UNITED NATIONS AND THE CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY: The Anatomy of One of the Organs of Hegemonic Powers 02/23/09 (original) (raw)

The United Nations in World Politics

It is hard to imagine a world without the United Nations. Despite many ups and downs over more than sixty-five years, the UN has not only endured but also played a key role in reshaping the world as we know it. It has embodied human-kind's hopes for a better world through the prevention of conflict. It has promoted a culture of legality and rule of law. It has raised an awareness of the plight of the world's poor, and it has boosted development by providing technical assistance. It has promoted concern for human rights, including the status of women, the rights of the child, and the unique needs of indigenous peoples. It has formulated the concept of environmentally sustainable development. It has contributed immensely to making multilateral diplomacy the primary way in which international norms, public policies, and law are established. It has served as a catalyst for global policy networks and partnerships with other actors. It plays a central role in global governance. Along the way, the UN has earned several Nobel Peace Prizes, including the 2005 award to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei; the 2001 prize to the UN and Secretary-General Kofi Annan; the 1988 award to UN peacekeepers; and the 1969 honor to the International Labour Organization (ILO). In the many areas of UN activity, we can point to the UN's accomplishments and also to its shortcomings and failures. More than sixty-five years after its creation , the UN continues to be the only international organization (IO) or, more correctly, international intergovernmental organization (IGO) of global scope and nearly universal membership that has an agenda encompassing the broadest range of governance issues. It is a complex system that serves as the central site for multilateral diplomacy, with the UN's General Assembly as center stage. Three weeks of general debate at the opening of each fall assembly session draw foreign ministers and heads of state from small and large states to take advantage of the opportunity to address the nations of the world and to engage in intensive diplomacy.

The United Nations and Global Governance

Kyle Bisnath , 2021

While the United Nations is the only unifying organization that ‘brings together’ almost all the countries of the world, it is obsolete in the context of global governance, not only as a result of the Security Council’s structural prioritization of power and self-interest, but also because of the International Court of Justice’s lack of competency in conflict resolution and its political biases, as well as due to the General Assembly’s problem of voter manipulation.

The Role of the United Nations in the Political and Economic Order

The Role of the United Nations in the Political and Economic Order , 2023

The history of international relations comprises of a symbiosis of anarchy and the quest for achieving a peaceful and sustainable international order. To this end, international organizations have become essential instruments to realise a sustainable international order based on peace and stability. The United Nations has become the most effective and comprehensive organization through its members, organization capacity and activities. However, the UN has been criticized mainly through the structure and functioning of the most influential body, namely the UN Security Council. It has been argued that the veto power of the permanent members put these countries in a very advantageous position. On the other hand, international relations also comprises of interwoven relations of political and economic fields. The most influential theoretical perspective to explain political and economic relations is the World-Systems Analysis. According to the World-Systems Analysis, international organizations in general, and the UN, in particular, play an important role in designing the international order, especially centre-periphery relations. This study will focus on the role of the UN Security Council in centre-periphery relations from the perspective of World-Systems Analysis. The study will discuss how the UN is instrumentalized by permanent members to gain an advantage in political and economic order in the world-system. The UN interventions, resolution processes in the UN Security Council, and the UN Security Council vetoes will be discussed with reference to specific practices.

