What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It

by Thomas G. Weiss

Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth-century’s world wars gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, today’s UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the “next generation” of multilateral institutions. But what exactly is wrong with the UN that makes it incapable of confronting contemporary global challenges and, more importantly, can we fix it? In this revised and updated third edition of his popular text, leading scholar of global governance Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization’s inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic complications caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North and the global South; the structural problems of managing the UN’s many overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and the challenges of bureaucracy and leadership.  The second half shows how to mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in which the UN’s institutional ills might be “cured.”  Weiss’s remedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN, but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could be replicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to received wisdom, he contends that substantial change is both plausible and possible.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, International Relations

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the UN Intellectual History Project. He is President (2009-10) of the International Studies Association, chair (2006-9) of the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS). His latest book is What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2009).

As Research Professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies (1990-98), he also held university administrative posts (Associate Dean of the Faculty, Director of the Global Security Program, Associate Director), was the Executive Director of ACUNS, and co-directed the Humanitarianism and War Project. Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the International Peace Academy (1985-9); a Senior Economic Affairs Officer at the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva (1975-85); and held professional posts in the Office of the UN Commissioner for Namibia, the University Program at the Institute for World Order, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and International Labor Organization. He has been a consultant for foundations and numerous inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations and was editor of Global Governance (2000-5) and research director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2000-2).

Reviews

[Demodesrev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weiss makes some great notes about UN operations and has some great possible ideas on how to fix it. My only concern is the implementation of his ideas. Interesting read to see the issues the UN faces and how we can work together to make it stronger.

[Veronika Munro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half was facinating and informative. The second half disappointed though. Rather than offering real solutions it seemed only to rehash the problems and reiterate the challenges.

[Michael Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an overlap between Weiss book on Humanitarian Intervention and this book on fixing the United Nations. Having read these two books back to back, there were several sections that appear in both books. It doesn't hurt the point that Weiss is trying to make in either book, but its just something that the reader may want to be aware of. Weiss book is divided into two sections: 1. The Problems with the United Nations and 2. Solutions with The United Nations.

He outlines the problems caused by states who can't look beyond their own self-interests, the artificial North-South labels that often prevent cooperation on global issues, the infighting between organizations within the United Nations hierarchy, and revitalizing the organizations foreign service to recruit younger, more temporary workers, who are concerned with problem solving, rather than career.

UN reform has beguiled many scholars of international organizations and though Weiss solutions sound as common-sense and clear-headed as anyone out there, like everything else they would run into the pride and hubris of the international community. These labels and distinctions have worked for the international community for so long that any change, no matter how needed, is going to be a dogfight.

The resiliency of the self-interest of states should not be underestimated.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book which describes the problems in the United Nations and what to do about it. The United Nations is weak because the United States of America and other powerful nations don't want to reign in their power to another government body and cooperate with smaller nations. The power of the UN has waxed and waned with the powerful nations. The people who enter the UN are not the most talented and usually have little power. Weiss the author proposes to change these problems but I suspect as long as the US and other powerful nations see little incentive to change.

[Daniel Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am someone who has been fascinated by the United Nations for many years. The work it does, the work it doesn't do, the potential of the organisation, its failures to meet that potential, how we got here and how to avoid the same mistakes. While I wouldn't necessarily agree with this book on every point it makes (as is usual with these sorts of books), I certainly found it a very authoritative, well researched, and very well written book. Just for the reference list alone, I'm glad I bought and read this book.

[Elna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly accessible overview of the United Nations and the core problems (over-empahis on national sovereignty, decentralization, and persisting political divides) that plague it as well as the "international community" as a whole. Never too scholarly, it can nonetheless get a little dry.

[Kristinn Valdimarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dálítið sundurlaus og bókin fer ekki mjög djúpt í vandamálin, eða lausnir á þeim, en inná milli eru fróðlegar upplýsingar.