Learning in Temporary Organizations: The Case of UN Global Conferences

Abstract

United Nations global conferences and summits reflect a “can-do mentality,” the understanding that complex social and economic processes are manageable and not to be met with passive resignation. High on political symbolism and low in decision-making authority, these gatherings are temporary organizations in global politics. This chapter examines learning in a temporary organization called the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The summit addresses the global disparity in access to information and communication technologies and has been a locus of experimentation with the innovative “multistakeholder approach” to global governance. Inquiring whether the WSIS’s experimentation with this approach creates a legacy for future conferences to work with, the author examines learning within this temporary organization from two different angles: the summit’s potential to serve as a seedbed for creativity and its embeddedness in the UN bureaucracy and interstate diplomacy.