Global solidarity? A Mapping of the United Nations General Debates since 1946

Solidarity can unify and divide. It unifies by creating obligations to share across social cleavages. It divides by limiting sharing obligations to particularistic groups. I investigate when and why high-level policy makers call for global solidarity, i.e. for an universal obligation to share that includes everybody and excludes nobody. We expect that the demand for solidarity varies in three factors. First, the depth of pre-existing divisions: deep divisions privilege particularistic at the expense of global solidarity. Second, the distribution of power: appeals to solidarity are a weapon of the weak. Third, the structure of policy challenges: exogenous shocks beyond anybody’s control are more likely to trigger support for solidarity than endogenous shocks caused by real or perceived policy mistakes. Using the United Nations General Debate Corpus (1946-2022), the paper traces the evolution of debates on solidarity at the global level, assessing the conditions under which world leaders call for a universal, all-in vision of solidarity. State-of-the-art text-as-data and machine-learning methods are then used to measure solidarity and its geographical, cultural, and issue-specific contexts.