scholarly journals Explaining elite perceptions of legitimacy in global governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406612199432
Author(s):  
Soetkin Verhaegen ◽  
Jan Aart Scholte ◽  
Jonas Tallberg
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Global Orientation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Legitimacy Beliefs

Elites are central in creating, operating, defending and contesting international organisations (IOs), but little research is available about their attitudes toward these bodies. To address this gap, this article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of elite perceptions of IO legitimacy. Building on a unique multi-country and multi-sector survey of 860 elites undertaken in 2017–19, we map and explain elite legitimacy beliefs toward three key IOs in different issue-areas: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Integrating public opinion research and international relations theory, the article advances an explanation of elites’ legitimacy beliefs that emphasises their satisfaction with the institutional qualities of IOs. We contrast this argument with three common alternative explanations, which respectively highlight utilitarian calculation, global orientation and domestic cues. The analyses show that elites’ satisfaction with institutional qualities of IOs is most consistently related to legitimacy beliefs: when elites are more satisfied with democracy, effectiveness and fairness in IOs, they also regard these IOs as more legitimate. These findings suggest that the prevailing debate between utilitarian calculation, global orientation and domestic cues approaches neglects the importance of institutional satisfaction as an explanation of attitudes toward IOs.

scholarly journals The COVID-19 test of the United Nations Security Council

2021 ◽  
pp. 002070202098689
Author(s):  
Bruno Charbonneau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Multilateral Cooperation ◽  
The United Nations

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has failed the COVID-19 test, unable to promote or facilitate multilateral cooperation in dealing with the outbreak. This is worrying given its relevance as a principal organ of the United Nations (UN) that could enable or constrain international cooperation and given the need for such cooperation in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The failure of the UNSC to respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the historical limits of the UNSC as a forum for international cooperation. It also suggests that highlighting and debating UNSC reforms are not sufficient or even productive ways to move forward, especially in the context of the challenges that pandemics and climate change represent for global cooperation. It is far from clear if the UN system can change the global structures on which it was built. What does seem clear is that the UNSC is not where one will find the seeds of change for reimagining global order.

20. International organizations in world politics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Park
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

This chapter examines the role that international organizations play in world politics. It explains what international organizations are, whether we need international organizations in international relations, and what constraints and opportunities exist for international organizations to achieve their mandates. The chapter also considers the reasons why states create international organizations and how we can analyse the behaviour of such organizations. Two case studies are presented: the first is about the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the G77, and the second is about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the interests of money-centre banks. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether international organizations suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’.

In the name of democracy: UNSC reform at the intersection of discourse and governmentality

2020 ◽  
pp. 095792652097038
Author(s):  
Bjarke Zinck Winther ◽  
Laura Bang Lindegaard
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Reform Debate

Both scholars and practitioners are frustrated by the complexity of United Nations Security Council reform. Most research on the reform process is situated within international relations, and almost no attention is granted to the discursive dimensions of the reform. This article approaches democracy promotion as a governmental rationality within the United Nations, and it traces how this governmentality is co-constituted and negotiated discursively in the reform debate. The analysis focuses on argumentation and topoi in statements from debates about reform during 2015 to 2016 by two groups: The Group of Four and The Uniting for Consensus. The analysis demonstrates how the two groups utilise a topos of majority and a topos of equality, respectively, and how the groups thereby in different ways co-constitute and negotiate the governmental rationality of democracy. Through this, the article unravels the subtle ways in which the rigidity of the reform process is co-constituted through discourse.

scholarly journals National Identity and New Zealand’s Actions on the United Nations Security Council: 1993-94 and 2015-16

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Breach
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
The United Nations

<p>To win its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in both 1993-94 and 2015-16, New Zealand campaigned using the same prime pillar; its ability to act independently on the world’s prime authority for maintenance of international peace and security. With the substantial change in New Zealand’s international relationships between the two UNSC tenures, most particularly with the United States of America and China, many commentators have questioned whether New Zealand still acts independently in international affairs. Employing analytic eclecticism, this thesis applied a combined analytical framework to assess the drive behind New Zealand’s actions during both its 1993-94 and 2015-16 UNSC tenures, allowing both traditional international relations theories of neo-realism and neo-liberalism and the constructivist lens of national identity to be combined for greater explanatory power for the state’s actions in the contemporary era of complex international interdependencies. This research determined that most of New Zealand’s actions aligned with pursuit of its interests, as a small state, as ensured through multilateralism under the lens of institutional neo-liberalism. However, a number of actions taken, and strong positions held, by New Zealand on the UNSC in both periods did not align with the state’s pursuit of material interests under traditional international relations theories. By first establishing the popularly internalised national identity characteristics (or content) during each UNSC tenure period, defined as residing in public opinion, this thesis argues that a ‘win-set’ of national identity content relative prioritisation during each period enabled, and arguably drove, New Zealand’s political elite to take actions or hold positions not aligned with those of powerful states on which the small country’s material interests depended. It is argued that New Zealand’s actions on the UNSC in 2015-16 reinforced the social construction of New Zealand’s internationally regarded national identity content as an independent advocate for the global good, which was strongly established during its 1993-94 tenure.</p>

scholarly journals The Women, Peace and Security Agenda: The Unfinished Story of Feminist Revolution versus Compromise in Global Politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-65
Author(s):  
Míla O'Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Security Governance ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The United Nations

The adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (WPS) in 2000 has prompted the development of an extensive WPS scholarship within the field of feminist International Relations. The dynamic scholarly debate is characterised by certain tensions between two feminist groups – the radical revolutionary one which advocates a redefinition of the global order and is more sceptical of the agenda, and the pragmatist one accentuating the compromise towards the existing peace and security governance. This article explores the two main subjects of the WPS research – the discourse and implementation, as they have been informed by the revolutionary and pragmatist approaches. The article shows that while the academic inquiries into the WPS discourse reveal disappointment with the compromises made regarding the revolutionary vision, this disappointment is also present in the literature on implementation. The latter literature nonetheless acknowledges feminist pragmatism as a way forward given the realities on the ground.

scholarly journals National Identity and New Zealand’s Actions on the United Nations Security Council: 1993-94 and 2015-16

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Breach
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
The United Nations

<p>To win its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in both 1993-94 and 2015-16, New Zealand campaigned using the same prime pillar; its ability to act independently on the world’s prime authority for maintenance of international peace and security. With the substantial change in New Zealand’s international relationships between the two UNSC tenures, most particularly with the United States of America and China, many commentators have questioned whether New Zealand still acts independently in international affairs. Employing analytic eclecticism, this thesis applied a combined analytical framework to assess the drive behind New Zealand’s actions during both its 1993-94 and 2015-16 UNSC tenures, allowing both traditional international relations theories of neo-realism and neo-liberalism and the constructivist lens of national identity to be combined for greater explanatory power for the state’s actions in the contemporary era of complex international interdependencies. This research determined that most of New Zealand’s actions aligned with pursuit of its interests, as a small state, as ensured through multilateralism under the lens of institutional neo-liberalism. However, a number of actions taken, and strong positions held, by New Zealand on the UNSC in both periods did not align with the state’s pursuit of material interests under traditional international relations theories. By first establishing the popularly internalised national identity characteristics (or content) during each UNSC tenure period, defined as residing in public opinion, this thesis argues that a ‘win-set’ of national identity content relative prioritisation during each period enabled, and arguably drove, New Zealand’s political elite to take actions or hold positions not aligned with those of powerful states on which the small country’s material interests depended. It is argued that New Zealand’s actions on the UNSC in 2015-16 reinforced the social construction of New Zealand’s internationally regarded national identity content as an independent advocate for the global good, which was strongly established during its 1993-94 tenure.</p>

scholarly journals The United Nations Security Council at the Forefront of (Climate) Change? Confusion, Stalemate, Ignorance

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Nora Hardt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Member States ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Come

In the context of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the debate on whether climate change should be included and how has been ongoing since 2007. This article contributes to existing research on this problem by expounding a three-fold analysis. First, it assesses the conceptual approach to the climate-security nexus from the joint statement of 10 UNSC member states in 2020. Second, it critically exposes the confusion of different climate-security conceptions and uncovers shared assumptions of the UNSC-member states in 2020 by comparing their different positions, which makes a soon-to-come agreement likely. Third, it critically evaluates whether the proposal to include climate change into the UNSC will lead to a transformative change of the institution, of the meaning of security, and on how this would correspond to the existential threats outlined in the Anthropocene context. The theoretical framework of analysis draws on critical security studies. It takes as its empirical basis the primary sources of the UNSC debate of 2020 and is also informed by the secondary literature on climate and security and the Earth System Sciences descriptions of the state of the planet.

scholarly journals Climatizing the UN Security Council

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucile Maertens
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Security ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Climate Crisis

AbstractSince 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has debated the security implications of climate change on several occasions. This article addresses these debates by exploring two interrelated questions: What drives the continuous efforts to place climate change on the UNSC’s agenda and to what extent do the UNSC’s debates illustrate an ongoing process of climatization? To answer these, the article draws on the concept of climatization, which captures the process through which domains of international politics are framed through a climate lens and transformed as a result of this translation. It suggests that climate change has become a dominant framing and an inescapable topic of international relations and that the UNSC debates follow a logic of expansion of climate politics by securing a steady climate agenda, attributing responsibility to the Council in the climate crisis, involving climate actors and advocating for climate-oriented policies to maintain international security.

scholarly journals Failure of Securitizing the Climate Change Issue at the United Nations Security Council (2007-2019)

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
Murni Kemala Dewi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Security Issue ◽  
Climate Change Issue ◽  
Securitization Theory ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract         This paper describes the dynamics of debates on the securitization of climate change issue at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which took place from 2007 to 2019. Although there have been four open debates on this issue at the UNSC, until 2019, the process of the securitization of climate change issue has failed. Prior studies discussing the same concern has only explained some of the reasons proposed in the debates, such as relating to the mandate of the UNSC, the division of work in the UN units, and whether the issue of climate change could be considered as a security issue. By applying the Externalist School of Securitization theory, this paper analyzes the relationship between sociolinguistics and socio-politics in the dynamics of the debates on the securitization of climate change issue at the UNSC and the roles of the permanent members in the debates. The main argument in this research is spotted on the existing rejection against the framing of climate change as a security issue by several UNSC permanent members, hence no mitigation policy can be mutually agreed upon. This has resulted in a failure in the process of securitizing the climate change issue at the UNSC (2007-2019). Keywords:The Security Council, Climate Change, Securitization

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