Comments by Suresh Narayanan, on The Index of Countries’ Support for UN-based Multilateralism: Construction, Verification, and Correlates

Suresh Narayanan: This paper, written by two deep thinkers in the field, made for interesting reading. The composite index they develop is unique and worthy of attention. The purpose of the index, called the UN-Mi, is to measure efforts made by all the 193 UN member states to promote or support UN-based multilateralism as enunciated in the UN Charter of 1945. More specifically, they relied on six indicators drawn from Article 1 of the UN Charter. These were: (i) The percentage of UN Treaties ratified; (ii) The percentage of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voting that was in line with the international majority; (iii) Membership in UN Organizations and Agencies; (iv) Participation in conflicts and militarization; (v) The use of unilateral coercive measures (UCMs); and (vi) Contribution to the UN budget and international solidarity. The methodology section explains how each indicator was treated, transformed, and aggregated, and reduced to a...