Learning About the Value of Global Cooperation:Role-Taking in the United Nations as a Predictor of World Mindedness

As a corollary to Robert Angell's measures of world order, this article examines nation-state differences in support for world order as a function of learning through involvement in the United Nations. Differences in national support for world order are analyzed in terms of “role-taking” and “cue-taking” in the United Nations. The authors identify seven types of roles, based on the degree to which nation-states approximated support for the norms of the organization. Correlational analysis indicates that these roles function as good predictors to variance among nations in their support for world order. Alternatively, nations which could not be classified as taking on a definitive role were hypothesized to be “taking cues” about the value of global cooperation from their regional counterparts. This predicted outcome was also supported. Finally, analysis of “deviant” cases indicated that for some nations, both role-taking and cue-taking may be equally salient for supporting world order.