Humanitarian crises and peace operations: a personal view of UN reforms during Kofi Annan's first term

Editorial Note: The editors, starting with this issue, will occasionally publish personal reflections of prominent practitioners in the Conflict, Security and Development field. These will appear in lieu of the Resources section of the journal. This first reflection is written by Martin Barber, who served as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Afghanistan in 1995–96, as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996–98 and as Chief of the Policy and Advocacy Branch of the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs from 1998 to 2000. He was Director of the UN Mine Action Service from 2000 until his retirement in 2005. Martin is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Edinburgh.     

Financing the United Nations: Explaining variation in how donors provide funding to the UN

When donors contemplate providing financial support to United Nations institutions they encounter a menu of funding options. Some UN institutions require mandatory dues, but most rely substantially on voluntary contributions, which donors can choose to earmark for specific purposes. How donors provide resources has widespread effects on the authority of UN governing bodies, donor control over UN programs, and the efficiency of UN operations. What explains how donors choose to fund UN programs and agencies? We advance a theory that emphasizes member state preferences over the affordability and policy substance of IO activity. Using data from two novel experiments and a case study of U.S. funding practices toward the United Nations (1945–1980s), we provide mixed-method evidence showing that a state is more likely to provide voluntary contributions when its preferences over the affordability and policy of IO activity differ from those of the governing coalition and more likely to provide mandatory contributions when its preferences are consistent with those of the governing coalition. Further, we demonstrate that preferences over policy substance are particularly important in explaining recent trends in donor earmarking.     

UN contributions to development thinking and practice

This brief article highlights some major contributions made by the United Nations to development thinking and practice from 1945 to 2000. The term ‘development’ is used here broadly to refer not only to increases in economic growth and per capita income and to structural change, but also to progress in promoting human rights, poverty reduction, employment generation, fairer distribution of the benefits of growth, participation in decision making at different levels, equality of men and women, child development and well-being, and social justice and environmental sustainability. There is first a discussion of the values that have underpinned UN work on development. This is followed by a summary of some key contributions made by the UN system to thinking on development issues. The article concludes with some observations on the ways in which these contributions were made and on strengths and weaknesses of the system in generating development ideas and action.     

Demanding Their Rights? Collective Identity and the Tactics of Older Persons’ Organisations at the UN

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship in International Relations focuses on the tactics of international non-government organisations and transnational advocacy networks, with scholars mostly explaining the diverse and dynamic tactics of organisations working on similar issues. Based on multiple qualitative data sources, this article explores why the members of a transnational advocacy network, comprising organisations of, and representing, older persons, that are calling for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons adopt tactics that are static, uniform and surprisingly softly-softly, despite their modest gains since the issue was put on the UN’s agenda nine years ago. The article demonstrates many of the existing explanations for tactical choices, but it extends what we know by importing the concept of collective identity from social movement studies. It argues that the older persons’ network has a weak collective identity that is conservative in nature, which influences the tactics deployed at the UN.     

Spiritualism and modernism in the work of Kawabata Yasunari

Abstract

Kawabata Yasunari held a deep interest in the study of spiritualism from his very youth. He demonstrates his knowledge of the field in his writing in a variety of ways, particularly in the short stories he published during the prewar period. Thus far, scholarship has considered Kawabata's relationship with spiritualism primarily in terms of his biography: there has yet to be a satisfactorily rigorous study taking into account historical context and his use of spiritualism as novelistic technique. This article analyzes Kawabata and spiritualism with respect to modernism by looking at the short stories ‘The Full White Moon’, ‘Requiem’, and ‘Lyric Poem’. This analysis will also help illuminate the diversity of Kawabata's approaches to modernism.     

Beyond the 'grim resisters': Towards more effective gender mainstreaming through stakeholder participation

Gender experts who formulate planning frameworks and strategies for mainstreaming gender issues in organisational policies and programmes usually characterise non-expert policy makers and planners as either active resisters or passive implementers rather than as capable change agents. Because of this, more resistance to gender mainstreaming is encountered than is necessary, and mainstreaming programmes often fail to take into account the needs and contributions of planners as stakeholders. The paper discusses these shortcomings and presents cases from the UN system in which the author was involved, where organisational change and mainstreaming were based on stakeholder participation that began to overcome some commonly identified limitations.     

