As the single most powerful institution within global governance, the UN Security Council has attracted intense attention from scholars of international relations. It is predominantly seen as a forum in which states almost exclusively pursue “strategic bargaining” based on self-interest. According to this view, powerful states pressure others to vote in their favour and weaker states align themselves with the interests of powerful states in exchange for support on another issue. We challenge this common view and argue that, on the contrary, the meetings of the UN Security Council are rife with “deliberative behaviour,” i.e. discursive behaviour centred on mutual listening and consensus-seeking. We base our argument on a systematic analysis of the discursive practices of all Council members from 1995 until 2020. Using a textual analysis method known as “dictionary approach”, we show that deliberation is indeed central to UN Security Council debates, though its prominence varies based on specific debate- and speaker-related factors. Ultimately, we argue in favor of placing deliberative behavior back at the heart of the study of UN Security Council politics and provide a methodological basis for pursuing similar analyses on other key international fora.

Participating Researchers:

Gisela Hirschmann

Monika Heupel

Evgenija Kr?ker