Autoria: Augusto Neftali Corte de Oliveira.
Abstract: The essay presents the main findings of research on voting patterns among UN member states during the Eleventh Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, addressing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. The analysis of six resolutions adopted between 2022 and 2023 identifies the influence of G77 membership, security and military-supply relationships, and regime type, interpreting these patterns in the context of the transition toward a multipolar international order.
Keywords: United Nations General Assembly; war in Ukraine; Russia; Global South; G77; multipolarity; voting behavior.
OLIVEIRA, Augusto Neftali Corte de; GEIGER, Luana Margarete; UGAR, Edmund Terem. The United Nations General Assembly in a Multipolar World Order: An Analysis of Roll Call Votes on UNGA Resolutions Addressing Russia’s Military Actions in Ukraine. Chinese Political Science Review, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/s41111-025-00292-4.
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The war in Ukraine has been examined from a wide range of perspectives and has received significant academic attention aimed at understanding its origins, central developments, and global implications. At a time of transition in the global balance of power toward a multipolar world order, the conflict functions both as a symptom of this transformation and as a catalyst for the ongoing reconfiguration of international geopolitics. As a violation of the United Nations Charter, the war has prompted debates, votes, and the adoption of resolutions against Russia in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Rather than adding to the existing literature focused on the causes of the crisis, this article seeks to analyze and propose interpretive frameworks for understanding the positions adopted by the international community within the UNGA.
This research draws on the extensive literature on the determinants of UNGA member-state behavior to examine the case of the Eleventh Emergency Special Session (ES-11) and the six resolutions voted on and adopted between 2022 and 2023. The session explicitly addresses the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, characterized as a transformative event in international politics (Mearsheimer 2023). The period of transition in the global geopolitical order is broadly reflected in changing patterns of behavior within the UNGA (Voeten 2000; Carter and Stone 2015; Woo and Chung 2017; Pamp, Dendorfer, and Thurner 2018; Gunes and Ozkaleli 2022).
Plenary of the United Nations General Assembly during a meeting held in 2016. Drop of Light / Shutterstock.
This study makes a significant contribution to the debate by providing a clear perspective for understanding the factors that explain member states’ support for or rejection of resolutions against Russia during ES-11. The central research question is: What factors explain the voting patterns of member states during the Eleventh Emergency Special Session of the UNGA, and what do these patterns reveal about the emerging multipolar world order? Starting from the assumption that the positions adopted on ES-11 resolutions reflect the ongoing transition in the international system and are relevant to the consolidation of a multipolar world order, the study seeks to identify the factors that explain support for or opposition to resolutions condemning Russia.
The article is structured as follows. The first section presents the theoretical framework, drawing on International Relations (IR) scholars who analyze global transformations from a systemic perspective, including Yan (2021), Xing (2014), and Mearsheimer (2019, 2023). This section demonstrates that, from this perspective, the current international order is undergoing profound changes in its polarity. With the reemergence of Russia and, especially, China as major powers, the global balance of power is becoming increasingly complex. This complexity reveals a series of crises within the declining liberal order, particularly regarding confidence in the leadership and legitimacy of the Western-led system (Xing 2014; Lee 2024; Wang and Chen 2024; Kim and Park 2024).
The section emphasizes that countries around the world must navigate carefully within an international arena in which different sources of power require strategic consideration. These geopolitical transformations are reflected in the way states position themselves in international forums such as the UNGA.
The second section of the article formulates six specific hypotheses concerning the voting behavior of member states during UNGA ES-11, accompanied by a review of the literature. Voting patterns among UNGA delegations have long been a major focus of scholarly attention in international politics. For the purposes of this study, the explanatory factors were defined as: membership in the G77 (Global South); membership in NATO, the European Union (EU), and the G7 (Global North); receipt of foreign aid from the United States (US); bilateral trade with Russia; status as a military supplier; political regime type; and government ideology.
The third section introduces the six ES-11 resolutions and provides a descriptive analysis of the outcomes of the UNGA deliberations. The fourth section presents the results of the adopted methodology, consisting of two cross-sectional logistic models. Model A includes the full dataset, whereas Model B excludes members of NATO, the EU, and the G7 because of limitations related to the structure of the data and the methodology.
The models consistently demonstrate that G77 member states, countries that depend on Russia as their main military supplier, and countries without liberal democratic regimes are less likely to vote in favor of resolutions condemning Russia. Conversely, states outside the G77, countries that depend on NATO members for military supplies, and liberal democracies are more likely to vote in favor of these resolutions.
The interactions between the relevant factors and delegation behavior in each of the six resolutions are examined separately. The two resolutions with the most direct practical effects received the greatest levels of opposition: Russia’s suspension from the United Nations Human Rights Council and support for the establishment of a financial compensation mechanism.
The final section discusses the implications of these findings in the broader context of the emerging multipolar world order. Particular attention is given to the reasoning behind the decision of Global South countries to adopt ambiguous positions and avoid taking sides in the Ukraine crisis.
The gap between the priorities and national interests of countries in the Global South and Global North is one of the study’s main findings, directly affecting voting patterns within the UNGA and carrying long-term implications for the international system. The war in Ukraine therefore represents a critical turning point not only in relations between the West and Russia, but also in the broader dynamics between developed and developing countries.
Although votes on UNGA resolutions are often regarded as indicators of member states’ foreign-policy positions, it is important to recognize that the institutional environment of the United Nations does not necessarily reproduce the constraints found in other settings. Generalizations based on this research should therefore be made cautiously.
The analysis suggests that, in a new multipolar international order, convergence between countries of the Global South and the strategy preferred by the United States may be facilitated by security and defense ties, as well as by the adoption of liberal democratic regimes. These factors, however, do not eliminate the tensions resulting from conflicting economic positions and priorities between the Global South and Global North.
The study therefore demonstrates that the US-led strategy of building broad coalitions anchored in an international order based on liberal values and international law (Nye 2015) will face a more complex international environment that is less conducive to automatic alignments. Achieving broader diplomatic consensus with countries of the Global South requires recognition of the legitimacy of their interests and autonomous strategies.
This complexity derives to a considerable extent from the roles of China and Russia as providers of viable economic and security alternatives, reinforcing both the multipolar character of the international system and the importance of an international order that values the pluralism of sovereign states and their right to participate in defining the global agenda.
The research presented here focuses specifically on the period of the Biden administration, characterized by convergence between the United States and its European allies. The second Trump administration, which began in 2025, potentially alters this scenario. The rapprochement with Russia and the administration’s ambivalence regarding Ukraine’s military needs have raised concerns among European allies (Sanger and Erlanger 2025).
Indeed, some of the first actions of the new Trump administration resonate with the issues analyzed in this article. For example, the decision to terminate foreign-aid programs funded by the US Treasury through USAID (Nolen 2025) can be considered in light of the limited relevance of this factor in explaining countries’ behavior in the UNGA during ES-11.
Reflecting on international politics, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated:
“Eventually, we would return to a point where you had a multipolar world, with great powers in different parts of the planet. That is what we face now with China and, to some extent, Russia” (Department of State 2025).
These policy changes under the new Trump administration therefore reinforce the urgency of understanding the structures of a new multipolar international order on the basis of the evidence already available.
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