Abstract
AbstractThe question of whether intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have a socialization effect on member state preferences is central to international relations. However, empirical studies have struggled to separate the socializing effects of IGOs on preferences from the coercion and incentives associated with IGOs that may lead to foreign policy alignment without altering preferences. This article addresses this issue. We adopt a novel approach to measuring state preferences by applying text analytic methods to country statements in the annual United Nations General Debate (UNGD). The absence of interstate coordination with UNGD statements makes them particularly well suited for testing socialization effects on state preferences. We focus on the European Union (EU), enabling us to incorporate the pre-accession period—when states have the strongest incentives for foreign policy alignment—into our analysis. The results of our analysis show that EU membership has a socialization effect that produces preference convergence, controlling for coercion and incentive effects.
Highlights
Do intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have a socialization effect on member state preferences? Some scholars of international relations (IR) argue that IGO membership leads to a convergence in states’ foreign policy preferences through a socialization process (e.g., Wendt 1994; Checkel 2005; Bearce and Bondanella 2007)
We examine the 2004 European Union (EU) enlargement in greater depth to show that following accession, the new EU member states increasingly emphasized themes associated with the values and norms of EU foreign policy in their United Nations General Debate (UNGD) statements
In the two global models, we find that becoming EU official applicants has a statistically significant positive effect on similarity to the EU position
Summary
Do intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have a socialization effect on member state preferences? Some scholars of international relations (IR) argue that IGO membership leads to a convergence in states’ foreign policy preferences through a socialization process (e.g., Wendt 1994; Checkel 2005; Bearce and Bondanella 2007). Proponents of the rationalist approach argue that state preferences are formed within national boundaries and any shifts in observable behavior are the result of bargaining among states to maximize gains from these organizations, rather than changes in underlying preferences (see, e.g., Mearsheimer 1994; Moravcsik 2013). Resolving this debate requires us to empirically verify that IGOs have a socialization effect on member states that leads to preference convergence. The second is ensuring that any observed preference convergence results from socialization rather than alternative processes, such as coercion, material incentives, or coordination
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