Staff Recruitment and Geographical Representation in International Organizations

What explains geographical representation in the professional staff of intergovernmental organizations (IOs)? 
Writing in the International Review of Administrative Sciences, STEFFEN ECKHARD and YVES STEINEBACH address this question from an organizational perspective by considering IO recruitment processes. In the United Nations (UN) system, recruitment processes are designed to ensure bureaucratic merit, with experience and education being the relevant merit criteria, the authors contend in their research article titled ‘Staff recruitment and geographical representation in international organizations’. 
“We develop and test a supply-side theory, postulating that differences in countries’ supply of well-educated and highly experienced candidates can explain geographical representation. Drawing on staff data from 34 IOs and supply data from 174 member states, and controlling for endogeneity and alternative explanations, we find no such relationship for education.”
However, countries with a high supply of candidates with relevant working and regional experiences have significantly higher representation values. 
These findings offer a complementary narrative as to why some countries are more strongly represented in the international professional staff than others. 
Findings also unveil the nature of bureaucratic merit in the UN, which seems to emphasize local knowledge and working experience over formal (Western) education.
Such experience comprises both regional expertise (local knowledge) needed in UN country operations where the bulk of UN personnel work and previous working experience. “It is possible that typical (Western) education systems do not deliver this kind of knowledge, which may be the reason why we observe such a pronounced importance of regional and work experience in the UN,” the authors state.
More precisely, because UN country operations seem to be worried about the impartiality of their staff but still need employees who possess local cultural knowledge, candidates from proximate countries in the region appear to have higher chances of making it into the international professional staff (IPS). 
Furthermore, while there is a lot of competition for individual IPS positions, having prior experience in national professional officers or general services staff positions seems to constitute a viable career path option. 
“Our findings on the relationship between regional experience and working experience imply that the chances of getting an international staff position are highest when an individual works as national staffer in a region where the UN has a significant regional presence. In such cases, working experience seems to add to the possession of regional experience.”

Eckhard, Steffen, and Yves Steinebach. “Staff Recruitment and Geographical Representation in International Organizations.” International Review of Administrative Sciences, (July 2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211031379.

Expanding the Security Council: A Potential Bulwark Against the United Nations’ Legitimacy Crisis

The United Nations has long served as the primary vehicle for the administration and enforcement of the international legal and political order, and situated at its very core is its underlying security apparatus: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The UNSC was designed with a structural rigidity, seeking to enshrine the superiority of its five permanent members—but now, seventy-five years later, the Council’s failure to keep pace with the changing composition of the United Nations writ large has led the entire compact to the precipice of a grave crisis of legitimacy.
Now more than ever, action must be taken to acknowledge the growing disillusionment of the United Nations’ smaller member states, BILAL ASKARI writes in the latest issue of the Virginia Journal of International Law.
An institution faces a crisis of legitimacy when social recognition of the validity of its identity, interests, practices, norms, or procedures comes under threat, at which point, it must either “adapt … or face disempowerment,” the author notes in his article ‘Expanding the U.N. Security Council: A Potential Bulwark against the U.N.’s Legitimacy Crisis’.
Perhaps the most fundamental threat to the UN’s legitimacy, ASKARI states, is its failure to establish representative governance; despite a quadrupling in the number of UN member states since 1945, the UNSC has remained untouched, granting only de minimis authority to the nations which rotate through the Council’s ten nonpermanent seats.
One potentially meaningful approach would be to amend the UN Charter to allow for the addition of one or more new permanent or nonpermanent members to the Security Council.
In particular, the possibility of permanent Indian accession to the Council may present a practical and promising means by which to salvage the legitimacy of the UNSC in the eyes of its constituent nations.
Perhaps the primary reason India ought to be considered as a potential addition to the permanent membership of the UNSC is simply that their bid would be the likeliest to succeed. This is for several reasons.
First, India certainly has the credentials to seek a seat at the UN’s highest table. Over the past two decades, India has enjoyed explosive economic growth and a rapidly expanding foreign policy outlook, and is now well poised to emerge as another potential superpower.
Second, India enjoys broad-based support from other members of the United Nations. India is currently serving its eighth term as an elected nonpermanent member of the Council, winning its seat with a resounding 184 votes out of a possible 192.
Finally, the current members of the P-5 are increasingly open to the possibility of allowing India on board. The US, the UK, France, and Russia have each signaled interest in at least moderate expansions of the Council, and even China, which has historically resisted India’s bid for a permanent seat, backed India for nonpermanent membership on the UNSC for its current term.
India’s permanent accession to the Council would be beneficial, in the first instance, to the United Nations’ legitimacy and operational integrity.
India has not only remained the largest contributor of UN peacekeeping troops for decades—providing nearly twice as many peacekeepers as every member of the P-5 combined—but its consistent record of timely payment to UN coffers will prove invaluable as the UN seeks to stabilize its budget. Validating these contributions with an offer to join the ranks of the Council’s permanent membership may also be important to prevent India from gradually sliding away from the UN and towards more fragmented multilateral organizations, which place greater value on India’s contributions, but sap the UN of relative legitimacy.
Of course, the value of elevating India to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council would not begin and end with India. To begin with, such a move would immediately bolster efforts by African nations which have long maintained that the absence of African representation on the Council constitutes a grave injustice. Indeed, most issues discussed by the UNSC have a direct nexus to African affairs, yet none of the continent’s fifty-four nations wield significant decision-making authority over these operations.
One potential approach, advanced by Sierra Leone’s UN representative, may be to reserve two permanent seats on the Council for African nations. India’s ascension to the Council would create a strong precedent that may enhance the viability of such measures in the future.
In addition to paving the way for future expansions of the Council, accession itself provides an opportunity for India to advocate for the views of historically marginalized nations. India has always styled itself as a “moralistic force” of the developing world, with Indian UN officials often highlighting that their nation’s own recent emergence puts them in a strong position to advocate for other states still on the rise.
This posture must be rewarded and developed if the UNSC is to successfully recapture the spirit of global community which undergirded the UN’s genesis. Only by restoring faith in the Council’s representative capacity can the UNSC safeguard its legitimacy and influence for years to come.