Essay

The “Third” United Nations c

Thomas G. Weiss, Tatiana Carayannis, and Richard Jolly

Analysts usually identify two United Nations, one composed of member states and a second composed of the secretariats. A third UN should also be recognized, composed of actors that are closely associated with the world organization but not formally part of it. This “outside-insider” UN includes nongovernmental organizations, academics, consultants, experts, independent commissions, and other groups of individuals. These informal networks often help to effect shifts in ideas, policies, priorities, and prac- tices that are initially seen as undesirable or problematic by governments and international secretariats. KEYWORDS: United Nations, nongovernmen- tal organizations, intellectual history, networks, international secretariats.

R esearch and oral histories from the United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP) demonstrate that ideas, one of the UN’s most im- portant legacies, have made a substantial contribution to international

society.1 This work also suggests that the concept of a “third UN” should be added to our analytical toolkit in order to move beyond Inis Claude’s clas- sic twofold distinction between the world organization as an intergovern- mental arena and as a secretariat.2

This “additional” UN consists of certain nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), external experts, scholars, consultants, and committed citizens who work closely with the UN’s intergovernmental machinery and secretariats. The third UN’s roles include advocacy, research, policy analysis, and idea mongering. Its elements often combine forces to put forward new informa- tion and ideas, push for new policies, and mobilize public opinion around UN deliberations and operations. Critics might disagree and regard our per- spective as quite orthodox.3 However, in our view, informed scholars, prac- titioners, and activists have a value-added and comparative advantage within intergovernmental contexts to push intellectual and policy envelopes. These circles—a third UN—are independent of and provide essential inputs into the other two UNs. Such “outside-insiders” are an integral part of today’s United Nations. What once seemed marginal for international relations now is central to multilateralism.

We begin by situating the notion of a third UN among broader schol- arly efforts to reconceptualize multilateralism before briefly examining Claude’s two traditional components. We then consider the contributions of the third UN concept by exploring key definitional questions and parsing its

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membership and interactive dynamics in the world organization. Finally, we spell out why the idea of a third UN is significant for the theory and prac- tice of international organization and propose an agenda for future research.

New Multilateralisms and Public Policy Networks The notion of a three-faceted UN is a contribution to the challenge of the- orizing contemporary global governance. It builds on a growing body of work that calls for a conception of “multiple multilateralisms.”4

Why bring forward this idea now? After all, networks of diplomats and professionals are hardly new. Although major governments have resisted the influence of nonstate actors and, particularly, civil society organiza- tions, parts of the UN system have long engaged them and drawn on aca- demic expertise located outside the system. The International Labour Orga- nization (ILO) has incorporated representatives of trade unions and the business sector into its tripartite structure since 1919. NGOs have been sig- nificant for advances in ideas, norms, and policies at the UN beginning with advocacy for the inclusion of human rights in the UN Charter in 1945 and for the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights three years later. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has long had close interactions with civil society groups for a wide range of children’s is- sues and for fund-raising and advocacy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations De- velopment Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have interacted with national com- mittees consisting of academics and NGOs. Indeed, most parts of the UN have drawn on academic or professional expertise located outside the system.

A growing number of authors have attempted to conceptualize the phe- nomenon of nonstate actors, especially NGOs, as they intersect with the United Nations.5 The number of nonofficial groups involved has grown dra- matically, while the density of globalization has meant that communications and technological developments have increased the reach of their voices as well as their decibel levels.

Adopting the notion of the third UN is a sharper way to depict inter- actions in and around the world organization than employing the usual three- fold vocabulary of state, market, and civil society. This terminology res- onates for students of international organization who were raised on Claude’s framework, including much of the Global Governance readership. More- over, beyond the United Nations there could also be a third European Union (EU), a third Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and so on. However, the data and argument presented here relate more specifically to the UN.

