Corruption Within the UN Security Council

My paper updated and analyzed the study by Illyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker (2006), “How Much is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations.” The authors found that a country rotated onto the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council experiences a sharp increase in United States and U.N. aid, suggesting vote-buying and corruption within the Security Council. They concluded that a country’s U.S. aid increases by 59 percent and its U.N. aid by 8 percent when it rotates onto the council. Since their data is from 1946 – 2001, I updated certain variables of their study, including Security Council membership and Polity score, up to 2019. I found that both U.S. and U.N. aid towards members of the Security Council increased with the updated data. Generally, I used my findings to argue that vote-buying practices in intergovernmental organizations, such as the U.N and the International Monetary Foundation (IMF), are becoming increasingly prevalent. These findings suggest that reforms are needed to ensure the integrity of the Security Council and effective foreign aid.

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I worked on this project in cooperation with Dr. Dinsha Mistree, Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School. Below is a copy of my class presentation given on December 5, 2019, which further discusses my work and results, as well as my working paper. As my project is not fully completed yet, I plan on updating this page with updated papers and results as I find them.

Please feel free to contact me at kairani@davidson.edu with any questions or comments.