The United Nations: Managing and Re-shaping a New World Order

2020

This article examines the prospects for the UN at its 75 th anniversary. First, it questions the conflation of "universalism"the founding principle of the UN, with "Liberal International Order" (LIO), which is conventionally credited to the US and its Western allies. Second, it opens up unrecognized and forgotten voices, especially of women and non-Western advocates, behind the making of the UN and its key normative principles. Third, the article looks at the changing nature of "world order" resulting from a variety of forces, such as the shift in power, constraints on global hegemony, proliferation of consequential actors, the changing nature of interdependence and globalization, the devolution, fragmentation and pluralization of global governance, and the multiple ideational and ideological undercurrents of world politics. Against this backdrop, the final part of the article selectively looks at some of the key areas of UN reform that might render the organization closer to its original ideal of universalism while also adapting it the realities of the 21 st century. Universalism Versus the Liberal International Order (LIO) Gambia is very, very poor... they are kept down because of exploitation….[we need to be] against the exploitation of the poor by the richby governments as well as individuals. I think we can get somewhere if we keep that idea of being against… exploitation everywhere. It will be an awfully good thing for all of us." (Franklin D. Roosevelt, US President, in 1944) 1 As the war has developed and the danger of a possible victory of the fascist powers has receded, there has been a progressive hardening and a greater conservatism in the leaders of the United Nations. The four freedoms and the Atlantic charter, vague as they were and limited in scope, have faded into the background, and the future has been envisaged more and more as a retention of the past…the hundreds of millions of Asia and Africa…have become increasingly conscious of themselves and their destiny…They welcome all attempts at world cooperation and the establishment of an international order, but they wonder and suspect if this may not be another device for continuing the old domination. (Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian anticolonial leader and future Prime Minister, in 1944) 1 Roosevelt 1944a. See also Roosevelt 1944b.

The United States and the International Financial Institutions: Power and Influence Within the World Bank and the IMF

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2003

The United States enjoys a special position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. When the institutions were created, their structure, location, and mandate were all pretty much determined by the United States. 1 The United States had just over a third of the voting power in each institution. 2 No drawing from the IMF was approved without US agreement first being made clear. 3 These observations suggest that the US was set to play a dominant role in the institutions. Yet neither the Fund nor the Bank can be cast as a mere instrument of US policy. To some extent the institutions were created in order to propound and enforce US-supported aims and policies around the world. It is also true that the Fund and the Bank exist because their 'neutral and apparently technical advice may be less offensive to national sentiments than direct intervention by the United States', in the case of the World Bank 'sparing the USA the unsavory epithets of. .. "aid with strings", "arm-twisting political pressures" etc.'. 4 However, if the organizations had absolutely no autonomy, they would be redundant, for they would have no greater legitimacy or mobilizing power than government agencies of the US. The very creation of multilateral organizations reflects the fact that, in order to propound a vision of the global economy, the participation of a large number of states in the world is required. Such participation in turn requires that a wide range of countries believe in the institutions' legitimacy: that they perceive the institutions to proffer a particular technical expertise as well as a certain degree of independence, a genuinely international character, and actions which are rule-based rather than reflecting US discretionary judgements. Susan Strange once described multilateral institutions serving either as 'instruments of the structural strategy and foreign policy of the dominant state or states' or to provide necessary public goods: 'allowing states to enjoy the political luxury of national autonomy

Crisis of the United Nations Security Council

The research presents an empirical analysis of the United Nations Security Council weakness and deficiencies. The study was focused on the UN Security Council performance in the period of an international crisis or of a necessity to functionally solve an international conflict or humanitarian catastrophe. The analysis demonstrates that the UN is perceived as the primary global collective security organization to safeguard security and preserve stability in the world. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has demonstrated deficiencies during latest important international crises to be solved by joint international effort, which almost approached current international order to a revision. The analysis demonstrated that the UN formation overcame deficiencies and weaknesses of the previous international collective security organizations – the Concert of Europe and the League of Nations. Meanwhile, the principal decision-making mechanism of the UN – Security Council with the veto right of five permanent members – periodically undermines collective security principles. Several important factors amplify this weakness: lack of common identity among the UN Security Council members, domination of the neo-realism paradigm provisions in their foreign policies, and different views on international law provisions: internal sovereignty versus necessity of humanitarian intervention. Therefore, powerful actors of international order should consider these deficiencies and launch a comprehensive reform of the UN decision making process to better react at least in international humanitarian crises. Otherwise, the UN may experience the fate of the League of Nations.