Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut fuer Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) der OSGK
Freyung 6/6/7, A-1010 Wien
Tel: +43-1-5336112-17, Fax: +43-1-5336112-77, Email: sec@ofai.at
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Scott Patterson
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
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DOMESTICATING WEALTH INEQUALITY: HYBRID DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPEECHES, 1971-2018
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The rise of wealth inequality is well-documented, yet robust calls for
redistribution have yet to emerge from within the UN system. How can
this be? We argue that discourse on wealth inequality has been
gradually, but pervasively, “domesticated” in diplomatic venues. We
advance this argument through a hybrid discourse analysis of UN General
Assembly speeches that adopts complementary machine learning and
interpretive techniques. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of
hybrid discourse analysis for several tasks in time-series text
analysis. First, we use a multiclass Support Vector Machine to discover
rhetorical “eras” that emerge in debates over time. Second, we use
Concept Mover Distance – a distributed, pre-trained language model – to
estimate the extent of engagement with rhetorical tropes that are
relevant to wealth inequality. These tropes were selected through an
interpretive analysis of exemplary external texts. Third, we cluster
states based on patterns of engagement with key tropes, illustrating
changes to the rhetorical topography over time. Beyond our substantive
contribution, we aim to close the gap between interpretive and
computational text analysis and to demonstrate the advantage of placing
these approaches on an even footing.
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Biography: Scott Robert Patterson is a PhD candidate in Political
Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research focus is
at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and International
Relations – where Artificial Intelligence is treated as both a political
phenomenon and a research methodology. Prior to his studies at McGill,
Scott received training in Natural Language Processing at the OFAI
Language Technology Lab and completed a Master’s of Advanced
International Studies (M.A.I.S.) at the Diplomatische Akademie Wien.
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Vincent Pouliot is James McGill Professor in the Department of Political
Science at McGill University. He is the author, among others, of
International Pecking Orders: The Politics and Practice of Multilateral
Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
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Time: Wednesday, 29 June 2022 at 18:30 CEST
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Location: On Zoom
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Meeting ID: 842 8244 2460
Passcode: 678868
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OFAI 2022 Lecture Series: https://www.ofai.at/lectures
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OESTERREICHISCHES FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT
FUER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Univ.-Prof. Ing. Dr. Robert Trappl