International Institutions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy L. Sayward
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
World Society ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
World Culture ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Global Action ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter explores the role of international institutions during the Cold War. It explains that while international institutions promoted their own agendas for global action, they also provided venues for raising questions about the bipolar power contest and acted as mitigators in international conflicts. The chapter also suggests that the histories of international institutions can provide insights into the complexities of the Cold War. It furthermore discusses the role of the United Nations in creating an era of global expectations and conventions that do fit into the nation-states paradigm, and highlights the emergence of the so-called world society or world culture during the Cold War.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Arab World ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Cold War

This book examines the role of the United Nations in the confounding geopolitical tensions arising from key international conflicts in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, including the hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. It explores how the UN has been shaped by the Palestine question and how the struggle over Palestine produced the institutions of “peacekeeping” and of the “UN mediator.” It also discusses the politics around the UN and shows that it is always constrained by geopolitics despite serving as a site of struggle over legitimacy claims by warring factions. The book is divided into four sections dealing with themes that are considered the most important elements of UN work in the Arab world: diplomacy, enforcement and peacekeeping, humanitarianism and refugees, and development. This introduction provides an overview of the literature on the UN that emerged in the post-Cold War period in line with the complexity and reach of various UN missions and agencies.

Land of Blue Helmets

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Arab World ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Member States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Mediation

Born in 1945, the United Nations (UN) came to life in the Arab world. It was there that the UN dealt with early diplomatic challenges that helped shape its institutions such as peacekeeping and political mediation. It was also there that the UN found itself trapped in, and sometimes part of, confounding geopolitical tensions in key international conflicts in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, such as hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. Much has changed over the past seven decades, but what has not changed is the central role played by the UN. This book's claim is that the UN is a constant site of struggle in the Arab world and equally that the Arab world serves as a location for the UN to define itself against the shifting politics of its age. Looking at the UN from the standpoint of the Arab world, this volume includes chapters on the potential and the problems of a UN that is framed by both the promises of its Charter and the contradictions of its member states.

The International Refugee Regime(s): The End of the Cold War Matters

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 303-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles B. Keely
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Asylum Policy ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
International Response ◽  
Nation States ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cold War

The purpose of this note is to present a schematic narrative and analysis of the development of the international response to refugees by states during the Cold War. The analysis focuses on the period from the statute creating the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Convention on the Status of Refugees, both in 1951, through the end of the Cold War. The note supplements the analysis contained in an earlier theoretical article published in this journal in 1996 entitled “How Nation-States Create and Respond to Refugee Flows” (Keely, 1996). The views differ sharply from conventional wisdom but provide a better understanding of and an explanation for some contemporary difficulties regarding refugee and asylum policy, especially in the industrial countries, but also more generally globally.

Managing the world: the United Nations, decolonization, and the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Maria Muschik
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Work Done

AbstractThis article examines a 1956 United Nations effort to respond to decolonization, by supplying newly independent governments with international administrators to help build sovereign nation-states out of the disintegrating European empires and anchor them firmly within the capitalist world. The article reveals the UN as a significant historical actor during the Cold War beyond the organization’s function of providing a forum for intergovernmental debates and lobbying. While the initiative never resulted in a large-scale response to decolonization, it ultimately effected a substantial shift in the practice of development assistance: from advisory services to a more paternalist approach that focused on ‘getting the work done’ on behalf of aid recipients. Recovering this history helps account for the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the second half of the twentieth century: its global proliferation at a time when international actors became increasingly active in the management of the public affairs of developing countries.

Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Melber
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Plane Crash ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Dag Hammarskjold

In 1953 Dag Hammarskjöld became the second Secretary-General of the United Nations—the highest international civil servant. Before his mission was cut short by a 1961 plane crash in then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia), he used his office to act on the basis of anti-hegemonic values, including solidarity and recognition of otherness. The dubious circumstances of Hammarskjöld’s death have received much attention, including a new official investigation (which is summarized in a chapter), but have perhaps overshadowed his diplomatic legacy—one that has often been hotly contested. This book summarizes Hammarskjöld’s personal background and the normative frameworks of the United Nations. He then explores the years of African decolonization during which Hammarskjöld was in office, investigating the scope and limits of his influence within the context of global governance during the Cold War. It paints a picture of a man with strong guiding principles, but limited room for maneuver, colliding with the essential interests of the big powers as the ‘wind of change’ blew over the African continent. The book is a critical contribution to the study of international politics and the role of the UN in the African decolonization processes during the Cold War. It is also exploring the role of individuals in leadership positions of the international civil service and by doing so is a tribute to the achievements of a cosmopolitan Swede.

The Concept of Preventive Diplomacy and Its Application by the United Nations in Central Asia

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Jenča
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
International Community ◽  
Common Resources ◽  
Regional Centre ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War

The century-old concept of preventive diplomacy has grown in prominence since the end of the Cold War, and was strengthened by the failures of the international community to prevent the violence in places such as Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The United Nations has undertaken a range of preventive activities in Central Asia, including in partnership with relevant regional actors. This paper considers the role of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) in terms of transboundary threats, domestic developments in Kyrgyzstan, and the management of common resources.

The Cold War in Southeast Asia

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ang Cheng Guan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Southeast Asians ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the history of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. It explains that the onset of the Cold War coincided with nationalist struggles and decolonization, and explains why Southeast Asians should appreciate that the Cold War is a historical event which has significantly affected the development of their countries, particularly in terms of the role of the Cold War in shaping the political development of the nation-states and interstate relations in the region, and the growing interest in rewriting the history of the Cold War.

The Cold War and the Imperialism of Nation-States

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasenjit Duara
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Weak Links ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter examines the role of the imperialism of nation-states in the Cold War. It suggests that the Cold War rivalry provided the “frame of reference” in which the historical forces of imperialism and nationalism interacted with developments such as decolonization, multiculturalism, and new ideologies and modes of identity formation. The chapter also argues that while the equilibrium of Cold War rivalry generated an entrenched political and ideological hegemony limiting the realization of political, economic, and imaginative possibilities in much of the world, the developing world represented significant weak links and played an equally important role in its collapse.

National Security and Public Anxiety: Our Changing Perceptions

2010 ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
Sir Richard Dearlove
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Private Citizens ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
Full Force ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses the changing perceptions on national security and civic anxiety. During the Cold War and its aftermath, security was rather a simple and straightforward issue. The countries knew their enemies, where they are and the threats they presented. On the event that, the enemies's secrets were unknown, probing techniques were employed to determine the weaknesses of the enemy. This formulaic situation which seeped through in to the twenty-first century left little room for innovation. In fact, in some countries, security maintained at the Cold War levels despite criticisms that new and emerging national security threats should be addressed at a new level. Of the powerful nations, America maintained the role of a world policeman and adapted its national security priorities according to its perception of a new series of strategic threats; however these new security strategies were without a sense of urgency. However, the perception of global threats and national security radically changed in the event of the 9/11 attack. The sleeping national security priorities of America came to a full force which affected the national security priorities of other nations as well. In the twenty-first globalized world, no conflict remains a regional clash. The reverberations of the Russian military action in Georgia, the Israeli intervention in Gaza, and the results of the attacks in Mumbai resonates loudly and rapidly through the wider international security system. While today, nations continue to seek new methods for addressing new security threats, the paradox of the national security policy is that nation-states have lost their exclusive grip of their own security at a time when the private citizens are assailed by increased fears for their own security and demand a more enhanced safety from the state. Nation-states have been much safer from large-scale violence, however there exists a strong sense of anxiety about the lack of security in the face of multiplicity of threats. Nations have been largely dependent on international coordinated action to achieve their important national security objectives. National policies and security theory lack precision. In addition, the internationalization of national security has eroded the distinction between domestic and foreign security. These blurring lines suggest that the understanding of national security is still at the height of transformations.

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