Journal of Conflict Resolution· 2015Q1
Estimating Dynamic State Preferences from United Nations Voting Data
- 1,075citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2015year
Short summary
A new dynamic ordinal spatial model estimates state foreign policy preferences on a single dimension reflecting positions toward the US-led liberal order, using UN General Assembly votes from 1946-2012.
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Key points
- Developed a dynamic ordinal spatial model for UN voting data (1946-2012).
- Estimates state preferences on a single dimension reflecting positions toward the US-led liberal order.
- Model offers better signal-to-noise separation and intertemporal comparability than existing measures.
- Estimates are less sensitive to UN agenda shifts and correlate strongly with liberalism.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
United Nations (UN) General Assembly votes have become the standard data source for measures of states preferences over foreign policy. Most papers use dyadic indicators of voting similarity between states. We propose a dynamic ordinal spatial model to estimate state ideal points from 1946 to 2012 on a single dimension that reflects state positions toward the US-led liberal order. We use information about the content of the UN’s agenda to make estimates comparable across time. Compared to existing measures, our estimates better separate signal from noise in identifying foreign policy shifts, have greater face validity, allow for better intertemporal comparisons, are less sensitive to shifts in the UN’ agenda, and are strongly correlated with measures of liberalism. We show that the choice of preference measures affects conclusions about the democratic peace.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2015 · DOI ↗
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Field: Development
DevelopmentSocial Sciences