IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/vil/papers/56.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decision-Making in the United Nations General Assembly: A Comprehensive Database of Resolutions, Decisions, and Votes

Author

Abstract

Existing databases for UNGA voting (e.g., Bailey et al. 2017) provide excellent coverage of United Nations General Assembly voting on resolutions that were adopted by roll call vote. These databases, however, have some known limitations: They were built on historical dataset (e.g., the ICPSR dataset) that have varying coverage and definitions. They do not cover resolutions adopted by consensus. They do not consistently cover votes on draft resolutions that failed, i.e., votes on resolutions that were not adopted, or votes leading up to consideration by the UNGA. In this paper, we present an updated dataset that attempts to expand and improve the consistency of the UNGA decisions covered. We provide some comparisons of our database with other UNGA datasets, as well as explore the implications of more complete data for existing and future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Fjelstul & Simon Hug & Christopher Kilby, 2022. "Decision-Making in the United Nations General Assembly: A Comprehensive Database of Resolutions, Decisions, and Votes," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 56, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:vil:papers:56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.library.villanova.edu/workingpapers/VSBEcon56.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Dollar, David, 2000. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 33-63, March.
    2. Dreher, Axel & Jensen, Nathan M., 2013. "Country or leader? Political change and UN General Assembly voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 183-196.
    3. Christopher Kilby, 2011. "Informal influence in the Asian Development Bank," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 223-257, September.
    4. Kilby, Christopher, 2013. "The political economy of project preparation: An empirical analysis of World Bank projects," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 211-225.
    5. Dreher, Axel & Jensen, Nathan M, 2007. "Independent Actor or Agent? An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of U.S. Interests on International Monetary Fund Conditions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 105-124, February.
    6. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2012. "Do the IMF and the World Bank influence voting in the UN General Assembly?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 363-397, April.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2005. "IMF programs: Who is chosen and what are the effects?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1245-1269, October.
    8. Ball, Richard & Johnson, Christopher, 1996. "Political, Economic, and Humanitarian Motivations for PL 480 Food Aid: Evidence from Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(3), pages 515-537, April.
    9. Kim, Soo Yeon & Russett, Bruce, 1996. "The new politics of voting alignments in the United Nations General Assembly," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 629-652, October.
    10. Frank Häge & Simon Hug, 2016. "Consensus Decisions and Similarity Measures in International Organizations," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 503-529, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohammad Zahidul Islam Khan, 2020. "Is Voting Patterns at the United Nations General Assembly a Useful Way to Understand a Country’s Policy Inclinations: Bangladesh’s Voting Records at the United Nations General Assembly," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    2. Dreher, Axel & Jensen, Nathan M., 2013. "Country or leader? Political change and UN General Assembly voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 183-196.
    3. Guimarães, Bernardo de Vasconcellos & Ladeira, Carlos Eduardo de Almeida, 2015. "The determinants of IMF fiscal conditionalities: economics or politics?," Textos para discussão 391, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    4. Paolo Pinotti & Riccardo Settimo, 2011. "Does aid buy votes?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 101, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2012. "Do the IMF and the World Bank influence voting in the UN General Assembly?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 363-397, April.
    6. Bernhard Boockmann & Axel Dreher, 2011. "Do human rights offenders oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 443-467, March.
    7. Pincin, Jared, 2012. "Foreign aid and political influence of the development assistance committee countries," MPRA Paper 39668, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Rommel, Tobias & Schaudt, Paul, 2020. "First impressions: How leader changes affect bilateral aid," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    9. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm & James Raymond Vreeland, 2006. "Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence IMF Decisions? Evidence from Panel Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 1808, CESifo.
    10. Martin Mosler & Niklas Potrafke, 2020. "International political alignment during the Trump presidency: voting at the UN general assembly," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 481-497, May.
    11. Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Thiel, Susann & Thiele, Rainer, 2010. "Aid allocation by German NGOs: Does the degree of public refinancing matter?," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 92, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2006. "World Bank Independence: A Model and Statistical Analysis of US Influence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 224-240, May.
    13. Niklas Potrafke, 2009. "Does government ideology influence political alignment with the U.S.? An empirical analysis of voting in the UN General Assembly," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 245-268, September.
    14. Hugo Oriola & Jamel Saadaoui, 2024. "How do geopolitical interests affect financial markets reaction to international institution projects?," Working Papers of BETA 2024-25, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    15. Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Thiele, Rainer, 2011. "Are ‘New’ Donors Different? Comparing the Allocation of Bilateral Aid Between nonDAC and DAC Donor Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1950-1968.
    16. Axel Dreher & Shu Yu, 2020. "The Alma Mater effect: Does foreign education of political leaders influence UNGA voting?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 45-64, October.
    17. Ms. Era Dabla-Norris & Ms. Camelia Minoiu & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2010. "Business Cycle Fluctuations, Large Shocks, and Development Aid: New Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2010/240, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Kaya, Ayse & Kilby, Christopher & Kay, Jonathan, 2021. "Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as an instrument for Chinese influence? Supplementary versus remedial multilateralism," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    19. Axel Dreher & Katharina Michaelowa, 2008. "The political economy of international organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 331-334, December.
    20. Hippolyte Balima & Amadou Sy, 2021. "IMF-Supported Programs and Sovereign Debt Crises," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(2), pages 427-465, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    United Nations General Assembly; roll call voting;

    JEL classification:

    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vil:papers:56. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher Kilby (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edvilus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.