Why have analysts relatively neglected—or often resisted address- ing—something that seems so obvious? Part of the answer lies in difficult

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definitional questions about an amorphous, fluid, and ill-defined group of actors who engage with the United Nations at various levels, at various times, and on various issues. Patterns are hard to grasp, and many of the in- teractions are ad hoc. Which groups should be included? Should one exam- ine all NGOs and all academics? Where does one draw the line? Would it make more sense to focus on policy orientations rather than on sectors of actors? Once in, are actors forever part of the third UN, or do they move in and out depending on the issue, their influence, or the calendar? This arti- cle is another step in conceptualizing global governance in terms of free- flowing networks rather than rigid formal structures.6

Most social scientists—development economists, students of compara- tive politics, sociologists, and anthropologists—have long recognized the empirical and theoretical importance of nonstate actors. However, this in- sight largely eluded international relations (IR) specialists who, with their preoccupation with issues of sovereignty and with the UN’s being com- posed of member states, tended to minimize or even ignore interactions with nonstate actors and their influence on decisionmaking. Beginning in the 1970s with Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye,7 the growing presence and activities of actors other than states have gradually forced many main- stream IR theorists to pry open the lid on the black box of state-centric theories of international organization. Realists remain unreconstructed in this regard. But with issues as varied as gender and climate change mov- ing into the limelight on the international agenda, largely as a result of efforts by nonstate actors, and despite the recalcitrance of many states and international civil servants, it is imperative to better understand the impact of the third UN.

The First and the Second UN Unsurprisingly, the first UN and the second UN have long provided the prin- cipal grist for analytical mills about the world organization. After all, mem- ber states—51 in June 1945 and 192 today—establish the priorities and pay the bills, more or less, thus determining what the world body does. Inter- national civil servants would not exist without member states, nor could a permanent institution of member states operate without a secretariat.

Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore distinguish five roles for the first UN: “as an agent of great powers doing their bidding; as a mechanism for interstate cooperation; as a governor of international society of states; as a constructor of the social world; and as a legitimation forum.”8 States pur- sue national interests in this arena, which varies from “high politics” in the Security Council to “low politics” in the boards and governing councils of UN funds and specialized agencies. States caucus in regional groups for the General Assembly and in smaller groups for numerous issues. Notions of

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the first UN find a home in virtually all IR theory: for a realist emphasizing self-interested states within an anarchical system; for a liberal institutional- ist looking for a stage where states pursue mutual interests and reduce transaction costs; for a proponent of the English School seeking to foster shared norms and values in an international society; for a constructivist looking for a creative agent for ideational change and identity shaping; and for a pragmatist seeking a place to legitimate specific values and actions.

The second UN is also a distinct sphere, consisting of career and long- serving staff members who are paid through assessed and voluntary con- tributions. This international civil service is a legacy of the League of Nations. Article 101 of the UN Charter calls for a core of officials to tackle international problems. A leading advocate for the second UN was Dag Hammarskjöld. His May 1961 speech at Oxford does not ignore the reality that the international civil service exists to carry out decisions made by states; but it emphasizes that a UN official could and should pledge alle- giance to striving for a larger collective good, rather than defending the interests of the country that issues his or her passport.9 The practice of reserving senior UN positions for former high-level officials approved by their home governments undermines the integrity of secretariats. Moreover, a shadow today hangs over the UN Secretariat as a result of corruption in the Oil-for-Food Programme, sexual exploitation by peacekeepers, and the Staff Council’s vote of no-confidence in the secretary-general in May 2006.

Nonetheless, a basic idealism continues to animate the second UN. The likes of Ralph Bunche and Brian Urquhart indicate that autonomy and in- tegrity are realistic expectations of international civil servants.10 Today’s pro- fessional and support staff number approximately 55,000 in the UN proper and another 20,000 in the specialized agencies. This number excludes tem- porary staff in peace operations (about 100,000 in 2007) and the staff of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group (another 15,000). These figures represent substantial growth from the 500 employees in the UN’s first year at Lake Success and the peak total of 700 staff employed by the League of Nations.11

The second UN does more than simply carry out marching orders from governments. UN officials also present ideas to tackle problems, debate them formally and informally with governments, take initiatives, advocate for change, turn general decisions into specific programs of action, and work for implementation. None of this should surprise. It would be a strange and impotent national civil service whose staff took no initiatives or showed no leadership, simply awaiting instructions from the government in power. The second UN is no different, except that the formal decisionmakers are gov- ernment representatives on boards meeting quarterly, annually, or even bi- ennially. With the exception of the Security Council, decisionmaking and re- sponsibility for implementation in most parts of the UN system, especially

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the development funds and specialized agencies, depend in large part on the executive head or a staff member of the second UN.

