Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GLOBAL (Global Cleavages: The Shape of Political Conflict across World Regions in Historical Perspective)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-07-01 al 2025-12-31
A deeper understanding of the conflicting forces shaping our global landscape
In a world marked by complex global politics, questions abound regarding the nature of conflicts and divisions. Are these conflicts predominantly territorial, or do they stem from broader socio-economic and cultural dimensions that transcend geographic borders? Funded by the European Research Council, the GLOBAL project embarks on an empirical analysis spanning centuries. Specifically, it examines the evolution of international divisions, from core-periphery dynamics to civilisational contrasts, and their transformation into functional conflicts based on class and education. GLOBAL seeks to determine whether international divisions such as core-periphery disparities, North-South divides or civilisational contrasts are gradually giving way to conflicts rooted in socio-economic and cultural groups.
The investigation is carried out at the level of citizens, actors and institutions. GLOBAL combines comparative and supra-national approaches that look at the politics of inequality, i.e. how actors compete to politicize more or less equitable redistribution of rights and resources across world regions and across transnational groups. A research strategy based on statistics, scaling techniques, large language models and network analysis is used to explore electoral results, legislations, cleavages, roll-call votes, text produced by actors, individual surveys and organizational data.
In a world marked by complex global politics, questions abound regarding the nature of conflicts and divisions. Are these conflicts predominantly territorial, or do they stem from broader socio-economic and cultural dimensions that transcend geographic borders? Funded by the European Research Council, the GLOBAL project embarks on an empirical analysis spanning centuries. Specifically, it examines the evolution of international divisions, from core-periphery dynamics to civilisational contrasts, and their transformation into functional conflicts based on class and education. GLOBAL seeks to determine whether international divisions such as core-periphery disparities, North-South divides or civilisational contrasts are gradually giving way to conflicts rooted in socio-economic and cultural groups.
The investigation is carried out at the level of citizens, actors and institutions. GLOBAL combines comparative and supra-national approaches that look at the politics of inequality, i.e. how actors compete to politicize more or less equitable redistribution of rights and resources across world regions and across transnational groups. A research strategy based on statistics, scaling techniques, large language models and network analysis is used to explore electoral results, legislations, cleavages, roll-call votes, text produced by actors, individual surveys and organizational data.
During the reporting period, progress advanced across all four work packages, with emphasis on data collection, dataset preparation, and alignment with the finalized theoretical framework. The project’s key theoretical contribution is the extension of cleavage theory to the global level. By adapting the exit-voice framework to system building, a typology was developed distinguishing four forms of politicization of global inequalities—universal, functional, territorial, and territorialized. This framework, published in a peer-reviewed output, guides ongoing empirical work, coding schemes, and methodological choices. Two GLOBAL Working Papers are in preparation, and all work packages have been aligned to the theory.
In Work Package 1, data collection faced challenges due to fragmented sources and the specificity of one-party systems in non-Western contexts. A “party system tree” method was devised to address these. Task 1.2 shifted to applying large language models to comparative literature, enabling systematic coding of cleavage structures in 12 polities (completion expected in 2025). In Task 1.3 AI-assisted instruments were designed to map transnational networks across organizational, financial, military, and personal linkages, with coding underway.
In Work Package 2, data collection for Tasks 2.1–2.3 is nearly complete, while Task 2.4 faced issues of availability and cost of newspapers, partly resolved with support from the host institution’s library. A key achievement is the development of a validated large-language-model classification system applying the theoretical typology to diverse corpora, including manifestos, institutional texts, and press sources. The method, already presented in a conference paper, proved robust and particularly effective for Catholic Church texts.
In Work Package 3, the main dataset of UN General Assembly roll-call votes was completed, producing ideal-point estimations that capture global alliances and cleavages. Additional socio-economic, demographic, and organizational variables are being added, while General Debate speeches provide an alternative measure of ideological positioning. Task 3.1 was redirected toward two lines of work: classification of over a century of national legislation across 12 polities, and a nearly finalized database of international treaties. These resources will enable analyses of regional vs global politicization in line with the theoretical framework.
In Work Package 4, the design of a cross-national survey in 12 countries was finalized. It introduces innovative instruments to measure identity, solidarity, and political action, including a 16-item battery reflecting the four cleavage types and a conjoint experiment. The survey has been validated by experts, approved by the ethics committee, and contracted to YouGov for fielding in Fall 2025, with translations into major local languages already prepared.
Overall, the reporting period consolidated the theoretical foundations of the project, introduced novel data collection and classification tools, advanced multiple datasets, and prepared a global survey, laying a strong basis for the next stages of analysis.
In Work Package 1, data collection faced challenges due to fragmented sources and the specificity of one-party systems in non-Western contexts. A “party system tree” method was devised to address these. Task 1.2 shifted to applying large language models to comparative literature, enabling systematic coding of cleavage structures in 12 polities (completion expected in 2025). In Task 1.3 AI-assisted instruments were designed to map transnational networks across organizational, financial, military, and personal linkages, with coding underway.
