Process Matters: Legislative Procedure in the United Nations General Assembly

University Of California - Merced, Merced CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project proposes that thinking of the assembly as a legislature-specifically by focusing on its process and procedure-can significantly expand our understanding of state behavior and influence in international organizations. The United States spends tens of millions of dollars on United Nations related activities each year. This project provides a potential avenue of new understanding that could alter the outcome of national security and other diplomatic situations in the future. By better explaining the logic and motives behind state behavior, it could provide US decision makers with a more informed means of strategically navigating UN pathways to successful outcomes. A wealth of international relations literature focuses on roll call voting outcomes in the United Nations General Assembly. The United Nations General Assembly facilitates cooperation between states in the international system and provides a forum for states to send important signals. The institution helps states manage collective resources, lowers the transaction costs of joint decision-making, and increases the transparency with which decisions are made regarding war and peace. In order to understand how state preferences are aggregated within the United Nations, scholars have focused much attention on adoption votes at the end of the process. But final adoption is only one?arguably small?part of the story; much of the conflict and negotiation that occurs in the UNGA happens before agenda items and resolutions ever reach the plenary floor. This project will thus help better understand the uncover sources of power and dimensions of conflict that have gone undetected.