Abstract
We construct a network of member states of the United Nations General Assembly based on how similarly they vote on resolutions. We describe a similarity metric that we feel better describes the inter-nation relationships than previously proposed models. Next, we introduce a mechanism to infer the best diplomatic path between countries that do not have high similarity in voting. Lastly, we create a bilateral commodity trade network between countries and evaluate the overlap between the trade and voting networks by applying community detection analysis. Our findings show that generated communities mimic real-world groupings and that there indeed is an alignment between voting and trade networks, paving the way for further studies on the connection between economic dependence and voting behavior.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barigozzi, M., Giorgio F., Diego, G.: Multinetwork of international trade: a commodity-specific analysis. Phys. Rev. E 81(4), 046104 (2010)
Barigozzi, M., Fagiolo, G., Mangioni, G.: Identifying the community structure of the international-trade multi-network. Phys. A 390(11), 2051–2066 (2011)
Blondel, V.D., et al.: Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. J. Stat. Mech. Theory Exp. 2008(10), P10008 (2008)
Cherepnalkoski, D., et al.: Cohesion and coalition formation in the European parliament: roll-call votes and twitter activities. PloS one 11(11), e0166586 (2016)
Comtrade, U.N.: UN Comtrade database. UN Comtrade Online (2015)
Crooks, A., et al.: International relations: state-driven and citizen-driven networks. Soc. Sci. Comput. Rev. 32(2), 205–220 (2014)
Fan, Y., et al.: The state’s role and position in international trade: a complex network perspective. Econ. Modell. 39, 71–81 (2014)
Feenstra, R.C., et al.: World trade flows: 1962–2000. National Bureau of Economic Research No. w11040 (2005)
Ha, H., et al.: Proximity based circular visualization for similarity analysis of unga voting patterns. In: Workshop on Big Data Visual Analytics (BDVA), 2015. IEEE (2015)
Jaccard, P.: tude comparative de la distribution florale dans une portion des Alpes et des Jura. Bull Soc Vaudoise Sci Nat 37, 547–579 (1901)
Lupu, Y., Traag, V.A.: Trading communities, the networked structure of international relations, and the Kantian peace. J. Conflict Resolut. 57(6), 1011–1042 (2013)
Voeten, E.: Data and analyses of voting in the UN General Assembly (2012)
Zhu, Z., et al.: The rise of China in the international trade network: a community core detection approach. PloS one 9(8) (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Magu, R., Mateos, G. (2018). United Nations General Assembly Vote Similarity Networks. In: Cherifi, C., Cherifi, H., Karsai, M., Musolesi, M. (eds) Complex Networks & Their Applications VI. COMPLEX NETWORKS 2017. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 689. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72150-7_95
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72150-7_95
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72149-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72150-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)