拉什迪：印裔移民作家的后殖民诗学观解读——“殖民与后殖民文学中的印度书写”研究系列之四

印裔移民作家拉什迪是当代英语文坛最重要也最具争议性的作家.他的诗学论述因为跨文化的后殖民语境格外引人注目.拉什迪诗学观涉及到历史书写、民族叙事、文化身份、英联邦文学、英语解殖等诸多重要问题,体现了后殖民理论的许多重要侧面.     

How the United Nations Beat Hitler and Prepared the Peace

The United Nations was born in 1942, defeated the Axis Powers led by Germany, Italy and Japan and created today's UN system. This reality has been lost in modern scholarship. We are taught that the Allied countries, mainly America and Britain, with the Soviet Union won the war and that the United Nations was created in 1945. In this way, the achievement of victory can be set in opposition to the United Nations and to multilateralism in general. But it should not be possible to separate victory in the war from the modern United Nations and its priorities, for these were the priorities set by the United Nations at war. America, Britain and the Soviet Union led a large coalition of states organised as the United Nations and this term was used routinely in military orders, in the instruments of surrender signed by the enemy and in political and social life. Bretton Woods and San Francisco were United Nations conferences, and interim United Nations organisations preceded the Charter. Understanding the wartime United Nations reframes our understanding of the second half of the last century and of our own. From UNESCO to the World Bank the primary purpose of the international system is conflict prevention and its wartime architects bequeathed us this system as a realist necessity vital in times of trial, not as a liberal accessory to be discarded when the going gets rough.     

郑和下西洋与中国东南亚的友好交往

明初中国政府为了发展与东南亚国家的友好关系,奉行了一系列和平外交政策,包括派遣郑和七下西洋,遍历东南亚各国。郑和作为一位和平外交使者;在下西洋期间,不仅为满剌加立国,制止了强国对弱国的欺凌,而且在旧港剿灭海寇,保证了航道的畅通,同时在苏门答腊为国王平定了叛乱,维持了当地的和平秩序。郑和及其随从的和平外交活动在东南亚民众中影响很大,至今仍到处流传着有关他们的传说。这些事实说明,郑和作为一位和平使者,的确为发展中国与东南亚的友好交往立下了功勋。     

Woodrow Wilson and The Birth of a Nation: American Democracy and International Relations

President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into World War One, promising to make the world safe for democracy. Advocating liberal internationalism, he called for collective security and national self-determination. He wanted democratic states to create the League of Nations as a partnership for peace in a new world order. But in his thinking and statecraft, the text of modern liberalism was intertwined with the subtext of White racism. His friendship with Thomas Dixon, Jr., and his contributions to David W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation revealed this nexus between liberalism and racism. His liberal civic ideals appeared quite different from the ultra racism of the film, which was based on Dixon's novels. He seemed to advocate inclusive nationalism, in contrast to its exclusive Americanism. The president's apparently universal principles, however, were still influenced by the White South's Lost Cause. His diplomacy and his legacy of Wilsonianism combined racism with liberalism. He adhered to the color line at home by promoting Jim Crow segregation in the federal government and abroad by limiting his liberal internationalism in practice. Historians and political scientists have typically identified Wilsonian diplomacy only with liberalism. To see him and his legacy in international history from a different perspective, which brings into focus the experience of people of color, it is necessary to recognize the subtext of racism in the text of Wilson's liberalism. Racism shaped his understanding of America's national identity and global mission, and thus his vision of liberal democracy and peace.     

