URO Security Council kriis, United nations Legitimacy crisis (0)

Legitimacy! AND UNITED NATIONS CRISIS
In this article, we examine the current debate regarding the legitimacy crisis facing the UNSC . We consider its most usual manifestation , namely that the Council faces a crisis of legitimacy because of its inability to constrain the unilaterally inclined hegemonic United States . But we also examine the converse argument that it is the whole UN collective security mechanism ( rather than just the Council) that is in crisis. According to this, it is the failure to recognize the unique dangers immanent within the contemporary security environment and the inability of the UN security system to tackle these which is the cause of the current crisis of legitimacy. International society, this position continues, must acknowledge these, and vest in the hegemon the powers it requires in order to meet its global responsibilities. Acknowledging the implications of both of these positions, we argue that the resolution of the current crisis of legitimacy is to be achieved through a more expansive interpretation of the Security Council's extant powers, accompanied by a commitment on the part of the United States to reinvest in the multilateral machinery upon which global order is founded .
Competing Conceptions of the Crisis of LegitimacyIn the introduction to this collection , Christian Reus -Smit defines an actor or institution as experiencing a crisis of legitimacy 'when the level of social recognition that its identity , interests, practices , norms, or procedures are rightful declines to the point where [the actor or institution] must either adapt ... or face disempowerment'. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, as the UNSC became more active, questions regarding its legitimacy tended to focus upon its failure adequately to represent a UN membership which had almost quadrupled since the organization's founding (Fassbender, 1998;  Morris , 2000). However , as disagreements between the P-5 emerged over the Kosovo crisis in 1998–1999, and even more significantly in relation to Iraq in 2003, this debate was overshadowed by one regarding the criteria to be applied in determining the acceptable bounds within which states may have recourse to the use of force . It is an exploration of these issues , and the fundamental bearing that they have on the UNSC's legitimacy, that forms the principal focus of this article. The first of these harbours concerns regarding the legitimacy of the UNSC, which it sees as being undermined by the Council's apparent inability to constrain great power use of force, particularly by the United States. This interpretation of the crisis of legitimacy is countered by an alternative understanding — proffered most notably by neoconservative forces in the George W. Bush administration — which focuses on the perceived inability of the existing UN regime to meet the challenges of contemporary global security (Frum and Perle, 2003;Kaplan and Kristol, 2003). Recognizing the United States as having a unique hegemonic role within contemporary international society, neoconservatives deride the existing collective security regime for impeding the United States as it seeks to fulfil the responsibilities that accompany its exalted status.
Both individually and collectively, all UN member states have the right under Article 51 of the Charter to use force in response to actual or imminent attack, but this ceases once the UNSC 'has taken measures necessary to restore international peace and security', and in no circumstances does the right extend to unilateral preventive  action .  So long as the UNSC serves as a brake on the ability of the hegemon to perform such a role, P-5 unanimity, on which its successful functioning depends, remains vulnerable to unilateral action. Viewed from this perspective, concerns regarding the Council's legitimacy are a mere symptom of a more fundamental crisis afflicting the legitimacy of the broader collective security regime of which it is part. For those who wish to preserve and strengthen the existing regime, it is the UNSC's inability to constrain the hegemon which is at the root of the crisis; for those who believe that the hegemon should be afforded the exceptional exemption from the rules governing the use of force, it is this very constraining nature of the regime more generally which
constitutes the crisis. 
At most it seems a vague and often suspiciously arbitrary composite of associations with other concepts, a great many of which havebeen invoked in attempts to “ explain ” it. These include consent (Brighouse, 1998: 720-1); authority (Hurd, 1999); justice (Steffek, 2006); the ‘moral basis for social interaction’ (Kelman, 2001: 55); normative belief that a rule or institution must be obeyed (Grafstein, 1981:; popular sovereignty ( Beetham , 1991); democracy (Beetham, 1991; Buchanan, and “right” or rightfulness Rousseau , 1968

• Key myth : “international anarchy is the permissive [or underlying] cause of war” ( Waltz 1959 : 232) orealism: Behaviour of actors in a system dictated by its character – hierarchy or anarchy,. Features of anarchy:Security Dilemma + Balance of Power . Realism: Attempt to impose hierarchy fails because no ‘orderer’ Conflict thus breaks out. Liberalism Key myth: “ there is an international society” - Informal collective or cooperative set of social relationships among sovereign states - Liberal assumption: people are basically good ; if organisations facilitate cooperation , people will cooperate.
  

Examples of Cooperation Liberalism

• Strengthening of international law
  • When considering international anarchy, realists stress structure, liberals stress process
    
  • But share :
    
• Belief that states are dominant actors in global politics
  
• Rationalist theoretical approach
  
• Security defined in ‘self-interested’ terms
  
  • See Wendt 1992: 130
    
  
  
• International trade regimes
  
• March of democracy throughout the world
  
• UN as a collective security instrument
  
• Arms control agreements
  
• Response to humanitarian crises
  
• Domestic analogy: that what works within states can be made to work between states
  
• Assumption that democracy is what enables progress in domestic sphere
  
• How is this transferred to the international level?
  
• Spread democracy, to bring about international society of ‘good citizens’
  
• Increase the opportunities for cross border communication – lessening divisiveness and creating common interests
  

Constuctivism; What states do depends on what states’ identities and interests are, and identities and interests change . Identities and interests are not pre- given but come into existence as states act. Anarchy is the outcome of state interactions – not a given
Self-help is not an immutable feature of international anarchy. Anarchy and self-help are social constructs .Social constructivists want to reclaim a place for ‘ practice ’ or ‘process’

• Key point: states are the authors , not the system
  
• The world is a ‘world of our making ’ (Nicholas Onuf 1989)
  

All committed to taking seriously the understanding that the social world is not an objective reality ‘out there’ which we can observe and explain; it is socially constructed and does not exist outside of our understandings of it. For social constructivists, states remain dominant actors in world politics; for many other theories, state-centricism is key part of the problem / Identities, interests, norms and beliefs all matter in in global politics – they are all intersubjectively constituted and can and do change