What Is the Third UN? From the outset, nonstate actors have been active in UN corridors and field projects. The Charter’s 1945 Preamble opened with a clarion call from “We the Peoples of the United Nations,” when one might have expected “We the Representatives of Sovereign Member States.” Article 71 explicitly made room for NGOs in UN debates. Nonetheless, the extent to which nonstate actors are now routinely part of what passes for “international” relations by “intergovernmental” organizations is striking.

Involvement of NGOs has been a routine part of all UN-sponsored global conferences since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, when the conference secretary-general, Maurice Strong, in- sisted on their presence. NGO parallel meetings, usually called “forums,” have become a prominent fixture of deliberations and have been an impor- tant force in pressing for more forward-looking policies. For the Millennium Summit and the 2005 World Summit, special hearings involving NGOs were organized in advance.

Although the terminology may sound odd, it is appropriate to refer to such networks as a “third United Nations.” Many individuals who have played an essential role in the world organization’s intellectual and norm- building activities were neither government officials nor international civil servants. Moreover, many key contributors to ideas as members of the first and the second UN had significant prior associations with a university, a policy think tank, or an NGO—or joined one after leaving government or UN service. Many individuals have served as members or chairs of inde- pendent panels and commissions that examined emerging problems not yet on the international radar screen. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a prominent example. Many also served as staff or board mem- bers of NGOs, and most have attended ad hoc global conferences that pull together a range of actors on the international stage.

We define the third UN as comprising NGOs, academics, consultants, experts, independent commissions, and other groups of individuals that rou- tinely engage with the first and the second UN and thereby influence UN thinking, policies, priorities, and actions. The key characteristic for this third sphere is its independence from governments and UN secretariats. Thus, leg- islators in Parliamentarians for Global Action as well as local governmental officials in United Cities and Local Governments would be part of the third UN by virtue of their position outside the executive branch of government.

Deciding who is in or out of the third UN depends on the issue and the period in question. But the third UN consists of “outsiders”—that is, persons

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who are not on the regular payroll of a government or a secretariat—who complement the “insiders” of the other two United Nations in collective efforts to generate, debate, implement, and disseminate ideas and programs. That said, the distinction between outsiders and insiders can blur in the case of many prominent individuals who move in and out of institutions through a “revolving door.”

At the same time, it is essential to distinguish persons who are neither government representatives nor international civil servants when they make certain contributions to the UN. Outsiders are often better placed to be more adventuresome and critical. Anyone who has attended a UN-sponsored global conference is quite aware that Secretariat staffers who organize these meetings are joined not only by representatives of governments who make decisions, but also by a legion of NGOs, think tanks, and academics. The Beijing conference on women in 1995 perhaps illustrated this interaction most visibly.12 The same is true of the board meetings of many UN funds, programs, and specialized agencies.

In spite of the Global Compact and other schemes for “corporate social responsibility,” we do not include the for-profit sector in the third UN. The primary focus of business is not on any larger community of interests, but on financial bottom lines. Companies also have relatively little direct in- teraction with the first and the second UN in the context of the organiza- tion’s policy formulation and project execution.13 Business groups that pro- mote fair trade or microcredit, for instance, are better considered as NGOs. The same holds for corporate-centered NGOs such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum.

The mass media that follow UN activities often have an impact on in- ternational thinking and action. However, their primary role as a category of actors in global governance is to report on and not to alter policy. For this reason we do not include media organizations within the third UN. On the other hand, investigative journalists and columnists who are in the opin- ion business can be aptly considered part of the third UN as influential in- dividuals, like scholars and policy analysts.

In brief, then, three main groups of nonofficial actors compose the third UN: nongovernmental organizations; academics and expert consultants; and independent commissions of eminent persons. None of these subgroupings is monolithic. The importance of particular individuals and organizations in multiactor policymaking or project execution varies by issue and over time. Thus “membership” in the third UN is temporary and contingent.

