Winning Votes: Examining How StatesVote with the US in the UN, 1950-1992.

This paper uses voting practices in the United Nations to test theories of interstate cooperation. While some of the cooperation literature focuses on shared preferences as the source of international cooperation, another focuses on specific policies that states can take to induce higher levels of cooperation. This research derives and tests hypotheses from both views. The empirical findings support both perspectives as democratic, wealthier, more powerful states, and US allies are more likely to have higher vote agreement with the US, demonstrating that shared preferences matter. The results also indicate that states can employ foreign aid policies, economic and military, to induce higher agreement among non-democratic states. Our results provide a broad test of theories of cooperation and shed light on the ability of states to develop cooperation even in the absences of shared preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]