On or Off the Table? Explaining the Politics of Agenda-Setting in International Security

International conflicts regularly dominate the headlines of the world’s biggest newspapers. However, it is unclear how political actors respond to such news. Which events merit further consideration, and which disappear into oblivion? In this paper, we seek to address these questions by developing observable implications from the theoretical toolkit of International Relations. We hypothesize that the strategic and systemic importance of conflict parties influences the degree to which the respective conflicts are discussed in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)—arguably the most important forum in international security. Based on the US Government’s Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS) we identify escalations of conflicts between two governments, ranging from threats to invasions. Subsequently, we use quantitative text analysis, to identify whether these news events are discussed in UNSC speeches between 1995 and 2015. We further employ multivariate regression analysis to a) examine the political-economic conditions under which events are discussed in the UNSC; b) identify the actors which set the UNSC’s agenda; and c) analyze the focus of speakers with regard to the source and target of conflicts. Our findings have important policy implications in international security by showing whether political factors can shape attention to conflicts. In addition, it speaks to debates on the policy process in international organizations, illustrating the ways in which international organizations pay selective attention to issues depending on which states are involved.