Eight roles played collectively by the first, second, and third UNs can be summarized as: providing a forum for debate; generating ideas and poli- cies; legitimating ideas and policies; advocating for ideas and policies; im- plementing or testing ideas and policies in the field; generating resources to

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pursue ideas and policies; monitoring progress in the march of ideas and the implementation of policies; and occasionally burying ideas and policies. As is elaborated in subsequent sections, the importance of each role and the importance of each of the three UNs in those roles varies depending on how new a particular policy approach is at a given moment, and how much it flies in the face of strong national or regional interests and received wisdom.

Intellectual energies among the three UNs blend. Indeed, there is often synergy. A revolving door turns as academics and national political actors move inside to take staff positions in UN secretariats, or UN staff members leave to join NGOs, universities, or national office and subsequently en- gage from outside, but are informed by experience inside. Primary loyalties to, or location in, one of the three UNs provide strategic and tactical ad- vantages and disadvantages, which give these analytical distinctions their importance.

Nongovernmental Organizations In the last six decades, there has been a dramatic growth in the role and in- fluence of NGOs in UN corridors as elsewhere. The result is a qualitatively different debate than would take place without their inputs. “I think life would be duller without the NGOs, and there would probably be much less point to it also,” said Viru Dayal, the former chef de cabinet of two UN sec- retaries-general. “Besides, civil society knows where the shoe pinches. They know when to laugh and they know when to cry.”14

Most UN global meetings attract NGO participants, and in large num- bers. Usually the scenario does not resemble the Seattle Ministerial Con- ference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 1999, when tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets. In fact, most involvements by the third UN are more peaceful and more supportive of the other two UNs. While estimates vary because of different ways that delegates are counted, the orders of magnitude are striking. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 had some 17,000 nongovernmental participants, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 drew some 32,000 (including 5,000 Chinese), and UNICEF’s World Summit for Children in New York in 1990 stirred over a million people worldwide to join in candlelight vigils.15

Commentators rightly emphasize the last few decades of NGO growth, but the phenomenon has been gaining momentum over two centuries, begin- ning with the antislavery movement late in the eighteenth century.16 Before and during the San Francisco conference in 1945, US-based private actors of the third UN were especially visible, including forty-two consultants officially recognized by Washington, plus some 160 other observers from diverse NGOs, including religious groups.17

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The Cold War slowed the growth of nonstate actor participation in the UN. The communist bloc and many totalitarian developing countries resisted independent and dissident voices. NGOs in such places were essentially an extension of the state and its views, which prompted the ugly acronym GONGO (government-organized NGO). Indeed, there are still so-called NGOs in repressive countries that are anything but nongovernmental. Purists would also point to problems when democratic governments provide sub- stantial funding to NGOs, even if few visible strings are attached. Moisés Naím’s proposal for a credible rating agency to evaluate the backers, inde- pendence, goals, and track records of NGOs is intriguing,18 as is the signa- ture in 2006 of an Accountability Charter by eleven of the world’s leading international NGOs in the fields of human rights, environment, and social development.19 Since the thaw in East-West relations and the changing bal- ance between markets and states, human rights advocates, gender activists, development specialists, and groups of indigenous peoples have become more vocal, operational, and important in contexts that were once thought to be the exclusive prerogatives of states or international secretariats.

Since the 1990s, the sheer growth in NGO numbers has prompted Lester Salamon to discern an “associational revolution” that has been largely driven by communications technology and funding availability.20 The Union of In- ternational Associations currently estimates international NGOs (those operat- ing in more than two countries) to number 25,000.21 Not all of these organi- zations are active in UN matters, but the size of the phenomenon is clear. Much NGO engagement with the first and second UNs occurs at headquar- ters, where some 2,870 NGOs now have “consultative status” and are rou- tinely joined by others without such status. In the field, meanwhile, out- sourcing and subcontracting to members of the third UN also reflect the changing balance between markets and states in global governance. Execut- ing predetermined activities as subcontractors is not the same as shaping policy, but many dual-purpose NGOs use field experience in advocacy and vice versa. In fact, NGOs had already become substantial executors of projects funded by the second UN by the time that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) agreed to more flexible NGO accreditation standards in 1996.

