The United Nations and Human Development: From Ideology to Global Policies
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Author | Jean‐Philippe Thérien |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00147.x |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
The United Nations and Human
Development: From Ideology to
Global Policies
Jean-Philippe Thérien
Université de Montréal
Abstract
Building on the work of the United Nations Intellectual History Project, this article argues that the ideology of human
development has now become the driving normative force behind the global policies supported by the UN in the
area of development. The first part focuses on the UN’s official discourse of the past two decades, and shows how it
has been influenced by the concept of human development. The second section examines a set of global policies that
illustrate how the UN has sought to put the principles of human development into practice. The article concludes that
while human development ideology has represented for twenty years the most credible critique of mainstream
development policies, its impact – like that of the UN in world affairs – remains nonetheless limited.
Policy Implications
•Human development currently represents the most credible alternative to mainstream development thinking and
the most effective approach to fostering global justice.
•The UN must provide greater leadership in showing that the future of global order will depend on the future of
human development.
•The UN should be far more pro-active in identifying and fighting against the national and international factors that
impede human development.
•The coherence of global policies affecting human development needs to be strengthened.
•The UN must cooperate much more closely with like-minded social forces to effectually promote human develop-
ment.
The fifteen monographs published by the United Nations
Intellectual History Project (UNIHP) have supplied convinc-
ing evidence that ‘ideas and concepts are arguably the
most important legacy of the United Nations’ (Jolly et
al., 2009, p. 39). Building on this conclusion, the follow-
ing article seeks to enrich the ongoing discussion on the
role of ideas in UN activities. The analysis here focuses
on development, the issue that absorbs the bulk of the
organization’s resources. The specific contribution that
this study proposes to make is twofold. First, in historical
terms, it examines the post-Cold War period, which until
now has remained under-researched. Second, on the
theoretical level, through the concepts of ideology and
global public policy, it furthers the debate initiated by
the UNIHP. More specifically, the article argues that over
the past two decades the ideology of human develop-
ment has been the driving normative force behind the
global policies advocated by the UN in the area of devel-
opment.
The UN’s attraction to the human development
approach is due to two complementary factors. On one
hand, this approach has offered an alternative to the
neoliberal orthodoxy promoted as of the 1980s by the
Bretton Woods institutions. At the same time, the notion
of human development has made possible the renewal,
on the basis of a more market-friendly outlook, of the
development paradigm traditionally upheld by the UN.
Human development has thus served as an intellectual
device that has helped to achieve an innovative North–
South compromise. For the countries of the South the
concept was useful because it provided a systematic
critique of the international order, while from the
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 1 . February 2012
Global Policy (2012) 3:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00147.x ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Research Article
1
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