Civil Conflict and Agenda-Setting Speed in the UNSC

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can respond to a civil conflict only if that conflict first enters the Council’s agenda. Some conflicts reach the Council’s agenda within days after they start, others after years (or even decades), and some never make it. So far, only a few studies have looked at the crucial UNSC agenda-setting stage, and none have examined agenda-setting speed, MARTIN BINDER and JONATHAN GOLUB state.
“To fill this important gap, we develop and test a novel theoretical framework that combines insights from realist and constructivist theory with lessons from institutionalist theory and bargaining theory,” the authors state in a research article titled ‘Civil Conflict and Agenda-Setting Speed in the United Nations Security Council’ published in International Studies Quarterly.
Applying survival analysis to an original dataset, the authors show that the parochial interests of the permanent members (P-5) matter, but they do not determine the Council’s agenda-setting speed. Rather, P-5 interests are constrained by normative considerations and concerns for the Council’s organizational mission arising from the severity of a conflict (in terms of spillover effects and civilian casualties); by the interests of the widely ignored elected members (E-10); and by the degree of preference heterogeneity among both the P-5 and the E-10.
“Our findings also have important implications for the Council’s legitimacy, in terms of both performance legitimacy and procedural legitimacy,” BINDER and GOLUB state. “[I]n our conceptualization the UN is more legitimate if devastating conflicts reach the agenda faster.”
For the UNSC’s performance legitimacy, it makes a big difference whether a crisis reaches the Council’s agenda rapidly and is discussed in public, or whether a crisis goes on for a long time without any exposure at a UNSC meeting and no chance of further action. “Our findings are consistent with a legitimate Council that takes its mandate seriously, addressing more promptly conflicts that produce substantial human suffering and massive negative externalities for neighboring countries.”
But the findings also help to assess an important element of the Council’s procedural legitimacy by demonstrating how issues reach the agenda, the authors contend. Do parochial interests of the powerful permanent members skew agenda-setting speed? “We show that narrow P-5 interests definitely affect the speed of agenda setting in important ways, but also that the Council does not appear to be an entirely illegitimate P-5 dominated elite club in which the elected members trade away their influence in exchange for bribes. Instead, the P-5 need to reach out to the E-10, rendering the agenda-setting process more inclusive of a larger set of interests.”
Future research should investigate whether there is a systematic link between the speed with which conflicts reach the UNSC’s agenda and the effect this has on the UN’s success in terms of conflict resolution, peacekeeping, or sanctions, BINDER and GOLUB state. “Pursuing these avenues would contribute to better understanding of how international organizations work, their effectiveness, and their legitimacy.”