Book Review: Bloc Politics in the United Nations
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500415 |
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Author | F. H. Soward |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
364 INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
BLOC
Porrmcs
iN
THE
UNrTrED
NATIONS.
By
Thomas
Hovet,
Jr.
1960.
(Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press;
Toronto:
S.
J.
Reginald
Saunders.
xviii,
197pp.
$7.75.)
Professor
Hovet
of New York
University
has
been concerned
with
problems
of
group
or
bloc
voting
in
the
United
Nations
General
As-
sembly
for
almost
a
decade.
With
the
help
of
delegates
and
members
of
the Secretariat
who
must
obviously
remain
anonymous
he has
des-
cribed
and
analysed with
meticulous
care
and patience
(there are
no
less
than
70
charts)
the
origin
and
character
of
bloc
voting.
As
he
points out,
it
is
easier
than
in
a
national
assembly
for
delegates
to
trade
votes
by
groups,
since
Assembly
recommendations
are
just
recom-
mendations
and
the
felt
moral
or
political
obligations
are
correspond-
ingly
less.
There
is
only
one
true
bloc,
the
Soviet
bloc,
which,
as
he
correctly
demonstrates,
"to
all
intents
and purposes
operates
as
a
single
unit".
There
are
eight
identifiable
"caucusing
groups",
the
largest
being
the
Asian-African
(then
of
29),
within
whose
ranks
there
are
also
caucuses
of
Arab
states
and
Africans,
and
the
smallest
the
Benelux.
Ten
states
are
in
no
caucusing
group.
Each
is
described
and
its per-
formance analysed, with
the
Soviet
bloc
recording
an
"Ivory
Soap"
voting
uniformity
of
95.97
per cent,
while
the
Commonwealth, as
Cana-
dians
will
not
be
surprised
to
learn,
voted
identically
in
the first
thirteen
years
of
the
General
Assembly
with
a
percentage
of
131
and
was
divided
58.4
per
cent
of
the
time.
Because of
the
position
of
South
Africa,
its
lowest
degree
of
identical
voting
is
on
issues involving
human
rights
where
the
score
is
3.4
per
cent.
With
the rush
towards
near
universality,
the
number
of
caucusing
groups
is
likely
to
increase
and
for
that
reason
the
author
warns
that,
if
intransigent
group
positions
are
not
to
develop,
" ...
encouragement
[by
whom?]
will
have
to
be
given
to
developing
interest
bases
rather than
regional
bases
for
caucus-
ing
groups".
He
is
concerned
at
the
apparent
failure
of
the
United
States
to
adjust itself
to
the
conditions
which
have
developed
since
1955
and
remarks
glumly:
"One
Is
almost
shocked
by
the
number
of
times
which
members of
delegations
desirous
of
understanding
the
United
States
position
comment
on
the
virtual
lack
of
personal
relations
en-
couraged
by
the
United
States
delegation
on
any other
level
than
the
ambassadorial
level,
where,
it
is
felt,
that
the
public
policy
position
predominates."
This
book
should have
a
long
run
as
an
essential
reference
source
on
an
increasingly
important
institutional
problem
in
the
United
Nations.
University
of
British
Columbia
F.
H.
SOWAiw
THE
POWER
OF
SMALL
STATES.
Diplomacy
in World
War
II.
By
Annette
Baker
Fox.
1959.
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago; Toronto:
Uni-
versity
of
Toronto
Press.
ix,
2
12pp.
$4.50.)
At
the
outbreak
of
war
in
1939,
twenty
European
states
hopefully
declared
their neutrality;
six
managed
to
maintain
some
semblance
of
it.
The
explanation
of
the
success of
three
of
these
states-Turkey,
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