between groups of countries). The goal is to understand the behavior of specific countries within a multilateral context and in certain topics with the aid of the concept of interdependence.
 

Researchers involved