EFSPS - Experts - Gabriele Birnberg

Project

The Voting Behaviour of the EU member states inside the United Nations General Assembly: An analysis of voting patterns and of vote coordination

Puzzled by the inconsistency with which the member states of the European Union honour their commitment to stand united in foreign policy matters, this thesis is motivated by the underlying interest in analysing which factors determine whether or not they speak with a single voice in international affairs. For the purpose of this thesis, I take the term ‘to speak with a single voice in international affairs’ rather literally. I propose to study the voting behaviour of the European Union member states inside the United Nations General Assembly. I argue that in order to increase their collective bargaining power in external affairs, the EU member states intend to coordinate their votes in the United Nations General Assembly despite their heterogeneous policy preferences. It follows then, that for those resolutions for which national positions diverge from the EU consensus each member state must find a way to reconcile its national policy preference with the objective of casting a unified vote. I hypothesise that the balance a member state strikes between the two generally depends on four factors – how powerful it is, how important it views the issue at hand, how it views its relationship with the Union and how it might be affected by external factors, more precisely by its relationship with the United States. I further argue that the balance is expected to tip in favour of EU cohesion when increasing the collective bargaining power by working together becomes a tangible objective. To test these hypotheses, I apply a mixed-methods approach, whereby I conduct a quantitative voting pattern analysis as well as carry out a qualitative analysis of the vote coordination process that takes place prior to the roll-call voting. I find that a country’s relationship with the EU is a much stronger determinant of its voting behaviour than is either power, issue salience or its relationship with the US. More importantly, I show that despite persistent disagreements, the Union as a whole is capable of coordinating a united position, so long as doing so implies a tangible increase in their collective bargaining power.

Expertise

Publications

CV

Gabriele Birnberg is writing her doctoral dissertation at the London School of Economics. Her empirically driven research applies various forms of statistical analysis to the study of EU and US voting behaviour in the United Nations General Assembly. To solidify the results obtained in her statistical analysis, Gabriele conducts interviews with UN officials in New York.

Gabriele studied political science/political economy as well as EU policy in Washington, DC and London. She graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland and received a merit for her Masters in Research degree from the London School of Economics.

Gabriele has previously taught seminars in EU Government and Policy to undergraduate students at the LSE for which she was honoured with the LSE Teaching Excellence Award. She furthermore worked for the UK government’s Strategic Communications Unit, where she held the sole editorship of the European Media Briefing, a daily written digest of news relevant to the UK, being reported in more than fifty European media outlets and provided directly for UK ministers and government departments. Gabriele also has consulting experience and has previously advised on various topics, including Germany’s energy market.

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