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.

Key Words:

• Europeanisation
• foreign policy
• voting behaviour
• Western Balkans
• Black Sea region

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the comments by the participants at the Jean Monnet International Conference on Human Security, organised in Kiev, Ukraine (26–29 May 2011), and would also like to thank the Research National Fund, Luxembourg, for its continuous support, and Ms Natalia Sanmartín Jaramillo for her help.