Myths of membership: The politics of legitimation in UN Security Council reform

Global Governance

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 199-217

  Hurd, Ian ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Diversity; Inequality; Legitimacy; Security council reform; United nations

Indexed keywords

EID: 46649100255     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01402006     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Warren Hoge,"U.N. Tackles Issue of Imbalance of Power," New York Times, 28 November 2004.
2. Statement of the Italian mission to the UN, 31 October 2001, archived at http://globalpolicy.igc.org//security/reform/cluster1/2001/1031italy.htm.
3. Marc Lynch, State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan's Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);
4. Jennifer Mitzen, "Reading Habermas in Anarchy: Multilateral Diplomacy and Public Spheres," American Political Science Review 99, no. 3 (August 2005).
5. Excellent analyses of the diplomatic history of the 1990s reform process are available in Mark W. Zacher, "The Conundrums of International Power Sharing: The Politics of Security Council Reform," in Richard M. Price and Mark W. Zacher, The United Nations and Global Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004);
6. Bardo Fassbender, UN Security Council Reform and the Right of Veto: A Constitutional Perspective (The Hague: Kluwer, 1998);
7. Edward C. Luck, "Reforming the United Nations: Lessons from a History in Progress," AUNCS Occasional Paper No. 1, 2003.
8. Philip H. Gordon, "Scenarios for Reforming the United Nations," Le Monde, 9 August 2005.
9. Mark Turner, Financial Times, 28 November 2004.
10. Edward C. Luck, "Rediscovering the Security Council: The High-Level Panel and Beyond," in Ernesto Zedillo, ed., Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security (New Haven: Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, 2005), p. 126. Luck criticizes this "common wisdom."
11. Weiss's very useful response to the conventional wisdom suggests that the Iraq 2003 crisis changed the terrain for Council reform debates, centering them on the fact of, and reactions to, US preponderance. His view of Council legitimacy closely follows the "normative" branch in sociology, which sees institutional legitimation coming from a consensus on the moral acceptability of the organization's objectives. For instance, he suggests that a General Assembly resolution under Uniting for Peace "would certainly be regarded as legitimate" if it had broad support and a morally justified humanitarian objective. Thomas G. Weiss, "The Illusion of UN Security Council Reform," Washington Quarterly 26, no. 4 (Autumn 2003): 155.
12. A normative theory of legitimation in world politics is fully spelled out in Allan Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
13. United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility-Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A/59/565 (New York: United Nations, 2004), p. 57.
14. Ibid., p. 66.
15. Ibid., p. 14.
16. Kofi Annan, "In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for AU," A/59/2005 (New York: United Nations, 2005).
17. United Nations, Report of the GA Working Group on the Security Council for 1995, A/AC.247/1 (New York: United Nations, 1995), www.globalpolicy. org/security/reform/secwg2.htm.
18. See Michael Barnett, "Bringing in the New World Order: Liberalism, Legitimacy, and the United Nations," World Politics 49, no. 4 (July 1997): 526-551.
19. Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the UN Security Council (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007);
20. Ian Hurd, "Legitimacy, Power, and the Symbolic Life of the UN Security Council," Global Governance 8, no. 1 (2002): 35-51.
21. This definition accords with Ian Hurd, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics," International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 379-408.
22. See also Ian Hurd, "Theories and Tests of International Authority," in Bruce Cronin and Ian Hurd, eds., The UN Security Council and the Politics of International Authority (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2008).
23. For competing definitions, see Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003);
24. and Erik Voeten, "The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force," International Organization 59, no. 3 (2005): 527-557.
25. This theory has not yet been linked to Council expansion, but the theory itself exists in Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005);
26. and Hurd, After Anarchy.
27. James M. Olson and Carolyn L. Hafer, "Tolerance of Personal Deprivation," in John T. Jost and Brenda Major, eds., The Psychology of Legitimacy: Emerging Perspectives on Ideology, Justice, and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 157.
28. Tom Tyler, "A Psychological Perspective on the Legitimacy of Institutions and Authorities," in Jost and Major, The Psychology of Legitimacy.
29. Hurd, "Legitimacy and Authority."
30. This is true of material resources, since the Council must rely on ad hoc contributions from states, but if we consider legal authority or the power to legitimate as resources, then we could see some independent power in the Council.
31. Ian Clark, Legitimacy in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 26-28.
32. That "results produce legitimacy" is a third class of claims. This is conceptually separate (see Morris Zelditch Jr., "Theories of Legitimacy," in Jost and Major, Psychology of Legitimacy), but in relation to the Council, it is derivative of the other two. Not all results produce legitimacy, only those that accord with prior values to which the audience is attached. The prior values (of deliberation, representation, or perhaps substantive values like order) must be legitimated first.
