Factors Affecting Countries’ UNSC Reelection Potential

Author

Brittanie Chen, Natalia Jordan, Jacob Levin, Akosua Owusu, and Tiffany Yuan

Published

May 5, 2023

Introduce the topic and motivation

  • United Nations Security Council ensures international peace and security.
  • Our project examines the relationship between key economic indicators and political stability using the World Bank’s World Development Indicators data set.

    • Does GDP, military expenses, and mortality rate affect a country’s ability to be reelected four or more times?

    • We explore any correlations between economic indicators and political stability.

  • Our findings could inform decisions about economic development and political stability.

Introduce the data

  • Research Question: What Factors Contribute to UNSC Re-Election?
  • Data: World Bank, 91 Countries, 25 Columns, 65 observations
  • Criteria For Analysis: Non-Permanent Members, Elected ≥ 4 Vs Elected < 4
  • Region of Interest: W Europe: 2 vs 11, E Europe: 1 vs 9, Latin: 6 vs 9, Africa/Asia: 7 vs 36
  • Observations of Interest: GDP, Military Exp, Mortality Rate
  • Time Period of Interest: 2000-2020

Highlights from EDA

  • We have formed a clear research question about the non-permanent UN security council members that narrows down to countries of interest that has been re-elected four or more times between 2000-2020
  • We had thorough documentation of the data collection, cleaning and description
  • Our interpretation of the data was difficult due to a lack of visualization. Solution to visualization: bar plot

Inference/modeling/other analysis

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Conclusions

In conclusion, our analysis demonstrates a significant correlation between GDP, military expenditure, and a country’s likelihood of being reelected to the UN Security Council. We observed that countries with higher GDPs and higher military expenditures have a greater chance of reelection. However, no statistically significant relationship was found between mortality rates and reelection frequency.

Future Work

  1. Analyze Voting Patterns: Examine the voting system to determine if alliances or diplomatic relations affect voting patterns within the UN Security Council elections.

  2. Conduct Case Studies: Investigate the specific circumstances and factors at play in countries like Japan, which, according to our analysis, has the highest mean GDP and has been reelected 12 times