NGOs in the third UN are not always appealing bodies. Much has been made of the ugly elements of local civil society in the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan. NGOs with direct links to the UN also include “nasty” social movements,22 or what Cyril Ritchie has called “criminals, charlatans and narcissists.”23 For instance, the National Rifle Association hardly pursues a human security agenda that most NGOs with consultative status at the UN would support. In humanitarian emergencies, a number of mom-and-pop organizations as well as larger operations proselytize and/or have agendas that reflect the biases of government funders—especially evident in Afghan- istan and Iraq—that are anathema to most NGOs in the third UN. But despite

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such shortcomings in some cases, NGOs have become integral to UN pro- cesses and to global governance more generally.

Academics, Consultants, and Think Tanks The bulk of scholarship about the United Nations and the main substantive issues on the world organization’s agenda emanates from universities, spe- cialist research institutes, and learned societies in North America and West- ern Europe.24 During World War II, the notion that the UN would be a major instrument of Washington’s foreign policy attracted support from US foundations. For example, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace actively followed and promoted research on the new organization by schol- ars and by officials from the League of Nations. Such support has contin- ued in fits and starts since then, including the $1 billion gift from the busi- ness leader Ted Turner in 1997 to create the UN Foundation and Better World Fund. Other external policy research organizations with intimate links to UN affairs include the Stanley Foundation, the International Peace Institute, the Center for International Cooperation, and the Center for Hu- manitarian Dialogue. Two professional associations, the Society for Inter- national Development (founded in 1967) and the Academic Council on the United Nations System (founded in 1987), emerged as part of policy re- search networks focused on the UN and the international system.

“Knowledge networks”25 have become an analytical concern for stu- dents of global governance because they create and transfer knowledge and influence policymakers irrespective of location. These networks often frame debate on a particular issue, provide justifications for alternatives, and cat- alyze national or international coalitions to support chosen policies and ad- vocate change. What Peter Haas called “epistemic communities” influence policy, especially during times of uncertainty and change when the demand for expertise increases.26 Much literature relates to scientific elites with par- ticular expertise in areas such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the environ- ment.27 A related approach to knowledge networks is Peter Hall’s earlier study of the cross-national dissemination of ideas among experts in the postwar period, when Keynesianism spread largely because it “acquired in- fluence over the economic policies of a major power and was exported as that nation acquired increasing hegemony around the world.”28

Three panels of experts in the late 1940s and early 1950s—not then called “knowledge networks”—produced pioneering reports for the United Nations that launched the world organization’s use of external expertise: National and International Measures for Full Employment; Measures for the Economic Development of Under-Developed Countries; and Measures for International Economic Stability.29 These groups permitted the entry of outside expertise—including prescient thinking by such later Nobel laureates

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as W. Arthur Lewis and Theodore W. Schultz—as parts of teams of promi- nent economists from different parts of the world, supported by professionals within the UN Secretariat.

In the 1960s, the Committee for Development Planning (since 1999, “Policy” has replaced “Planning” in the acronym, CDP) was created and initially chaired by Jan Tinbergen, who later won the first Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The CDP usually comprised twenty-four economists, all unpaid and appointed in their personal capacities by the UN secretary- general, without nomination by governments. The CDP met a few times a year to bring external expertise into the UN regarding development and in- ternational economic policy.

A strong ethical dimension was present among such teams—pursuing a world of greater economic and social justice with less poverty and a more equitable income distribution. Nobel economics laureate Lawrence Klein, an eloquent member of the third UN on disarmament and development, ob- served, “I believe that it would be quite valuable if the UN had a better academic world contact.”30 Indeed, the import of new thinking, approaches, and policies from scholars in the third UN remains vital to the world or- ganization, as suggested by recent reports from Jeffrey Sachs and the UN Millennium Project.31

The UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) was the first of a handful of United Nations think tanks, and the core fourteen re- search entities of the UN University (UNU) are now collectively the largest. While the staffs of these units have somewhat more autonomy than most in- ternational civil servants, UNRISD and UNU remain part of the second UN because their research agendas are subject to subtle and not-so-subtle fi- nancial pressure from governments. However, they often provide a back- door channel for external academic and analytical expertise.

