Publication
The European Union in the annual United Nations General Assembly Debates
In this article, Madeleine O. Hosli & Jaroslaw Kantorowicz analyse EU member states' foreign policy divergence at the UN General Debate, examining whether Lisbon Treaty reforms have led to greater EU cohesion or if states continue to present distinct national positions.
- Author
- Madeleine O. Hosli & Jaroslaw Kantorowicz
- Date
- 26 July 2024
Hosli & Kantorowicz argue that the United Nations General Debate (UNGD) serves as a unique platform where EU states are motivated to present their distinct national positions, in contrast to other areas where EU coordination is more pronounced. Through an analysis of UNGD speeches from 1990 to 2019, utilising text-as-data techniques such as wordscores and text similarity measures, the study compares these findings with ideal point estimates derived from UN General Assembly voting and co-sponsorship data.
The authors expect that EU member states’ UNGD speeches have remained relatively distant from each other, as despite enhanced coordination mechanisms, underlying national preferences will still differ. EU actorness was likely enhanced by increased formal coordination of EU member state positions as a result of the Treaty of Lisbon, but they do not expect this to be the case for the UNGD framework. Hosli & Kantorowicz posit that EU member states use their UNGD speeches to differentiate themselves from other EU member states. Nonetheless, due to socialisation effects, it may still be the case that some convergence has taken place in EU member states’ UNDG speeches over time, even without a lack of formal coordination in this area. Accordingly, these expectations and underlying research puzzles lead to the main question posed in this article, which is ‘What impact has the Lisbon Treaty and the EU's enhanced observer status had on the cohesion and convergence of EU member states’ positions as reflected in their UNGD speeches?’
Read the full article here.