International political alignment during the Trump presidency: voting at the UN general assembly

Figures & data

Figure 1. Average agreement rate per year between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions.

The unweighted average for UNGA resolutions per year across all countries of each country group without the United States is displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Table 1. Average agreement rate between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions and resolutions during first two years of a United States presidency between April 1949 and December 2016 before Trump and between January 2017 and August 2019 since Trump.

	All UNGA resolutions before Trump’s presidency	All UNGA resolutions during the 1st and 2nd year of a United States presidency before Trump	All UNGA resolutions since Trump’s presidency
G7	64.0 percent N = 22,728	66.6 percent N = 6,840	56.8 percent N = 1,179
OECD	58.7 percent N = 106,546	61.3 percent N = 31,505	52.0 percent N = 6,763
NATO	61.3 percent N = 78,832	63.5 percent N = 22,178	53.4 percent N = 5,489
WEOG	59.2 percent N = 104,767	61.9 percent N = 32,006	52.2 percent N = 5,481

The unweighted average for UNGA resolutions per year across all countries of each country group without the United States is displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Table 2. Average agreement rate between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, resolutions during the first and second term of presidents of the United States before Trump and all resolutions since Trump.

	All UNGA resolutions during the first term of a president of the United States before Trump’s presidency	Difference to Donald Trump	All UNGA resolutions during the second term of a president of the United States before Trump’s presidency
G7	66.5 percent N = 13,926	+ 9.7 percentage points	60.0 percent N = 8,802
OECD	60.8 percent N = 63,566	+ 8.8 percentage points	55.6 percent N = 42,980
NATO	63.0 percent N = 44,904	+ 9.6 percentage points	59.0 percent N = 33,928
WEOG	61.2 percent N = 63,614	+ 9.0 percentage points	56.2 percent N = 41,153

The unweighted average for UNGA resolutions per year across all countries of each country group without the United States is displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Table 3. Average agreement rate between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions for selected presidents of the United States.

	George W. Bush	Difference to Donald Trump	Barack Obama	Difference to Donald Trump
G7	49.8 percent N = 3,686	− 7.0 percentage points	64.2 percent N = 3,398	+ 7.4 percentage points
OECD	46.1 percent N = 17,710	− 5.9 percentage points	57.6 percent N = 18,428	+ 5.6 percentage points
NATO	47.1 percent N = 13,789	− 6.3 percentage points	59.1 percent N = 15,253	+ 5.7 percentage points
WEOG	48.1 percent N = 17,041	− 4.1 percentage points	58.8 percent N = 15,805	+6.6 percentage points

The unweighted average for UNGA resolutions per year across all countries of each country group without the United States is displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Figure 2. Average agreement rate between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, average across all resolutions by country.

The unweighted average for UNGA resolutions by country since they became part of the G7, NATO, OECD, and/or WEOG group before and since Donald Trump took office is displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Figure 3. Average approval rate of the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions for individual topics before and since president Donald Trump.

A country`s vote as `yes` is coded as 1, `abstain` is coded as 0.5 and `no` is coded as 0. The unweighted averages for UNGA resolutions for the United States and across all Western countries without the United States are displayed. Source: Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019), own calculations.

Table 4. Yearly average agreement rate between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions between 1980 and 2019.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
US president Donald Trump	0.0122 (0.0195)	−0.0491*** (0.0128)	−0.0515*** (0.0132)	−0.0563*** (0.0112)	−0.0440*** (0.0127)
Ideological distance	0.0021 (0.0038)	0.0028 (0.0018)	0.0023 (0.0018)	0.0020 (0.0018)	0.0020 (0.0018)
US president Donald Trump * ideological distance	−0.0271** (0.0121)	−0.0041 (0.0085)	−0.0041 (0.0078)	0.0006 (0.0074)	0.0002 (0.0071)
Log of real GDP per capita		0.0103** (0.0043)	0.0077* (0.0044)	−0.0108 (0.0124)	−0.0171 (0.0152)
Growth of real GDP		−0.0036*** (0.0008)	−0.0038*** (0.0008)	−0.0037*** (0.0007)	−0.0035*** (0.0007)
Log of population		0.0004 (0.0010)	0.0002 (0.0010)	0.1392*** (0.0327)	0.1205*** (0.0331)
Allied with the United States in conflict		0.0024 (0.0035)	−0.0020 (0.0039)	−0.0150*** (0.0042)	−0.0125*** (0.0044)
1st lag of UNGA vote agreement rate		0.8562*** (0.0161)	0.8596*** (0.0161)	0.6908*** (0.0246)	0.6735*** (0.0258)
Constant	0.5432*** (0.0050)	−0.0240 (0.0446)	−0.0726 (0.0507)	−0.1506 (0.0931)	−0.0857 (0.1419)
Country-fixed effects included?	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓
Topic-share variables included?	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓
Observations	1,059	1,020	1,020	1,020	1,020
Countries	38	38	38	38	38
Adjusted R squared	0.0024	0.7788	0.7844	0.8000	0.8042
Conditional marginal effect of ideological distance ^a.	−0.0251** (0.0114)	−0.0013 (0.0083)	−0.0018 (0.0077)	0.0026 (0.0071)	0.0021 (0.0068)

a.: Conditional marginal effects evaluated at president Trump dummy variable taking value of 1, and control variables at means.