Independent Commissions In addition to NGOs and experts, some of the loudest and most challeng- ing voices in the third UN come from “eminent persons.” For example, as part of the lead-up to the UN’s sixtieth anniversary, Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. As part of the follow-up to the September 2005 World Summit, Annan pulled together the High-level Panel on System-wide Coherence in the areas of development, humanitarian aid, and the environment.

This tradition goes back to the late 1960s and the panel, headed by for- mer Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson, that produced Partners in Development (1969). The so-called Pearson Commission was followed by a host of others, including commissions on development issues chaired by for- mer German chancellor Willy Brandt (1980 and 1983); on common security

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by former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme (1982); on environment and development by serving Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundt- land (1987); on humanitarian problems by Iranian and Jordanian princes Sadruddin Aga Khan and Hassan bin Talal (1988); on South-South coop- eration by serving Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere (1990); on global governance by former Swedish prime minister Ingvar Carlsson and the Commonwealth secretary-general Shridath Ramphal (1995); on humani- tarian intervention and state sovereignty by former Australian minister of external affairs Gareth Evans and former Algerian ambassador to the UN Mohamed Sahnoun (2001); on human security by Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen (2003); and on civil society by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (2004). There are also commissions that are recalled more by their sponsors’ names rather than those of their chairs— for example, the Club of Rome (1972) and the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (1997).

This type of expertise—combining knowledge with political punch and access to decisionmakers—has been influential in nourishing ideas. Com- missioners speak in their individual capacities and can move beyond what passes for received wisdom in governments and secretariats. The reports are normally presented to the secretary-general, who can point to multinational composition and a variety of perspectives behind a consensus and thus use the findings and recommendations more easily than ideas emanating from inside the Secretariat, which many governments believe should not go be- yond established intergovernmental positions. Research teams are often led by academics and usually located “outside” the UN but sometimes tem- porarily in the employ of the second UN. The researchers play an important role not only by supporting the commissioners’ deliberations with necessary documentation, but also by providing an entry point for ideas that eventually get carried forward by the commissioners and the published panel reports.

These examples indicate the utility for international deliberations of a mechanism that takes visible individuals who made careers as senior gov- ernmental or intergovernmental officials, or both, but who subsequently—as independent and usually prominent elders—are willing to voice criticisms at higher decibel levels and make more controversial recommendations than when they occupied official positions. These commissions are a key part of the third UN even if they are established and bankrolled by the first or the second UN. They can formulate ideas beyond what passes for political cor- rectness in governments and secretariats.

Interactions Among the Three UNs Understanding the interactions among the three United Nations is crucial in the analysis of global policy processes. It is a difficult task in view of the

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increasing ease of movement by talented people who contribute to UN de- liberations and actions from several vantage points during their careers. In the contemporary world, it is common for leading policy figures to have significant exposure to all three United Nations. For instance, Adebayo Adedeji was a junior academic working on UN issues before becoming a government minister, before taking over as the head of the Economic Com- mission for Africa (ECA), and before setting up his own UN-related NGO in Nigeria after his retirement from the ECA secretariat in Addis Ababa. Bernard Chidzero was about to start as an academic, then became a UN of- ficial, and finally, after Zimbabwe’s independence, became a member of parliament, minister of economic planning and development, and then sen- ior minister of finance. Julia Taft ran the emergency program of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), after having been the CEO of InterAction—a consortium of some 165 US development and humanitar- ian NGOs—while being a member of a UN committee coordinating emer- gency operations, and after having headed the US State Department’s Bu- reau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Boutros Boutros-Ghali earned a reputation as a professor of international law and a government minister in Egypt before spending five years at the helm of the United Nations. He subsequently headed two NGOs in Europe after his failed bid for reelection as the UN’s top civil servant.

