What's wrong with the United Nations and how to fix it / Thomas G. Weiss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weiss, Thomas G. (Thomas George), 1946- author.

Series:

What's wrong series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United Nations.

Physical Description:

xvi, 288 pages ; 22 cm.

Edition:

Third edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2016.

Summary:

Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. 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, Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization's inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international 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 based not 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. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part One: Diagnosing the Ills

Westphalia, Alive But Not Well

North-South Theater

The Feudal System, or Dysfunctional Family

Overwhelming Bureaucracy and Underwhelming Leadership

Part Two: Palliatives if Not Cures

Redefining National Interests

Moving Beyond the North-South Divide

Truly Delivering as One

Reinvigorating the International Civil Service

Conclusion: What's Next?.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781509507436

1509507434

9781509507443

1509507442

OCLC:

946769521