Western Democracies in the UN

This dissertation examines the question of states’ power through an innovative quantitative methodology. The performance of 21 Western states in various competitive elections in the United Nations is compared statistically for the period between 1990 and 2006 to assess the predictive quality of the different international relations theories neorealism, institutionalism and liberalism. The resulting panel regression analysis finds that a neorealist factor variable attributable to military, economic and diplomatic power is best at explaining the observed variance. Incumbency is also shown to have a substantial role. These results can be of value both to practitioners as well as researchers interested in electoral politics.

A statistical data appendix can be accessed online at http://www.nomos-extra.de/ne/Scharioth_5374_4.lasso