Robust standard errors are in brackets.

^{*, **, ***} indicate statistical significance at 10, 5, 1 percent level.

Only countries that have been either G7, NATO, OECD, and/or WEOG members without the United States are included.

Table 5. Yearly absolute difference of ideal points between the United States and Western countries during votes in the United Nations General Assembly, all resolutions between 1980 and 2018.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
US president Donald Trump	−0.0794 (0.0906)	0.0954*** (0.0226)	0.1155*** (0.0276)	0.1168*** (0.0222)	0.1411*** (0.0276)
Ideological distance	0.0072 (0.0160)	−0.0053 (0.0056)	−0.0034 (0.0056)	−0.0007 (0.0055)	0.0001 (0.0053)
US president Donald Trump * ideological distance	0.1013 (0.0622)	0.0146 (0.0153)	0.0116 (0.0149)	−0.0004 (0.0147)	0.0000 (0.0145)
Log of real GDP per capita		−0.0284** (0.0123)	−0.0152 (0.0120)	0.0379 (0.0394)	0.1040** (0.0450)
Growth of real GDP		0.0032 (0.0026)	0.0019 (0.0027)	0.0037 (0.0023)	−0.0010 (0.0023)
Log of population		−0.0037 (0.0033)	−0.0029 (0.0033)	−0.3431*** (0.0885)	−0.3060*** (0.0904)
Allied with United States in conflict		−0.0250*** (0.0095)	0.0044 (0.0105)	0.0121 (0.0119)	0.0411*** (0.0124)
1st lag of absolute ideal points difference		0.9131*** (0.0132)	0.9243*** (0.0133)	0.7493*** (0.0270)	0.7171*** (0.0288)
Constant	1.6361*** (0.0216)	0.4590*** (0.1339)	0.6767*** (0.1541)	1.0876*** (0.3033)	0.7655* (0.4161)
Country-fixed effects included?	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓
Topic-share variables included?	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓
Observations	1,031	1,020	1,020	1,020	1,020
Countries	38	38	38	38	38
Adjusted R squared	−0.0002	0.8984	0.9029	0.9094	0.9145
Conditional marginal effect of ideological distance ^a.	0.1086* (0.0601)	0.0093 (0.0142)	0.0083 (0.0137)	−0.0011 (0.0135)	0.0001 (0.0134)

a.: Conditional marginal effects evaluated at president Trump dummy variable taking value of 1, and control variables at means.

Robust standard errors in brackets.

^{*, **, ***} indicate statistical significance at 10, 5, 1 percent level.

Only countries that have been either G7, NATO, OECD, and/or WEOG members without the United States are included.

Table A1. Descriptive statistics.

Variables	Obs.	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max.	Source
Yearly average agreement rate	1,336	0.54	0.103	0.2	0.95	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Yearly absolute difference of ideal points	1,291	1.67	0.446	0.11	3.6	Bailey, Strezhnev, and Voeten (2017)
US president Donald Trump	1,340	0.1	0.3	0	1	Own calculations
Ideological distance	1,059	0.99	0.924	0	2	Cruz, Keefer, and Scartascini (2018) and own calculations
Log of real GDP per capita	1,230	10.31	0.407	8.99	11.5	IMF (2019)
Growth of real GDP	1,239	2.6	2.983	−14.81	25.01	IMF (2019)
Log of population	1,230	2.26	1.669	−3.51	4.85	IMF (2019)
Allied with USA in conflict	1,295	0.36	0.479	0	1	Pettersson, Högbladh, and Öberg (2019)
Share of Middle Eastern resolutions	1,340	0.23	0.069	0	0.38	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Share of economic development resolutions	1,340	0.11	0.042	0	0.33	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Share of disarmament resolutions	1,340	0.23	0.059	0	0.35	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Share of nuclear proliferation resolutions	1,340	0.16	0.044	0	0.24	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Share of colonialism resolutions	1,340	0.15	0.049	0	0.22	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)
Share of human rights resolutions	1,340	0.24	0.081	0	0.67	Voeten (2019), United Nations Digital Library (2019)

Only countries that have been either G7, NATO, OECD, and/or WEOG members since 1980 are included (excluding the United States).

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