Monday, August 1, 2011

Do we need the UN? Review of Weiss' "What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix it"


Weiss, Thomas (2008). What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix it . Malden, MA: Policy Press.  (Paperback).   ISBN-10: 0745642985.  ISBN-13: 978-0745642987


Weiss starts his book with a well founded critical view of the UN. He leads his readers to a set of positive course-corrections. However much his solutions make sense, they will require substantial effort and, perhaps, even more good luck (timing of changes, dynamic change-leader figures like Kofi Annan, shifting power centers, climate change crisis, and so on).

He begins his work by identifying the single most aggravating problem in the UN that of entrenched concepts of sovereignty among the member states. This Westphalian imprint condition may be the root cause of all the ills of the UN (Weiss likens it to an ill patient in some passages) as it seems a likely cause to the UN’s tendency to bureaucratic stasis. Whether or not Weiss’ characteristics of Westphailian sovereignty are the actual root cause to the UN’s global governance problems should require further study and consideration. For it is also possible that an organization as complex as the UN may not, by its nature, be functional in the conventional sense of what we (Americans) think organizations should be and how they should function. That is, the entrenched sovereignty problem may actually be more of a coloration or facet of something far deeper and less easy to define existing in the nature of human beings and their social functions.

Weiss’ analysis begins by identifying three UN’s: The first is a World Issues Theatre upon which state actors play out their vital roles for their constituents and the world’s stage (Castro, Kruschev, Gore, GW Bush, etc). Second, are the Secretariats, the work-a-day representatives of their nations, who could perhaps be characterized as the team players in perpetual, winner-take-all sovereignty scrums. And third are the NGOs, the nongovernmental orgs of committed citizens, idea mongers, and others.

Next, Weiss rightly identifies how the US has historically been a kind of competing global governance institution to the UN. As a result, much of the UN’s recent history (post cold war) has been one of how to curb the ambitions of its most powerful member and primary competitor. The UN’s governance structure, though, institutionalizes this problem; UN military action can only really take place with US approval (while US actions can always take place without UN approval).

Another important impediment to change is the Security Council. As a de facto board of governors, the council rarely makes consistent or swift decisions (Libya aside). Its membership is static, jealously guarded, and so resistant to change that doing away with it altogether may be the best remedy. At any rate, the need to change the make-up of its membership and processes is vital for the UN’s future. As Weiss shows, however, the debate surrounding this extremely important issue verges on farcical impasse.

Does the world need the United Nations, or any overarching global governance institution? One answer could be ‘If not the UN, then what?’ Given the web of environmental and economic interdependencies of our global lives, coordinated, intergovernmental-regional governance schemes naturally emerge due to one necessity or another. But whether the world needs a single, giant, monolith like the UN is something that the organization itself should be seriously debating –for its sake and ours.

For all the things wrong with the UN, Weiss does explain how it has been effective in some ways that maybe it had not intended or planned. For instance, the UN has been effective in small, out of the ordinary instances. For example, the Ottawa land mines treaties, World Health initiatives, global pandemic warning systems, The ICC, and some effectiveness in keeping human rights upfront as a global issue (or at least good theatre). The UN provides a vital institutional space for a North-South dialog (where else or how else could this happen to the extent it does in the UN is difficult to imagine). And even the outcomes of the development agenda goals, though largely ambiguous, have alleviated a certain amount of human suffering (and for that we should be grateful).

The changes in the structure and responsibilities of the UN that should be considered ought to require even further study. Fundamental to Weiss’ framing and description of improvements is that there is too much autonomy given to state actors. That is, he seems to be saying that UN membership should be a privilege with a set of responsibilities and expectations on state behavior. For this, Weiss proposes recasting state sovereignty in terms of “R2P” (the “responsibility to protect”). That is, states must behave with peaceful, responsible intent with other states and toward its own people. It is difficult to imagine states ceding the right to treat their own citizens in one way or another, let alone how they treat other states. But Weiss’ R2P may be unrealistic as it is based on the hope that such change can be driven by a romantic ideal of enlightened self interest.

The solution to balancing the military power of the US, for Weiss, is to simply have an equal military power player emerge, ideally in the guise of the EU. The fact that Weiss did not entertain that China is a more realistic candidate suggests, perhaps, a bit of a neo-Liberal stance exists in this suggestion. The EU would be more comfortable choice of course for an American. But if what better world governance needs is a military player to balance that of the US, then what we may have to live with is what evolves rather than what we wish, or are comfortable with.

After reading Weiss, it is still unclear whether the UN is a beast, a wall, a snake, or a spear. It could be characterized as a sick patient but then the next question is what constitutes a healthy version of this patient, or whether it has ever not been a sick patient is not to be found in this Weiss’ present book. It is likely that the UN is all those things and even more. More importantly to any discussion of change, is the likelihood that in the science of organizational studies there is probably no other organization in modern times quite like the UN. Its characteristics, complexities, contradictions, and innumerable systems of systems, may in fact defy the current range of understanding and explanatory power we have on how organizations work and, from there, how they can be improved. Thus, if we really do not fully understand, or have adequately models to describe the organized chaos of the modern UN, prescribing fixes will be unfortunately based on inappropriately applied organizational models. Treating such a ‘sick patient’ that way may bring on more harm than good (and there may be evidence for such incidents if we were to look for them).

In the end, Weiss’ text is positive and provocative as it should challenge readers’ assumptions of this strange, exotic organization. The world needs a coordinated, global governance organization but perhaps the UN has taken on more than it is capable. And this may be one of its major faults that it could immediately (meaning in 8 to 10 years) address. Perhaps the UN should look at what is working well and put resources into improving on and building up those institutions. In the meantime, those institutions which are proving less and less effective, such as the Security Council and military interventions, should be slowly disbanded. Clearly, desired outcomes from interventions (development or emergency relief) and certain initiatives (human rights or climate change) may have to come in smaller optimizations rather than the grand schemes of world government.