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International Political Alignment during the Trump Presidency: Voting at the UN General Assembly

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  • Martin Mosler
  • Niklas Potrafke

Abstract

We examine voting behavior of Western allied countries in line with the United States over the period 1949 until 2019. Descriptive statistics show that voting in line with the United States on resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was on average 7.2 percentage points lower under Donald Trump than under the preceding United States presidents. The policy shift is especially pronounced for resolutions dealing with the Middle East. The decline in common UNGA voting behavior is significant for the resolution agreement rate and the absolute difference of ideal points. The results suggest that the alienation of Western allies is not driven by ideological distance based on a classical leftwing-rightwing government ideology scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Mosler & Niklas Potrafke, 2020. "International Political Alignment during the Trump Presidency: Voting at the UN General Assembly," ifo Working Paper Series 320, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ifowps:_320
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    Cited by:

    1. Dähler, Timo, 2020. "Bias or ignorance? The politics and economics behind sovereign credit ratings," MPRA Paper 103965, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Martin Mosler, 2020. "Autocrats in the United Nations General Assembly: A Test of the Decoy Voting Hypothesis," ifo Working Paper Series 340, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    3. Henning Vöpel & Harms Bandholz & Gabriel Felbermayr & Christoph Spengel & Jost Heckemeyer & Martin Mosler & Niklas Potrafke & Henrik Müller & Gabriel J. Felbermayr, 2020. "The US Before the Election Campaign: The Traces of Donald Trump in Business and Politics," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(01), pages 03-29, January.
    4. Dorine Boumans & Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke & Fabian Ruthardt, 2022. "Political Leaders and Macroeconomic Expectations: Evidence from a Global Survey Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 9974, CESifo.
    5. Mosler, Martin, 2021. "Autocrats in the United Nations General Assembly: A test of the decoy voting hypothesis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Carla Martinez Machain, 2021. "Exporting Influence: U.S. Military Training as Soft Power," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(2-3), pages 313-341, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Donald Trump; voting alignment; UNGA; political alliances;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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