The United Nations International Governance Looking for a New “Glass Palace”: Reforming the United Nations System

Abstract

Everyone agrees on the need to reform the UN. But people disagree sharply on what kind of reform is needed and for what purpose. NGO leaders aim for a more democratic UN, with greater openness and accountability. Technocrats seek more productivity and efficiency from the UN staff. Delegates favour reforms that conform to national interests and promote national power. Idealists offer plans for a great expanded body that would reduce states’ sovereignty, while conservatives push for a downsized UN with sharply reduced powers. Agreement is exceedingly hard to achieve. Since the 1950s, the UN has faced a constant barrage of management studies, policy reviews, reform proposals and even actual reforms. Secretary Generals have carried out substantial changes in the Secretariat. Many reforms had hidden political agendas: they had policy goals, cloaked by technocratic jargon or universal principles. Only few representatives are willing to admit that the UN’s complex and inefficient machinery results from deep political disagreements among its members and between other contending forces in the global system. In a world divided by chasms between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, differences of interest are certain to shape all reform efforts and keep the UN a contradictory and divided institution.