IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v63y2019i6p1403-1432.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Liberal Governments More Cooperative? Voting Trends at the UN in Five Anglophone Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Hanania

Abstract

Among both elites and the mass public, conservatives and liberal differ in their foreign policy preferences. Relatively little effort, however, has been put toward showing that, beyond the use of force, these differences affect the day-to-day outputs and processes of foreign policy. This article uses United Nations voting data from 1946 to 2008 of the five major Anglophone democracies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to show that each of these countries votes more in line with the rest of the world when liberals are in power. This can be explained by ideological differences between conservatives and liberals and the ways in which the socializing power of international institutions interact with preexisting ideologies. The results hope to encourage more research into the ways in which ideological differences among the masses and elites translate into differences in foreign policy goals and practices across governments.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Hanania, 2019. "Are Liberal Governments More Cooperative? Voting Trends at the UN in Five Anglophone Democracies," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(6), pages 1403-1432, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:63:y:2019:i:6:p:1403-1432
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002718794848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002718794848
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002718794848?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Lauren McLaren & Mark Johnson, 2007. "Resources, Group Conflict and Symbols: Explaining Anti-Immigration Hostility in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 55, pages 709-732, December.
    3. Finnemore, Martha, 1993. "International organizations as teachers of norms: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cutural Organization and science policy," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(4), pages 565-597, October.
    4. Cukierman, Alex & Tommasi, Mariano, 1998. "When Does It Take a Nixon to Go to China?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 180-197, March.
    5. Glenn Palmer & Tamar London & Patrick Regan, 2004. "What's Stopping You?: The Sources of Political Constraints on International Conflict Behavior in Parliamentary Democracies," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 1-24, January.
    6. Horowitz, Michael C. & Stam, Allan C., 2014. "How Prior Military Experience Influences the Future Militarized Behavior of Leaders," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(3), pages 527-559, July.
    7. Trine Flockhart, 2005. "Critical Junctures and Social Identity Theory: Explaining the Gap between Danish Mass and Elite Attitudes to Europeanization," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 251-271, June.
    8. 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.
    9. Riker, William H., 1982. "The Two-party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 753-766, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Lewis, Jeffrey, 2005. "The Janus Face of Brussels: Socialization and Everyday Decision Making in the European Union," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(4), pages 937-971, October.
    12. Ilyana Kuziemko & Eric Werker, 2006. "How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 905-930, October.
    13. Helen Milner & Dustin Tingley, 2013. "The choice for multilateralism: Foreign aid and American foreign policy," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 313-341, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aaron Rapport & Brian Rathbun, 2021. "Parties to an alliance: Ideology and the domestic politics of international institutionalization," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(2), pages 279-293, March.
    2. Richard Hanania, 2021. "The Humanitarian Turn at the UNSC: Explaining the development of international norms through machine learning algorithms," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(4), pages 655-670, July.
    3. Tobias Böhmelt, 2022. "Environmental-agreement design and political ideology in democracies," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 507-525, September.

    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. Axel Dreher & Matthew Gould & Matthew Rablen & James Vreeland, 2014. "The determinants of election to the United Nations Security Council," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 51-83, January.
    2. Axel Dreher & Katharina Michaelowa, 2008. "The political economy of international organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 331-334, December.
    3. Maria Perrotta Berlin & Raj M. Desai & Anders Olofsgård, 2023. "Trading favors? UN Security Council membership and subnational favoritism in aid recipients," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 237-258, April.
    4. Bernhard REINSBERG, 2017. "The use of multi-bi aid by France in comparison with other donor countries," Working Paper 3c664604-b408-4a2c-bf46-5, Agence française de développement.
    5. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2015. "Do Development Minister Characteristics Affect Aid Giving?," Working Papers 0604, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    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. Axel Dreher & Peter Nunnenkamp & Maya Schmaljohann, 2015. "The Allocation of German Aid: Self-interest and Government Ideology," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 160-184, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Dreher, Axel & Minasyan, Anna & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2013. "Government ideology in donor and recipient countries: Does political proximity matter for the effectiveness of aid?," Kiel Working Papers 1870, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Raphael Becker & Arye Hillman & Niklas Potrafke & Alexander Schwemmer, 2015. "The preoccupation of the United Nations with Israel: Evidence and theory," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 413-437, December.
    11. Vera Z. Eichenauer & Simon Hug, 2018. "The politics of special purpose trust funds," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 211-255, July.
    12. 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.
    13. Brech, Viktor & Potrafke, Niklas, 2014. "Donor ideology and types of foreign aid," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 61-75.
    14. Pincin, Jared, 2012. "Foreign aid and political influence of the development assistance committee countries," MPRA Paper 39668, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Bjørnskov, Christian & Schröder, Philipp J.H., 2013. "Are debt repayment incentives undermined by foreign aid?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1073-1091.
    16. Rommel, Tobias & Schaudt, Paul, 2020. "First impressions: How leader changes affect bilateral aid," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    17. 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.
    18. 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).
    19. Juliana Yael Milovich, 2018. "Does Aid Reduce Poverty?," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp122.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    20. Broich, Tobias, 2017. "Do authoritarian regimes receive more Chinese development finance than democratic ones? Empirical evidence for Africa," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 180-207.

    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:sae:jocore:v:63:y:2019:i:6:p:1403-1432. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.