Caught in the Middle: The United Nations Emergency Force,Israel, and the 1960 “Rotem Crisis”

The refusal of the UN forces in Lebanon to accede to Israel's request to provide information on events they were witness to (the October 2000 abduction of three Israeli soldiers on the border), and the subsequent crisis between the two, are not unprecedented. A much more severe crisis broke out in 1960 after nearly the entire Egyptian army surprisingly deployed a few kilometres behind the UN Emergency Force's (UNEF) posts along the border with Israel in Sinai. Israel hurried to request UNEF to provide information—considered crucial to its survival—on this deployment, but was refused.

The author reviews this unknown incident and tracks on the diplomatic efforts made by the then UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld alongside about UNEF's role and functions in this affair. He examines the UN's refusal and concludes that while the Egyptians did partially violate some informal understandings with the UNSG, it was indeed justified.     

United Nations Peacekeeping Decisions: Three Hierarchies,Upward Mobility and Institutionalised Inequality among Member States

ABSTRACT

This article explores the multiple and evolving hierarchies shaping UN decisions on peacekeeping operations. Three hierarchies—based on Security Council membership, financial assessments, and troop contributions—currently distribute influence over these decisions among UN member states. These hierarchies differ in their relationship to global stratification patterns, and in the states they empower. Their gradual “layering” has thus expanded the potential for upward mobility within the UN: states unable to increase their influence in one hierarchy can seek empowerment in another. Yet the UN peacekeeping case also highlights the limitations of hierarchy layering as an equalising mechanism in international organisations. New hierarchies supplement rather than replace older ones, and the degree to which they challenge existing rankings varies. Moreover, each new hierarchy inherently highlights, and creates institutional consequences for, a particular type of inequality among states. Consequently, hierarchy layering is best understood as recalibrating rather than eliminating institutionalised inequality in international organisations.     

Woodrow Wilson and The Birth of a Nation: American Democracy and International Relations

President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into World War One, promising to make the world safe for democracy. Advocating liberal internationalism, he called for collective security and national self-determination. He wanted democratic states to create the League of Nations as a partnership for peace in a new world order. But in his thinking and statecraft, the text of modern liberalism was intertwined with the subtext of White racism. His friendship with Thomas Dixon, Jr., and his contributions to David W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation revealed this nexus between liberalism and racism. His liberal civic ideals appeared quite different from the ultra racism of the film, which was based on Dixon's novels. He seemed to advocate inclusive nationalism, in contrast to its exclusive Americanism. The president's apparently universal principles, however, were still influenced by the White South's Lost Cause. His diplomacy and his legacy of Wilsonianism combined racism with liberalism. He adhered to the color line at home by promoting Jim Crow segregation in the federal government and abroad by limiting his liberal internationalism in practice. Historians and political scientists have typically identified Wilsonian diplomacy only with liberalism. To see him and his legacy in international history from a different perspective, which brings into focus the experience of people of color, it is necessary to recognize the subtext of racism in the text of Wilson's liberalism. Racism shaped his understanding of America's national identity and global mission, and thus his vision of liberal democracy and peace.     

Comments on UN Reform

OnOctober9-132004,UnitedNationsSecretary-GeneralKofiAnnanpaidanofficialvisittoChina.Duringhisstay,hehaddiscussionswithChineseleadersonUNreformandchangesintheinterna-tionalsituationandetc.Inrecent59thUNGeneralAssemblySession,UNreformwasalsooneofthehottopics.ThenecessityofUNreform.UNisnowfacingarigorousrealityofinternationalpolitics.Althoughpeaceanddevelopmentstillremainthemainthemesofourtime,theworldisfarfromtranquility.Thegeneralinternationalsituationhaskeptitsba-sicfeaturesasoverall…     

UN sanctions burden sharing: Article 50 of the UN charter and assistance to third states

This article proposes the establishment by the UN Security Council of a system of mutual support for third states whose economies have been adversely affected as a result of UN non-military sanctions. This system consists of several components: (1) creating new markets for the sale of goods and services of third states; (2) crafting of a logical UN sanctions costs methodology; (3) bringing into UN Security Council for a those bilateral and regional efforts involving cases of UN sanctions compensation; (4) devising norms and procedures for acquiring and pooling of the requisite funds out of which states' claims for damages attributable to UN sanctions might be satisfied; and (5) establishing a mechanism for the adjudication of such claims. While many obstacles admittedly exist to creating such a system of mutual support, the article argues that effective UN sanctions burden sharing is nevertheless important to international relations theory and practice, since UN sanctions appear to be increasing in frequency as they undergird many of the Security Council's contemporary enforcement actions.     

