Benchmarking LLMs for Political Science: A United Nations Perspective

TL;DR

This paper introduces UNBench, a comprehensive benchmark dataset for evaluating large language models on political science tasks related to UN decision-making, highlighting their potential and limitations in high-stakes political contexts.

Contribution

It presents the first dataset and benchmark specifically designed to assess LLMs' capabilities in modeling UN political decision processes across multiple tasks.

Findings

LLMs show promise in understanding UN decision-making tasks

Challenges remain in accurately simulating political dynamics

Insights into LLM strengths and limitations in political science

Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved significant advances in natural language processing, yet their potential for high-stake political decision-making remains largely unexplored. This paper addresses the gap by focusing on the application of LLMs to the United Nations (UN) decision-making process, where the stakes are particularly high and political decisions can have far-reaching consequences. We introduce a novel dataset comprising publicly available UN Security Council (UNSC) records from 1994 to 2024, including draft resolutions, voting records, and diplomatic speeches. Using this dataset, we propose the United Nations Benchmark (UNBench), the first comprehensive benchmark designed to evaluate LLMs across four interconnected political science tasks: co-penholder judgment, representative voting simulation, draft adoption prediction, and representative statement generation. These tasks span the three stages of the UN decision-making process--drafting, voting, and discussing--and aim to assess LLMs' ability to understand and simulate political dynamics. Our experimental analysis demonstrates the potential and challenges of applying LLMs in this domain, providing insights into their strengths and limitations in political science. This work contributes to the growing intersection of AI and political science, opening new avenues for research and practical applications in global governance. The UNBench Repository can be accessed at: https://github.com/yueqingliang1/UNBench.