Weiss What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix it

2. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7456-6146-9
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten, E-Book

Reihe: What's Wrong?

Six decades after its establishment, the United Nations and itssystem of related agencies and programs are perpetually in crisis.While the twentieth-century's world wars gave rise toground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and1945, today's UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporarychallenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor theaftermath of 9/11 has led to the "next generation" ofmultilateral institutions.
But what exactly is wrong with the UN, and how can we fix it? Is itpossible to retrofit the world body? In his succinct andhard-hitting analysis, Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cureapproach to the world organization's inherent difficulties.In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems ofinternational leadership and decision making in a world ofself-interested states; the diplomatic difficulties caused by theartificial divisions between the industrialized North and theglobal South; the structural problems of managing the UN'smany overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and thechallenges of bureaucracy and leadership. The second half shows howto mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in whichthe UN's institutional ills might be "cured." Hisremedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN,but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could bereplicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to receivedwisdom, Weiss contends that substantial change in intergovernmentalinstitutions is plausible and possible.
The new and expanded second edition of this well-regarded andindispensable book will continue to spark debate amongst students,scholars, and policymakers concerned with international politics,as well as anyone genuinely interested in the future of the UnitedNations and multilateral cooperation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weiss, Thomas G.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Urquhart, Brian

Inhaltsverzeichnis

About the Author viii
Foreword by Sir Brian Urquhart x
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Figures and Tables xvi
List of Abbreviations xviii
Introduction 1
Part One: Diagnosing the Ills
1 Westphalia, Alive But Not Well 19
2 North-South Theater 50
3 The Feudal System, or Dysfunctional Family 73
4 Overwhelming Bureaucracy and Underwhelming Leadership 111
Part Two: Palliatives if Not Cures
5 Redefining National Interests 133
6 Moving Beyond the North-South Divide 160
7 Truly Delivering as One 180
8 Reinvigorating the International Civil Service 198
Conclusion: What's Next? 223
Selected Readings 242
Notes 246
Index 279

Über Autor(innen)

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor at the City Universityof New York's Graduate Center and Director of the RalphBunche Institute for International Studies.