33. US Department of State, 20 June 2005, www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2005/48332. htm (accessed 14 September 2005).
34. On nonpermanent members, see Article 23(1).
35. Also see Ramesh Thakur, ed., What Is Equitable Geographic Distribution in the 21st Century? (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1999).
36. See, for instance, the Canadian position: "The membership of the Security Council should more clearly represent the international community of the 21st century," statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canada, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/cippic/IPS/IPS-Diplomacy7-en.asp (accessed 13 September 2005). The term represent is not used here to refer to accountability, as in a principal-agent relationship. In other words, nonpermanent members are not formally accountable as the delegates of a regional constituency in the General Assembly. It may be desirable in Council reform to enhance a broader notion of representation, either formally or informally, but that issue is not addressed here.
37. For consideration, see Edward C. Luck, "Reforming the Security Council, Step One: Improving Working Methods," Working Paper, Center on International Organization, Columbia University, 25 April 2005.
38. United Nations, Report of the GA Working Group on the Security Council for 1997, A/51/47 (New York: United Nations, 1997), www.globalpolicy.org/ security/ reform/wk97-3.htm.
39. See also Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal, "Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no. 1 (1998): 3-32.
40. Ambassador Pleuger to General Assembly, 14 October 2003, archived at www.germany-un.org/archive/speeches/2003/sp_10_14_03.html.
41. See also Justin Morris, "UN Security Council Reform: A Counsel for the 21st Century," Security Dialogue 31, no. 3 (2000) : 271.
42. Bruce Russett, "Ten Balances for Weighing UN Reform Proposals," in Bruce Russett, ed., The Once and Future Security Council (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997): 20.
43. See Gordon, "Scenarios for Reforming the United Nations."
44. Barbara Crossette, "At the U.N., a Drive for Diversity," New York Times, 24 October 1994.
45. A/AC.247/5 (e).
46. Statement of Vanu Gopala Menon, permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, to the UN General Assembly, 12 October 2004.
47. Article 9 of the Statute of the ICJ. See Terry D. Gill, Rosenne's The World Court: What It Is and How It Works, 6th rev. ed. (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2003), pp. 44-49.
48. See the report of Japanese hints in "Japan Seeks Revision of 'Very Unfair' UN Dues," Financial Times, 18 October 2005.
49. OEWG 1995, A/AC.247/4 (a). I take "participation" here to be equivalent to "deliberation."
50. A/AC.247/5 (i).
51. Statement of Vanu Gopala Menon.
52. This, of course, is holding constant any feedback loop through changes in effectiveness back onto legitimacy.
53. The label comes from the OEWG, A/AC.247/1.1 agree with Luck that it is productive to keep separate working methods and membership questions (Luck, "Step One").
54. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement: Why Moral Conflict Cannot Be Avoided in Politics, and What Should Be Done About It (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 41.
55. James D. Fearon, "Deliberation as Discussion," in Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 57.
56. Tyler, "A Psychological Perspective," pp. 419-420.
57. Diego Gambetto, "'Claro!' An Essay on Discursive Machismo," in Elster, Deliberative Democracy, p. 22.
58. Fearon, "Deliberation as Discussion," p. 50.
59. John Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 1.
60. Fearon, "Deliberation as Discussion," p. 57.
61. US Department of State, remarks of Secretary Rice, 14 April 2005.
62. Syndey D. Bailey and Sam Daws, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 623, footnote 128.
63. Susan C. Hulton, "Council Working Methods and Procedure," in David M. Malone, ed., The UN Security Council: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Luck, "Step One."
64. Prantl sees "informal groups" as "narrowing the participatory gap." Jochen Prantl, "Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council," International Organization 59, no. 3 (2005): 561. The increase in participation is not necessarily in conflict with the conclusion that informal processes increase the power of the permanent members, since power and participation address separate issues.
65. Ian Hurd, "Security Council Reform: Information Membership and Practice," in Russett, The Once and Future Security Council.
66. Prantl, "Informal Groups of States"; Hurd, "Security Council Reform."
67. Each of these may also be complementary to legitimation, though through different mechanisms than I treat here.
68. See the US statement at www.un.int/usa/99_006.htm. On the broader tradeoffs
69. see Russett, "Ten Balances for Weighing UN Reform Proposals."
70. Hurd, "Security Council Reform."
71. Thomas Risse, '"Let's Argue!' Communicative Action in World Politics," International Organization 54, no. 1 (2000): 1-40;
72. Ian Hurd, "The Strategic Use of Liberal Internationalism: Libya and the UN Sanctions, 1992-2003," International Organization 59, no. 3 (2005): 495-526;
73. Frank Schimmelfennig, The EU, NATO, and the Integration of Europe: Rules and Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
74. Bardo Fassbender, "Pressure for Security Council Reform," in Malone, The UN Security Council, p. 341.
75. We should be careful not to mistake the weakness of reform arguments with a defense of the status quo.