Power and Diplomacy in the UN Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members

There is well-known claim that due to the dominant position of the veto-wielding five permanent (P5) in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the ten members elected to two-year terms (E10) are left with little space to be influential in that body. 
However, VAHID NICK PAY AND PRZEMYSŁAW POSTOLSKI argue that, in fact, there could be powerful channels for the E10 to exercise significant influence.
Writing in The International Spectator, the authors present the cases of Poland’s 2018-2019 and South Africa’s 2019-2020 terms as elected members UNSC to challenge the claim that due to a prevailing democratic, legitimacy or efficiency deficit(s) in the structure and/or working methods of the Council, there is no significant space for the E10 members to be influential.
“By examining these two representative cases, the E10’s capacity to exert such influence can indeed be detected on multiple levels, which highlights the numerous channels and practices available to the elected members to act as veritable norm entrepreneurs at this most prominent institution of global governance,” they write in the research article ‘Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members’.
Regarding the dynamics of legitimacy, these case studies demonstrate that the position of elected members can be strengthened by building various coalitions with other members to extend their ability to influence the Council’s decision-making. In the cases of Poland and South Africa, the coalitions built with P5 and other E10 members paved the way for important accomplishments, such as the adoption of resolutions 2475 and 2493.
As far as diplomatic capacities are concerned, the example of South Africa appears to provide an interesting alternative for arrangements of resources for medium and small powers through keeping a considerable number of decision-making functions back in the capital, PAY and POSTOLSKI state. 
“Despite obvious procedural challenges, this seems to have provided significant advantages such as reduced costs, resource-sharing with other government sectors and, most importantly, opportunities for involving a broader number of actors, in particular the civil society.” Such potential for change in the working methods may contribute to strengthening the overall position of the E10 in the Council.
The study has also confirmed that even though the agency of an elected member, primarily manifested through its effectively deployed resources and diplomatic capacities, is important in determining its influence in the Council, no less important are conditions extending beyond the Council member’s direct control, the authors note. 
“In this light, Poland’s and South African’s voices were at times significantly amplified by the presence of other supportive members in the Council and other favorable conditions.”
In the case of South Africa, its concomitant presidency of the Council and of the African Union and numerous proactive diplomatic initiatives combined with unexpected support from other E10 members acted as enabling factors to simultaneously promote geopolitical questions of national interest and build and strengthen consensus in the Council. 
Therefore, when serving in the Council, one must factor in such elements as timing, political context and the composition of the Council in a given term. All these conditions can be either favorable or detrimental to the overall performance of an elected member.
Furthermore, the authors stress, the E10’s influence can be exercised through formal and informal mechanisms in the Council’s decision-making. In this vein, both cases clearly demonstrate that UNSC presidencies, Arria-formula meetings and high-level political engagement were especially useful, as highlighted for the aforementioned resolutions 2493 and 2475.
To be sure, the resolutions tabled by Poland and South Africa were hardly controversial as these were themes that most countries could agree upon. It must be borne in mind, however, that due to the political polarization of the Council highlighted above, even the P5 are increasingly incapable of reaching a consensus on difficult questions, as evidenced by the official Council data on the number of consensus resolutions. “This, in turn, could open up significant perspectives for influence for the elected members.”
Taking everything into account, it becomes evident that, despite the prevailing position of the P5, the elected members can play an important and sometimes even crucial role in the Council’s decision-making. 
One interesting conclusion from the above cases could be an appreciation of the fact that the E10’s capacity for playing such a fundamental role in the Council has been underpinned by their less pronounced national and geopolitical interests at the Council compared to the P5. 
This undoubtedly puts the E10 in a more flexible negotiating position, capable of going beyond ‘red lines’ and even acting as power brokers in the Council. This important attribute, which could be regarded as a foundational element of multilateralism, might be even more sorely needed in an increasingly polarized Council faced with the realities of a systemic shift towards a multipolar world. 
Accordingly, it could be argued that the presence of the E10 in the Council not only underpins its dynamics of legitimacy but also safeguards its very foundations of multilateralism, reposing on elements of devolution of power, pooling of sovereignty and compromise. 
In addition, the emerging trends towards the reform of the Council’s working methods and the inclusion of wider global actors and the civil society in debates have the potential to turn the E10 into veritable norm entrepreneurs of the Council’s developing working methods that could lead to future structural reforms. 
“Such drives to informal reforms appear to be even more crucial as the debates over the nature, the viability or even the desirability of structural reforms of the Council proves to be far from over for the foreseeable future.” 

