Review: A Changing United Nations
| Author | Norrie Macqueen |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200105600315 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
A
CHANGING UNITED
NATIONS
Multilateral
evolution
and
the quest
for
global
governance
W
Andy
Knight
New
York:
Palgrave,
2000,
xx,
2
57pp,
us$65.00,
ISBN
0-333-80151-2
T
en
years
ago
the
number
of
reasonably
current
texts
on
the
United
Nations
system
available
to
students
could
probably
have
been
numbered on
the
fingers
of
both
hands.
Then,
very
rapidly,
publication
priorities
caught
up
with
the
end
of
the
cold war
and
library
shelves
began
to groan
louder
with them
by
the
day.
The
character
and
focus
of
this
writing
have
changed,
though,
as
the
early
commitment
of
the
for-
mer
superpower
rivals
to
multilateralism
proved
more
rhetorical
than
real.
The
nature
of
the
post-cold
war
system
did
lead
to
an
enhanced
role
for
international
organizations, particularly
so
in security
areas,
but
the
United
Nations
has
been
forced
to embrace
these
new
responsibilities
in
an
ever-changing
international
landscape
with at
best
minimal
support
from
key
members.
This
has
been
reflected
in
the
work
of
committed
multilateralist
authors
(who understandably
dominate
the
field).
Early
optimism
has
given way
to
a
kind
of
'constructive pessimism.'
Andy
Knight's
contribution
to
this discourse
is
a
detailed
and
metic-
ulous
exploration
of
the
possibilities
for
change
in
the United
Nations
in
the
context
of
the
historical
development
of
multilateralism.
His
starting
point
is
to
reject
traditional
realist
(or
more
correctly neo-real-
ist)
analyses
of
the international
system
and
the
role
of
organization
within
it.
Realism,
he argues,
is
unsatisfactory in
its
characterization
of
international
organizations
as
secondary
entities incapable
of
tran-
scending
an
assigned -
and
always
limited
-
role.
His
preferred
approach
is
a
'historical
structural'
one which
posits
a
dynamic
charac-
ter to
multilateralism
in
international
relations.
The
role
of
organiza-
tions
is,
he suggests,
constantly
changing
in
line
with
shifts
in
the
'triad'
of
ideas,
physical
capabilities
and
institutional
culture.
His alter-
native
to
realism
is
to
cast
multilateralism
as
a
'long
march,'
the
final
destination
of
which is unconstrained
by
any
systemic
'given.'
Knight
argues
his
case
carefully
and
lucidly.
However,
it
is
doubtful
that
he
will
convince
many
whose world-view
has
been shaped
by
real-
ist
orthodoxies
-
particularly
after
a
decade in
which
the
agents
of
transformation
he identifies
have
had
a
pretty
fair
run
but
produced
little tangible
change.
Norrie
MacQueen/University
of
Dundee
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer2001
539
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