UN sanctions burden sharing: Article 50 of the UN charter and assistance to third states

abstract

This article proposes the establishment by the UN Security Council of a system of mutual support for third states whose economies have been adversely affected as a result of UN non‐military sanctions. This system consists of several components: (1) creating new markets for the sale of goods and services of third states; (2) crafting of a logical UN sanctions costs methodology; (3) bringing into UN Security Council for a those bilateral and regional efforts involving cases of UN sanctions compensation; (4) devising norms and procedures for acquiring and pooling of the requisite funds out of which states’ claims for damages attributable to UN sanctions might be satisfied; and (5) establishing a mechanism for the adjudication of such claims. While many obstacles admittedly exist to creating such a system of mutual support, the article argues that effective UN sanctions burden sharing is nevertheless important to international relations theory and practice, since UN sanctions appear to be increasing in frequency as they undergird many of the Security Council's contemporary enforcement actions.     

Wilsonian Pragmatism? Woodrow Wilson, Japanese Immigration, and the Paris Peace Conference

“He [Wilson] was more than just an idealist: he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.”

Herbert Hoover ¹

The issue of the Japanese plea for race equality at the Paris Peace Conference is generally seen as a secondary issue for American delegates. Most accounts see Wilson as being bullied into rejecting the proposal by the Dominion delegates — most notably Australia's Billy Hughes. Analyzing his views on race and its intricate connection with immigration and examining his own and his advisers response to political allies and opponents at home and in Paris over these issues, this piece will argue that Wilson responded as much to domestic pressures as external forces in his eventual compromise with the Japanese in Paris.     

Squaring the circle? Collective and distributive effects of United Nations Security Council reform

Changing the composition and voting system of the Security Council, in an effort to increase the institution’s global legitimacy, is proving to be one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome for the global community of states represented in the United Nations (UN). This paper demonstrates that due to institutional hurdles, it is considerably more difficult today than it was in the early years of the UN to reach a winning coalition in the General Assembly to secure Security Council reform. In addition, the paper analyzes the effects that adapted patterns of voting, as prescribed by recent reform proposals, would have on the distribution of power among UN member states in the Security Council and on the probability that this institution can form a winning coalition, i.e., reach decisions. Our power and decision capacity computations are based on (modified) Penrose-Banzhaf-Coleman measures.     

Confronting catastrophe: norms,efficiency and the evolution of the AIDS battle in the UN

Social environments played a powerful role in the institutional adaptations of the AIDS fighting agencies within the United Nations system. Since its AIDS apparatus has become operational, the UN has undertaken two major strategic shifts. The first shift saw the dissolution of the GPA, a small subunit of the WHO in favour of UNAIDS, a dedicated agency engaged in global advocacy. This shift involved a controversial bureaucratic process that led, finally, to a more human rights-based approach to the disease. The second shift saw an increased emphasis on ground-level efficiency. What caused these changes? Contributions in the rationalist tradition expect the UN to act as a multilateral goal-seeker looking to optimally address a major gap in global governance. A sociological framework sees normative changes within the UN as catalysts for change in its goals and structure. A synthesis of these traditions conceptualizes the UN's strategic shifts more clearly, capturing the interactive process between the organization and its strategic environment. UN agencies were forced to rationally adapt to changing conditions in prevailing AIDS norms.     

尼赫鲁眼中的中国文化——“20世纪印度名家与中国文化”研究系列之一

尼赫鲁曾经在他的代表作<印度的发现>中对中国文化作过多方面的专门论述,他对中国文化有一种亲切之感.他还探讨了中印文化交流的问题.尼赫鲁晚年对中国文化的疏远来自于印度现实政治发展与国际政治局势的制约.本文对此进行了初步探讨.