Europeanisation at Work in the Western Balkans and the Black Sea Region: Is There an All-European Way of Voting in the United Nations General Assembly?

Abstract

Is there an all-European way of voting in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that transcends the borders of the European Union (EU) and affects, though differentially, the foreign policy of non-EU European states? To answer this question, this paper inquires into the voting behaviour in the UNGA of 12 non-EU states from the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region between 1993 and 2010. It assesses the voting distance of these non-EU states vis-à-vis EU positions, which it models either by proxy (using Luxembourg) or by unanimity. The paper finds that the multilateral diplomacy of most non-EU states has become distinctively convergent with EU preferences. It nevertheless observes notable cross-national variations, which it cannot trace back to differences in the non-EU states' institutional distance to the EU. While acknowledging the role of compliance mechanisms, the paper suggests that other mechanisms (e.g. simple and social learning) may be at work.