Vahid Nick Pay and Przemysław Postolski (2021) Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members, The International Spectator, DOI: 10.1080/03932729.2021.1966192

A Missing Link for Accountability at the High-Level Political Forum

With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, United Nations Member States committed to conducting regular Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), which would be ‘robust, voluntary, effective, participatory, transparent and integrated’. 

VNR reports are presented at the annual High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), creating a space for peer learning and feedback from different stakeholders.
Although the follow-up and review processes on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda are state-led, they are supposed to be inclusive and consultative, and to welcome inputs from relevant stakeholders. MICAH GRZYWNOWICZ discusses two such inputs to the HLPF process from civil society: shadow reports and spotlight reports.
Published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, the paper ‘Spotlight Reports: A Missing Link for Accountability at the High-Level Political Forum’ argues that while spotlight reports do not play any official role in the review processes, they are nevertheless critical tools, especially for stakeholders with limited or no access to cooperation with their governments. 

In fact, they serve the same purpose as shadow reports and states’ own VNR reports, which is ultimately to improve the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and benefit the well-being of people.

The UN Security Council’s Role in Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect

Two decades ago, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) recalled a warning from then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan: “If the collective conscience of humanity . . . cannot find in the United Nations its greatest tribune, there is a grave danger that it will look elsewhere for peace and for justice.” 
The Security Council has not only employed various diplomatic, political, and humanitarian measures to address atrocity crimes but also adjusted the purposes and practices of peace operations to advance protection goals and more subtly shaped discourses and expectations about state responsibilities for protection. 
However, looking at the past five or six years of the Security Council’s performance—including its paralysis in the face of the grim siege of the Syrian city of Aleppo in December 2016, its virtual nonreaction to the attacks by Myanmar state security forces against the Rohingya in 2017, its limited response to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, and its inability for months to agree on a statement or resolution regarding the COVID-19 pandemic—it is tempting to conclude that we have already crossed over into that dangerous terrain Annan warned about, writes JENNIFER M. WELSH in the journal Ethics and International Affairs. 
Contrary to the predictions of ICISS, however, we have yet to see an institution or forum supplant the UN as the focal point for the pursuit of peace and justice, the author states in her article titled ‘The Security Council’s Role in Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect’. “Instead, there is a gaping black hole, as multilateralism comes apart at the seams.”
Skeptics may rightly point out that all of the alternatives to the Security Council – particularly the General Assembly – continue to face structural and political barriers to exercising their full potential, as components of an integrated structure, for addressing threats to international security and responding to atrocity crime situations, WELSH states. Nonetheless, the current crisis of multilateralism, which was extensively debated at the virtual events in 2020 marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the UN, presents a unique moment to revitalize and reinvest in mechanisms of global cooperation, lest they slide further into deadlock and irrelevance. 
A variety of proposals to improve performance and accountability have been tabled, including the creation of a UN parliamentary assembly that would enable further consideration of the domestic impact of multilateral decisions and increase democratic oversight of key components of the existing UN system. 
If such a scheme were to be realized – and this remains a big if, WELSH stresses – it could serve as a catalyst for more extensive reforms of both the General Assembly and the Security Council, as well as erode the latter's monopoly on the right to propose policies to manage international peace and security. 
At the time of writing, WELSH states, we do not know whether the opportunity presented by crises will be seized or if stasis and retrenchment will ensue. After all, while crises have been relatively frequent in the history of our modern international system, meaningful transformation of institutions and political orders has been much less common. 
“Let us hope that vulnerable populations around the world do not continue to pay the price for our collective failure of imagination and resolve.”

