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Published in:
Biographical Note of Chadwick F. Alger: Introduction to the Selected Texts Read chapter Read first chapter

2014 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Interaction in a Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

Author : Chadwick F. Alger

Published in: Chadwick F. Alger

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Scholars have devoted much attention to the significance of public sessions in international organizations for both the practice of diplomacy and the condition of relations between nations. They have not, however, taken much account of the dramatic way in which ‘public diplomacy’ provides them with greater access to the phenomena they are studying than is the case with more traditional diplomacy.

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previous chapter The Researcher in the United Nations: Evolution of a Research Strategy
next chapter Interaction and Negotiation in a Committee of the United Nations General Assembly
Footnotes
1
Data for this paper were collected while the author was Visiting Professor of United Nations Affairs at New York University. Generous research support for this professorship was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Analysis of the data was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to the International Relations Program of Northwestern University. Valuable research assistance was contributed by Dr. Robert Weiner of New York University and Mrs. Jean Jacobsohn, Mrs. Lucille Mayer, and Mr. Allen Wilcox of Northwestern. I am grateful to Professors Harold Guetzkow, Kenneth Janda, and Raymond Tanter of Northwestern University for helpful criticism. This text was first published as: “Interaction in a Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.” In Singer, J.D. (ed.), Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence (International Yearbook of Political Behavior Research, Vol. VI. Heniz Eulau, General Editor). New York: The Free Press, 1968, 51–84. Shortened version printed in Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. X, No. 4 (November, 1966), 411–447. The permission was granted by the author.
 
2
In the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, one meeting was missed because of attendance at a Security Council meeting. some members of the Fifth Committee also attended.
 
3
Summary records of the debates may be found in the United Nations, General Assembly, Seventeenth Session, Fifth Committee, Official Records, 914th meeting to 983rd meeting (Oct. 1 to Dec. 20, 1962).
 
4
The advisory opinion is published in ICJ Reports, 1962, pp. 151–181.
 
5
See Singer (1961, pp. 96–121) for more detailed discussion of the role of the Fifth Committee in the United Nations budget process.
 
6
This total, and the analysis that follows, includes the interactions of 95 nations. The remaining 14 nations engaged in a total of only 13 interactions. The total also includes the 167 interactions of the observer which, distributed among 27 nations are included in the nation totals. In cases where total number of interactions is reported as 3,321, these interactions have been excluded.
 
7
Although their work is not based on observation in legislative chambers, the work of Samuel Patterson (1959) and Wayne L. Francis (1962) on state legislators and Alan Fiellin (1962) on the New York delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives have common concerns with Routt and the author of this paper. Particularly relevant is Francis’ effort to obtain information on interaction patterns of state legislators through interviews.
 
8
For all delegations there is a Spearman rank correlation of 0.49 between attendance and amount of interaction (N = 96). Attendance was measured by summing the number of delegates present for each nation for all of the 42 occasions on which attendance was taken.
 
9
Total interactions for all interacting pairs of nations were compiled, after data were punched on IBM cards, by using NUCROS, a general cross-classification program. See Janda (1965), Chap. 6, for a discussion of this program; on pp. 40–42, he describes how NUCROS was used.
 
10
For more extended discussion, see Alger (1963), and C. Chaumont, who asserts: “The international conference is one means of cultural adaptation” (1953, p. 277).
 
11
Spearman rank correlations are used because the distributions for a number of variables are not of the same form. Thus the Pearson product-moment correlation could not reach the maximums of −1.0 and +1.0. Ranking the data prior to calculating the product moment results in the distributions generally having the same form, although some information is sacrificed (Guilford, 1956, p. 287). Less than 0.20 Slight; almost negligible relationship 0.20–0.40 Low correlation; definite but small relationship 0.40–0.70 Moderate correlation; substantial relationship 0.70–0.90 High correlation; marked relationship 0.90–1.00 Very high correlation; very dependable relationship (Guilford 1956, p. 145) (Since Guilford’s guidelines apply only to significant r’s, Kerlinger’s rule of thumb for significance of Pearson r is helpful. “With about 100 pairs of measures” an r of 0.20 is significant at the 0.05 level and an r of 0.25 is significant at the 0.01 level (Kerlinger 1964, p. 171).)
 
12
Reliability checks have not been done on the data acquired through analysis of speeches: questions asked, questions answered, and citations of speeches of others. The primary value of conclusions based on these data is as an aid in making the judgment that additional resources should not be invested in this type of content analysis. Number of speeches not only has a higher correlation to number of interactions than these measures of debate content, but also can be obtained with much less research effort and expense.
 
13
It was expected that participation in public debate and interaction in the Fifth Committee would be related inversely to date of independence (the more recent the date of independence, the less a nation’s activity). This was based on the belief that delegations of new nations would not have the technical competence and background of experience enabling them to take an active role in Fifth Committee affairs. Table 4.3 indicates a consistent negative correlation between date of independence and committee activity, but all correlations are very low.
 
14
Twenty-seven of Honduras’ interactions were with seatmate, Hungary.
 
15
It is not customary for the chairman to serve also as delegate from his nation. In this session of the Fifth Committee, a Dutch delegate was elected chairman, but then ceased to represent his nation on the committee.
 
16
Indices were computed by a program written for the CDC 3400 computer by Allen R. Wilcox, Department of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University.
 
17
Chi square tests for 2 × 2 tables with correction for continuity (Siegel 1956, pp. 107–109).
 
18
Mann–Whitney U Test is used as a nonparametric alternative to the parametric/-test for difference between means (Siegel 1956, pp. 116–126).
 
19
Further confirmation of this assertion has been obtained through analysis of interaction in a 1963 session of the Fifth Committee and comparing it with participation in negotiation outside the committee chamber (Alger 1966a, b).
 
Metadata
Title
Interaction in a Committee of the United Nations General Assembly
Author
Chadwick F. Alger
Copyright Year
2014
Book
Chadwick F. Alger

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00508-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-00509-6

Copyright Year: 2014

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00509-6_4