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Deriving Data from Delegates to International Assemblies: A Research Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Harold Karan Jacobson
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Extract

Whether it is called an assembly, a conference, or something else, there is in most if not all international organizations an organ, for which the United Nations General Assembly is the prototype, in which the entire membership is represented. The importance of these bodies is generally acknowledged. Constitutionally, they usually have final authority in such matters as the appointment of the executive officer, the election of smaller organs, the adoption of the budget, and the determination of overall policy. Few studies of an international organization or of the interaction between a state or a group of states and an international organization can neglect the assembly of the organization under scrutiny.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , Summer 1967 , pp. 592 - 613
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1967

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References

1 Claude, Inis L. Jr, “The OAS, the UN, and the United States,” International Conciliation, 03 1964 (No. 547)Google Scholar.

2 SeeHovet, Thomas Jr, Bloc Politics in the United Nations (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Hovet, Thomas Jr, Africa in the United Nations (Evanston, III: Northwestern University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and Alker, Hayward R. Jr, and Russett, Bruce M., World Politics in the General Assembly (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

3 Best, Gary Lee, “Diplomacy in the United Nations” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 08 1960), p. 158Google Scholar.

4 See, for example,Conor Cruise O'Brien's chapter, “A Delegate at the General Assembly,” in To Katanga and Back (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), pp. 12–39Google Scholar; and Hadwen, John G. and Kaufmann, Johan, How United Nations Decisions Are Made (Leyden: A. W. Sythoff, 1960)Google Scholar.

5 Robert Owen Keohane has provided a recent example of the data that can be gained through the skillful use of unstructured interviews. See his“Political Influence in the General Assembly,” International Conciliation, 03 1966 (No. 557)Google Scholar.

6 As a sample seeGoode, William J. and Holt, Paul K., Methods in Social Research (New York: McGrawHill, 1952)Google Scholar; Hyman, Herbert H., with odiers, Interviewing in Social Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)Google Scholar; Kahn, Robert L. and Cannell, Charles F., The Dynamics of Interviewing: Theory, technique, and cases (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957)Google Scholar; Merton, Robert K., Fiske, Marjorie, and Kendall, Patricia L., The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures (Glencoe, III: The Free Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Parten, Mildred B., Surveys, Polls, and Samples: Practical Procedures (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950)Google Scholar; and Selltiz, Claire and others, Research Methods in Social Relations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1959)Google Scholar.

7 See especiallyHeard, Alexander, “Interviewing Southern Politicians,” American Political Science Review, 12 1950 (Vol. 44, No. 4), pp. 886–896Google Scholar; Kincaid, Henry V. and Bright, Margaret, “Interviewing the Business Elite,” American Journal of Sociology, 11 1957 (Vol. 63, No. 3), pp. 304–311Google Scholar; Appendix C, “Survey Interviewing Among Members of Congress,” in Robinson, James A., Congress and Foreign Policy-Making: A Study in Legislative Influence and Initiative (Homewood, 111: The Dorsey Press, 1962), pp. 222–234Google Scholar; and Weiner, Myron, “Political Interviewing,” Chapter 6 in Ward, Robert E. and others, Studying Politics Abroad: Field Research in the Developing Areas (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1964), pp. 103–133Google Scholar.

8 Kincaid, and Bright, , American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 63, No. 3Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 307.

10 Best, Gary L. conducted 78 structured interviews with members of permanent delegations to the UN in 35 days, or an average of 2.2 interviews per day (“Diplomacy in die United Nations,” p. 32)Google Scholar. These interviews were conducted when the General Assembly was not in session. Chadwick F. Alger has conducted structured interviews with delegates to the General Assembly during the Assembly session. He was able to conduct 37 interviews in eighteen days, or an average of slighdy more than two per day (Alger, Chadwick F., “United Nations Participation as a Learning Experience,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 1963 [Vol. 27, No. 3], pp. 410–426)Google Scholar.

11 Similarly, in 1959Best, Gary L. was able to interview one member from each of the 78 permanent delegations then in New York. He was forced to interview an individual other than the one whom he had selected randomly in only five instances (“Diplomacy in the United Nations,” p. 30)Google Scholar.

12 However, Kamal M. Hagras, a diplomat of the United Arab Republic, had administered a written questionnaire to delegates who had participated in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). (See his United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: A Case Study in U.N. Diplomacy [New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965], pp. 125 ff.)Google Scholar All nine of his questions were open-ended, and he made no attempt to code and quantify the answers.

13 SeeWallace, David, “A Case For and Against Mail Questionnaires,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 1954 (Vol. 18, No. 1), pp. 40–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Notably an article,“The USSR and ILO,” International Organization, Summer 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 3), pp. 402–428Google Scholar, and a book, The USSR and the UN's Economic and Social Activities (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

15 Selltiz and others, p. 242.

16 Hagras, merely says that “most of these individuals who were requested to answer the questionnaires showed willingness to cooperate.” In all, eighteen delegates seem to have given him completed answers (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, pp. 125, 156)Google Scholar. In his study of New Haven, Connecticut, Robert A. Dahl mailed a questionnaire to members of local elites. The returns were so limited that he could not use the data. He had to draw a sample and conduct interviews (Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City [New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1962], p. 337)Google Scholar. On the other hand, James N. Rosenau sent mail questionnaires to those individuals who attended the Conference on Foreign Aspects of United States National Security and obtained a 61 percent response (National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Case Study in the Mobilization of Public Support [Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1963], pp. 49, 371)Google Scholar.

17 Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

18 This delegation includes more dian 3 percent of diose individuals attending the Conference.

19 O'Brien, pp. 27–29.

20 Haas, Ernst B., Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

21 Parten, p. 73.

22 See Best; andAlger, , Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3Google Scholar.

23 For a glimpse at the imaginative ways sampling problems have been met in somewhat similar contexts seeBonilla, Frank, “Survey Techniques,” in Ward and others, pp. 134–152Google Scholar.