Welsh, J. (2021). The Security Council's Role in Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect. Ethics & International Affairs, 35(2), 227-243. doi:10.1017/S089267942100023X

State Rationales for Contributing Troops to UN Peacekeeping Operations

In many conflict zones around the globe - spreading from Sub-Saharan Africa to Eastern Europe and from the Middle East to Haiti - contingent troops, experts, staff officers, police and personnel are working under the umbrella of the United Nations. Countries struggle to promote peace and stability, as well as maintain the rule of law and order.

According to conflict resolution theorists, peacekeeping operations are necessary for positive conflict transformation. Thus the UN peacekeeping operations play a fundamental role in maintaining world peace. 

The UN peacekeeping’s mandate is unique in terms of global partnership. It is set by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council; consent of the host country is needed, as is that by troop and police contributors. 

UN peacekeeping troops help countries navigate the challenging path from conflict to stability. However, as the UN doesn’t have a regular army, it relies on member states troop to carry out peacekeeping operations in conflict areas. 

In this research research paper, titled ‘State Rationales for Contributing Troops to UN Peacekeeping Operations’, MAKAM KHAN DAIM and ISIDORE HENRY EDET demonstrate that well-equipped and trained UN peacekeeping operations promote peace and stability more efficiently. The paper, published by Brussels-based South Asia Democratic Forum,  centres on an important question: what motivates the willingness of member states to contribute with troops to UN peacekeeping operations. 

“We found that states experiencing inter-state rivalry and with struggling economies tend to contribute more troops than great powers and wealthy states,” the authors state. They use the Bellamy and Williams’ Model and Middle Power theory to better analyse the rationale of troops contribution in peacekeeping operations. China is also used as a case study in the paper.

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.

Developing Peace: The Evolution of Development Goals and Activities in United Nations Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping and development assistance are two of the United Nations’ defining activities. While there have been extensive studies of UN engagement in each of these areas, respectively, less attention has been given to the relationship between peacekeeping and development. 

JOHN GLEDHILL, RICHARD CAPLAN and MALINE MEISKE examine that relationship in an article titled ‘Developing peace: the evolution of development goals and activities in United Nations peacekeeping’, published in the journal Oxford Development Studies.  

The authors do so by first considering whether concepts and principles that underpin peacekeeping and development cohere. They then combine original quantitative data with qualitative analyses in order to document the degree to which development goals and activities have been incorporated into UN peacekeeping operations since their inception over 70 years ago. 

“While we observe a steady increase in the level of engagement of peacekeeping with development over time, we argue that short-term security goals have been prioritized over longer-term development objectives in a number of recent UN peacekeeping operations, as peacekeepers have been deployed to contexts of ongoing conflict.”

The authors propose that, just as the practice of UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding has integrated diverse actors and goals, so too would the study of peacekeeping and peacebuilding benefit from integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives into a more ‘multidimensional’ approach. 

As it stands, those who study peacekeeping ordinarily have a background in political science and international relations, and they publish in related field journals. While there was arguably a logic to this disciplinary focus when UN peacekeeping activities were primarily aimed at maintaining negative peace between states, that logic has weakened as peacekeeping has expanded and diversified its activities. 

Indeed, given that peacekeeping now typically includes interventions that aim to foster human and economic development within conflict-affected states, it seems clear that academic fields that study development should also be integrated into efforts to analyse and assess peacekeeping – fields such as development studies, economics, anthropology, geography and beyond. 

Cross-disciplinary cooperation and collaboration will likely face some of the same institutional, organizational, and ontological barriers that the UN has encountered when trying to foster cooperation and coherence among the diverse agencies and organizations that are involved in multidimensional, integrated peacekeeping. 

However, if the UN has been able to make some headway on that front, then surely academics can also take further steps towards a more integrated approach to studying (development and) peacekeeping.

John Gledhill, Richard Caplan & Maline Meiske (2021) Developing peace: the evolution of development goals and activities in United Nations peacekeeping, Oxford Development Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2021.1924126