What the study found
The study presents a new machine-readable dataset of public United Nations Security Council transcripts from 1946 to 2024. It includes over 160,000 speeches and more than 87 million words, with speaker identity, affiliation, and speaking order preserved.
Why the authors say this matters
The authors conclude that the dataset supports research on global security norms, institutional discourse, and the relationship between language and international policy. They also say its historical depth captures Cold War dynamics and post-Cold War institutional changes.
What the researchers tested
The article describes the creation of a dataset from all available public transcripts of the UN Security Council. The authors then demonstrate its analytical potential with three illustrative applications using traditional text analysis and transformer-based text analysis, which are machine-learning language models that can process text patterns.
What worked and what didn't
The dataset appears to enable detailed analysis of how different actors describe security concepts across time. In the examples reported, the authors examine the evolution of sovereignty from right to responsibility, changes in human rights discourse after the Cold War, and institutional champions of the humanitarian turn.
What to keep in mind
The abstract does not describe limitations in detail. The three applications are presented as illustrative examples of the dataset's use, not as exhaustive findings.
Key points
- The dataset compiles public UN Security Council transcripts from 1946 to 2024.
- It contains over 160,000 speeches and more than 87 million words.
- It preserves speaker identity, affiliation, and exact speaking order.
- The authors demonstrate three illustrative text-analysis applications.
- The examples include sovereignty, human rights discourse, and the humanitarian turn.
Disclosure
- Research title:
- UN Security Council transcript dataset spans 1946 to 2024
- Authors:
- Takuto Sakamoto, Tomoyuki Matsuoka, Hiroto Ito
- Institutions:
- The University of Tokyo, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts
- Publication date:
- 2026-03-30
- OpenAlex record:
- View
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