Abstract

Since the earlier studies about the voting behavior of the United Nations members during the 1950s, there is no agreement among voting analysts on the best methodology to detect states aggregations and "blocs" in the General Assembly. Almost every author involved in this topic proposed a new method - or at least a new application of a previous method - to better show the map of UN members vote. The aim of this paper is to find some common patterns in the wide universe of voting behavior studies in order to turn out the methodological diversity in cumulative knowledge, and to provide practical paths of analysis for future researches. The first paragraph classifies the researches on voting behavior in the General Assembly by the "goals", the "object" and the "method" of research. The following paragraph shows the main methods used in the last fifty years and their evolution. Finally, the Conclusion underlines the common aspects of voting behavior analysis in the General Assembly and suggests strategies of researches.