In Work Package 2, data collection for Tasks 2.1–2.3 is nearly complete, while Task 2.4 faced issues of availability and cost of newspapers, partly resolved with support from the host institution’s library. A key achievement is the development of a validated large-language-model classification system applying the theoretical typology to diverse corpora, including manifestos, institutional texts, and press sources. The method, already presented in a conference paper, proved robust and particularly effective for Catholic Church texts.
In Work Package 3, the main dataset of UN General Assembly roll-call votes was completed, producing ideal-point estimations that capture global alliances and cleavages. Additional socio-economic, demographic, and organizational variables are being added, while General Debate speeches provide an alternative measure of ideological positioning. Task 3.1 was redirected toward two lines of work: classification of over a century of national legislation across 12 polities, and a nearly finalized database of international treaties. These resources will enable analyses of regional vs global politicization in line with the theoretical framework.
In Work Package 4, the design of a cross-national survey in 12 countries was finalized. It introduces innovative instruments to measure identity, solidarity, and political action, including a 16-item battery reflecting the four cleavage types and a conjoint experiment. The survey has been validated by experts, approved by the ethics committee, and contracted to YouGov for fielding in Fall 2025, with translations into major local languages already prepared.
Overall, the reporting period consolidated the theoretical foundations of the project, introduced novel data collection and classification tools, advanced multiple datasets, and prepared a global survey, laying a strong basis for the next stages of analysis.
After two years, the project has delivered significant theoretical, empirical, and dissemination-related advances:
High-impact publications – Two major peer-reviewed articles have already appeared:
A Cleavage-Based Conceptualization of Politicized Global Integration (Journal of European Public Policy, 2024), which introduces a new theoretical model of global cleavages.
The Evolution of Global Cleavages: A Historical Analysis of Territorial and Functional World Alignments, 1843–2020 (Comparative Political Studies, 2024), which applies automated text analysis to trace global alignments over nearly two centuries.
Working papers advancing theory – Two theoretical contributions, Global Territoriality and Global Dimensionality, are in press in the GLOBAL Working Paper series. Together, these outputs consolidate the project’s role in extending cleavage theory from the domestic/regional to the global level, bridging comparative politics and international relations.
International conference and scholarly network – The September 2024 launching conference, Global Cleavages: A New Research Agenda for International Politics, convened leading scholars across disciplines. The event not only generated novel research outputs (some already published as GLOBAL Working Papers) but also established an international scholarly network to sustain collaboration on global cleavages and dimensionality.
Visibility and outreach – The project has been disseminated through invited talks and keynotes, and established a dedicated website (https://europeangovernanceandpolitics.eui.eu/global/(si apre in una nuova finestra)) as a platform for communication and sharing research progress.
Theoretical and empirical breakthroughs – The project has made two innovations beyond the state of the art:
Theoretical extension of cleavage theory from domestic to global politics, integrating insights from historical sociology, international law, global trade, and economic history. This reframes debates beyond the dichotomy between technocratic integration and politicized conflict.
Empirical extension of cleavage research to the global level, demonstrating—through long-term historical data—that global integration and politicization processes follow patterns similar to national and European levels, but with a temporal lag. Importantly, recent findings highlight the central role of political actors and ideologies, rather than structural transformations, in driving these global processes.
Together, these achievements represent a major step forward in developing a systematic theory of global cleavages, supported by early empirical results and embedded in an emerging international research community.
High-impact publications – Two major peer-reviewed articles have already appeared:
A Cleavage-Based Conceptualization of Politicized Global Integration (Journal of European Public Policy, 2024), which introduces a new theoretical model of global cleavages.
The Evolution of Global Cleavages: A Historical Analysis of Territorial and Functional World Alignments, 1843–2020 (Comparative Political Studies, 2024), which applies automated text analysis to trace global alignments over nearly two centuries.
Working papers advancing theory – Two theoretical contributions, Global Territoriality and Global Dimensionality, are in press in the GLOBAL Working Paper series. Together, these outputs consolidate the project’s role in extending cleavage theory from the domestic/regional to the global level, bridging comparative politics and international relations.
International conference and scholarly network – The September 2024 launching conference, Global Cleavages: A New Research Agenda for International Politics, convened leading scholars across disciplines. The event not only generated novel research outputs (some already published as GLOBAL Working Papers) but also established an international scholarly network to sustain collaboration on global cleavages and dimensionality.
Visibility and outreach – The project has been disseminated through invited talks and keynotes, and established a dedicated website (https://europeangovernanceandpolitics.eui.eu/global/(si apre in una nuova finestra)) as a platform for communication and sharing research progress.
Theoretical and empirical breakthroughs – The project has made two innovations beyond the state of the art:
Theoretical extension of cleavage theory from domestic to global politics, integrating insights from historical sociology, international law, global trade, and economic history. This reframes debates beyond the dichotomy between technocratic integration and politicized conflict.
Empirical extension of cleavage research to the global level, demonstrating—through long-term historical data—that global integration and politicization processes follow patterns similar to national and European levels, but with a temporal lag. Importantly, recent findings highlight the central role of political actors and ideologies, rather than structural transformations, in driving these global processes.
Together, these achievements represent a major step forward in developing a systematic theory of global cleavages, supported by early empirical results and embedded in an emerging international research community.