Changing Patterns in the Voting Success of Member States in the United Nations General Assembly: 1945–1966

In recent years considerable concern has been expressed in the United States over the changing composition of the United Nations membership and the failure of the one-state, one-vote formula in the General Assembly to reflect the actual power and significance of the different United Nations Members. “Malapportionment†as such is frequently not the issue here, for whether one looks at population, wealth, or budget assessments the United Nations General Assembly has always been “malapportioned.†And, at least in terms of population, the United Nations is no more malapportioned now than it was in 1945. Rather than a concern with a new situation, the growing emphasis on this issue is often a reflection of the fear that malapportionment will now operate to the disadvantage of the United States; that is, the †overrepresented†states of today may not be as closely associated with the United States as the †overrepresented†states of the past.