Political Science · Ch 4 — International Organisations
Reform of the UN after the Cold War
Reform of the UN after the Cold War
Why Reform Is Necessary
No organisation can stay frozen in time. The UN was built in 1945, right after the Second World War. Its structure and priorities reflected that moment — a world recovering from a global war, with a clear set of victorious powers. By the time the Cold War ended, that world had vanished. The UN had to change, or risk becoming irrelevant.
The problem is not that countries disagree on whether reform is needed. Almost everyone agrees it is. The deadlock is over what to change, how to do it, and when. Two broad kinds of reform are on the table:
- Structural and procedural reform — changing how the UN is organised and how it works.
- Jurisdictional reform — deciding which issues the UN should focus on or take up.
What Has Changed Since the Cold War?
The textbook lists several major shifts that make reform urgent:
- The Soviet Union collapsed. The US is now the single strongest power.
- Russia (the Soviet Union's successor) and the US have a much more cooperative relationship.
- China is fast emerging as a great power. India is also growing rapidly.
- Asian economies are growing at an unprecedented rate.
- Many new countries joined the UN after gaining independence from the Soviet Union or former communist states in Eastern Europe.
- A whole new set of challenges has emerged: genocide, civil war, ethnic conflict, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, environmental degradation, and epidemics.
In 1989, as the Cold War was ending, the question became: is the UN doing enough? Is it equipped to do what is required? What should it be doing, and how? For the past decade and a half (the textbook was written around the mid-2000s), member states have been trying to find practical answers.
Reform of Structures and Processes: The Security Council Debate
The biggest discussion under this heading is about the Security Council. The core demand is to increase both permanent and non-permanent membership so that the Council better reflects the realities of contemporary world politics.
- Who wants more seats? There are specific proposals to increase membership from Asia, Africa, and South America — regions that are underrepresented compared to their current global weight.
- What else do Western countries (especially the US) want? Improvements in the UN's budgetary procedures and its administration.
The Security Council's composition still largely reflects the power structure of 1945. The five permanent members (the US, UK, France, Russia, and China) were the victors of World War II. No major power from the Global South has a permanent seat.
Reform of Issues and Priorities
On the second kind of reform — what the UN should actually do — there is a clear split:
- One view: The UN should play a greater or more effective role in peace and security missions.
- Another view: The UN's role should be confined to development and humanitarian work — health, education, environment, population control, human rights, gender equality, and social justice. …
The figure is a simple, clean map of the world, but it is not a standard political map. It shows the globe with national borders drawn in, but the continents are not labelled with country names. Instead, the map is used as a visual backdrop to highlight a single, specific UN peacekeeping mission.
The central visual element is a large, bold arrow that sweeps across the map. The arrow originates from a cluster of countries in West Africa and points eastward, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a small island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa. That island is labelled Liberia. The arrow’s path and the label make it clear that the focus is on a UN operation that took place in Liberia.
At the tail of the arrow, in the region of West Africa, the map shows a cluster of countries that were the primary contributors of troops to this mission. These countries are Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. Their names are printed on the map within their borders, and they are connected to the arrow’s starting point, indicating they were the main sources of peacekeeping forces.
The figure has a single, straightforward caption: "for Peace; conducted a successful UN operation in". This caption directly links the visual — the arrow from West African troop-contributing nations to Liberia — to the textbook’s discussion of UN reform. The point is not to show a failed or controversial mission, but to illustrate a case where the UN’s peacekeeping machinery worked effectively. The "successful UN operation" referred to is the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which was deployed from 2003 to 2018 and is widely regarded as a major UN achievement in ending a brutal civil war and stabilising the country. …