Advertisement

A Pledged Community? Using Community Detection to Analyze Autocratic Cooperation in UN Co-sponsorship Networks

Conference paper
First Online:
  • 1.8k Downloads
Part of the Studies in Computational Intelligence book series (SCI, volume 943)

Abstract

Autocratic cooperation is difficult to study. Democratic states usually disfavor autocratic cooperation partners because they are perceived as less reliable and do not sign agreements with them. While it is challenging to capture autocratic cooperation with traditional approaches such as signed alliance treaties, co-sponsorship at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) offers a valuable alternative. UNGA co-sponsorship is less binding than alliances, allowing states to cooperate more freely with one another. What is more, states are required to choose cooperation partners actively. This allows us to study how autocracies cooperate in the international system at a venue that overcomes common restrictions to autocratic cooperation. We construct co-sponsorship networks at the UNGA and use the Leiden algorithm to identify community clusters. Our multiclass random forest classification model supports our assumption and shows that regime type is associated with cooperation clusters in UNGA co-sponsorship networks.

Keywords

Social network analysis Community detection Machine learning Autocratic cooperation 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. 1.
    Alemán, E., Calvo, E., Jones, M.P., Kaplan, N.: Comparing cosponsorship and roll-call ideal points. Legislat. Studi. Q. 34(1), 87–116 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. 2.
    Appel, B.J., Loyle, C.E.: The economic benefits of justice: post-conflict justice and foreign direct investment. J. Peace Res. 49(5), 685–699 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. 3.
    Bailey, M.A., Voeten, E.: A two-dimensional analysis of seventy years of United Nations voting. Public Choice 176(1–2), 33–55 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. 4.
    Ball, M.M.: Bloc voting in the general assembly. Int. Org. 5(1), 3–31 (1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. 5.
    Baturo, A., Dasandi, N., Mikhaylov, S.J.: Understanding state preferences with text as data: introducing the UN General Debate corpus. Res. Polit. 4(2), 1–9 (2017)Google Scholar
  6. 6.
    Carter, D.B., Stone, R.W.: Democracy and multilateralism: the case of vote buying in the UN general assembly. Int. Org. 69, 1–33 (2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. 7.
    Collier, P.: The Bottom Billion. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2008)Google Scholar
  8. 8.
    Collier, P., Hoeffler, A., Söderbom, M.: Post-conflict risks. J. Peace Res. 45(4), 461–478 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. 9.
    Crescenzi, M.J., Kathman, J.D., Kleinberg, K.B., Wood, R.M.: Reliability, reputation, and alliance formation. Int. Stud. Quart. 56, 259–274 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. 10.
    Dreher, A., Vreeland, J.R.: Buying votes and international organizations. cege Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research, vol. 123, pp. 1–38 (2011)Google Scholar
  11. 11.
    Erdmann, G.: Demokratie in Afrika. GIGA Focus Afr. 10, 1–8 (2007)Google Scholar
  12. 12.
    Flores, T.E., Nooruddin, I.: Democracy under the gun: understanding postconflict economic recovery. J. Peace Res. 53(1), 3–29 (2009)Google Scholar
  13. 13.
    Fruchterman, T.M., Reingold, E.M.: Graph drawing by force-directed placement. Softw. Pract. Exp. 21(11), 1129–1164 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. 14.
    Garriga, A.C., Phillips, B.J.: Foreign aid as a signal to investors: predicting FDI in post-conflict countries. J. Conflict Resolut. 58(2), 280–306 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. 15.
    Gates, S., Nygård, H.M., Trappeniers, E.: Conflict recurrence. Conflict Trends 2, 1–4 (2016)Google Scholar
  16. 16.
    Gleditsch, N.P., Wallensteen, P., Eriksson, M., Sollenberg, M., Strand, H.: Armed conflict 1946–2001: a new dataset. J. Peace Res. 39(5), 615–637 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. 17.
    Hammerschmidt, D., Meyer, C.: Money makes the world go frowned. Analyzing the impact of Chinese foreign aid on states’ sentiment using natural language processing. Working Paper (2020)Google Scholar
