Are Regional Organisations the Parties In the United Nations General Assembly? Comments on a Misconception

In the field of international relations, regional organizations are not only assumed to play an important role in the regional context, but also on the international level. A growing number of studies analyzes ROs’ voting behavior in the United Nations General Assembly in a similar way to the analyses of parties in national parliaments. In our paper, we reflect on the question whether ROs can be treated as ‘political party’-like entities. First, based on literature on political parties and legislative votes, we develop criteria to test ROs in the UNGA. Second, we analyze UNGA voting by using W-NOMINATE and compare the results to the spatial analysis of national parliaments (e.g. Polish Sejm, EP). Third, we analyze the voting cohesion of selected ROs and political parties using zero-one-inflated-beta-regression. The empirical analyses highlight that, if at all, only the EU can be perceived as a ‘party-like’ actor in international politics.