Titans Jousting for the Mob: Great Powers and Voting in the UN General Assembly

Abstract

The article aims to assess current trends in the evolution of Russian, Chinese and American standing in the UN General Assembly (UNGA). This body as the most representative international body with wide thematical mandate enables to assess correlation in voting patterns of major powers and other participants of international community. Therefore, commonality of positions could be used as an indicator of positive recognition of national policy by UN Member-States. Such recognition could become a source of international legitimation for a strategy of a major power in global politics. The article starts with representing the key trend towards greater rivalry among major powers since the early 2010s. It claims that this competition to a large extent is exercised in institutionalized forums. It then examines an institutional mandate and operational dynamics of UNGA. After that it engages in descriptive statistical analysis of voting record in this body from its 60th to 71st sessions.The study demonstrates the rise of unfavorable trends for Russia and China in UNGA. Their positions receive lower levels of overall support from the whole population of UN Member-States. The same trends could be observed within BRICS and among their respective regional partners. The United States, on the contrary, improved their positions in the UNGA throughout the 2010s. This task was simplified by an extremely low base level of correlation in voting between Washington and other states. The administration of Barack Obama was especially successful in consolidation of major developed countries around the United States. However, due to the widespread skepticism towards the UN in the American political elite, there are no guarantees that the United States will be able to preserve increased level of convergence of political positions with other states in future.