  18. 18.
    Hand, D.J., Till, R.J.: A simple generalisation of the area under the ROC curve for multiple class classification problems. Mach. Learn. 45(2), 171–186 (2001)zbMATHCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. 19.
    Jackson, M.O., Nei, S.: Networks of military alliances, wars, and international trade. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112(50), 15277–15284 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. 20.
    Jacobsen, K.: Sponsorships in the united nations: a system analysis. J. Peace Res. 6(3), 235–256 (1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. 21.
    Keohane, R.O.: After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2005)Google Scholar
  22. 22.
    Lee, E., Stek, P.E.: Shifting alliances in international organizations: a social networks analysis of co-sponsorship of UN GA resolutions, 1976–2012. J. Contemp. Eastern Asia 15(2), (2016)Google Scholar
  23. 23.
    Leeds, B.A.: Domestic political institutions, credible commitments, and international cooperation. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 43(4), 979–1002 (1999)MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. 24.
    Leeds, B.A.: Alliance reliability in times of war: explaining state decisions to violate treaties. Int. Org. 57(4), 801–827 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. 25.
    Leeds, B.A.: Alliance treaty obligations and provisions (ATOP) codebook (2018). http://www.atopdata.org/uploads/6/9/1/3/69134503/atopcodebookv4.pdf. Accessed 04 Apr 2020
  26. 26.
    Leeds, B.A., Ritter, J., Mitchell, S., Long, A.: Alliance treaty obligations and provisions, 1815–1944. Int. Interact. 28(3), 237–260 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. 27.
    Lührmann, A., Lindberg, S.I.: A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it? Democratization 26(7), 1095–1113 (2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. 28.
    Marshall, M.G., Gurr, T.R., Davenport, C., Jaggers, K.: Polity iv, 1800–1999: comments on Munck and Verkuilen. Comp. Polit. Stud. 35(1), 40–45 (2002)Google Scholar
  29. 29.
    Mattes, M., Rodriguez, M.: Autocracies and international cooperation. Int. Stud. Quart. 58(3), 527–538 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. 30.
    Moss, T.J.: African development: making sense of the issues and actors. Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, CO (2007)Google Scholar
  31. 31.
    Panke, D.: The institutional design of the united nations general assembly: an effective equalizer? Int. Relat. 31(1), 3–20 (2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. 32.
    Reichardt, J., Bornholdt, S.: Detecting fuzzy community structures in complex networks with a potts model. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93(21), 218701 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. 33.
    Reichardt, J., Bornholdt, S.: Statistical mechanics of community detection. Phys. Rev. E 74(1), 016110 (2006)MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. 34.
    von Soest, C.: Democracy prevention: the international collaboration of authoritarian regimes. Eur. J. Polit. Res. 54(4), 623–638 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. 35.
    Teorell, J., Dahlberg, S., Holmberg, S., Rothstein, B., Hartman, F., Svensson, R.: The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan15 (2015). http://www.qog.pol.gu.se. Accessed 05 June 2015
  36. 36.
    Traag, V.A., Waltman, L., van Eck, N.J.: From Louvain to Leiden: guaranteeing well-connected communities. Sci. Rep. 9(1), 1–12 (2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. 37.
    Voeten, E.: Data and analyses of voting in the UN General Assembly (2012). http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2111149
  38. 38.
    Wallensteen, P., Sollenberg, M., Eriksson, M., Harbom, L., Buhaug, H., Rød, J.K.: Armed conflict dataset codebook. version 3.0 (2004). https://www.prio.org/Global/upload/CSCW/Data/UCDP/v3/codebook_v3_0.pdf

Copyright information

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Mannheim Centre for European Social ResearchUniversity of MannheimMannheimGermany
  2. 2.University of MannheimMannheimGermany

Personalised recommendations

Cite paper

Buy options