Figure 1 depicts the three United Nations as separate circles whose overlaps convey interactive space. This article focuses on where the three come together (D), but also addresses where the third and the second inter- act (C), because these networked spaces have been underexplored in the lit- erature and help explain shifts in ideas, policies, priorities, and practices. The universe of UN activities is illustrated by these interplays in combina- tion with the interactions between the first and the second United Nations (A) as well as between the first and the third (B), spaces that have received more significant scholarly scrutiny. The interactions between governments and secretariats have constituted the bulk of UN studies over the past six decades, while those between governments and nonstate actors have be- come prevalent as an explanation for influencing many international policy outcomes.

In terms of advancing ideas, the most obvious target is the first UN, since member states make policies, sign treaties, deploy soldiers to halt mass murder or keep the peace, and establish priorities and budgets. Ideas can also emanate from visionary individuals within the first UN. Examples in- clude Canadian foreign minister Lester B. Pearson’s call for the first peace- keeping effort in 1956 and the Swedish government’s decision to organize the first ad hoc global conference on the human environment in 1972.

In addition, influential ideas sometimes gravitate from the second UN to the first UN. An intriguing example is the notion of declining terms of

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trade, a thesis formulated by Hans Singer in 1949 at UN headquarters in the Department of Economic Affairs and rapidly further developed and applied by Raúl Prebisch at the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA).32 The two intellectual stalwarts were highly influential members of the second UN who pulled together the initial data and argument. They then publicized the problems created by the tendency of the terms of trade to move against primary commodities, thus creating persistent balance-of- payments problems for poor countries and slowing their economic growth. This argument, radical at the time, framed debates on economic develop- ment for the 1960s and 1970s and led to the establishment in 1964 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

However, this article focuses on the third UN, whose members often launch or doggedly pursue notions about which important players in the first or the second UN are less than enthusiastic. “Sovereignty as responsi- bility,” which Francis M. Deng and Roberta Cohen deftly designed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to help foster international assistance and pro- tection for internally displaced persons (IDPs),33 in turn was made more visible and palatable in 2001 by the report of the International Commission

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Figure 1 Interactions Among the Three United Nations

First UN

Second UN

Third UN

A B

C

D

A International and national civil servants’ interactions B State–civil society interactions C Secretariat–civil society interactions D The networked space within which individuals and private

organizations interact with the first UN and the second UN to influence or advance UN thinking, policies, priorities, or actions

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on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect.34 For decades, few members of the first or the second UN embraced the notion of international responsibility to enforce basic human rights standards because of sacrosanct Article 2 (7) of the Charter. When Secretary-General Kofi Annan dared to speak out in 1998–1999,35 many member states were livid and many staff members were baffled. Nonetheless, this emerging norm figured in the consensus of the 2005 World Summit, where it was one of the few issues on which progress was made.36

In many instances, various constellations of the first, the second, and the third UN constitute a like-minded partnership to move ahead on issues, with or without some member states, including major powers. One promi- nent case was the coming together of like-minded governments, UN offi- cials, analysts, and NGOs in the Ottawa Process, which in 1997 produced the convention banning antipersonnel landmines.37 A similarly diverse co- alition led to the adoption of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court.38

In another variation, members of the second UN may sometimes turn to the third UN to formulate ideas that are controversial but propitious to place on the agenda and pursue when they come from nonstate actors. One of the clearest examples is the idea of “human development,” which UNDP administrator William Draper imported through the work of Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen. The concept has seen continual refinements since the publication of the first Human Development Report in 1990.39 Certainly, some UNDP staff members were keen on the notion, but the technical de- tails were the work of minds outside the Secretariat. These outside-insiders also took the political flack from governments that were irritated with the publicity given to their embarrassing positions in the rankings. Indeed, many governments at first disputed the appropriateness of paying the bill for such research, a complaint arising from disgruntled governments as viewed in the research about international commissions as well.40

A Research Agenda Too little is known about the precise roles and impact of the third UN. In particular, future research should aim to fill three lacunae: mapping net- works; tracing movements of individuals; and measuring relative influence in specific settings.

Mapping Networks The first pressing task is the rather unexciting, though necessary, exercise of systematic data gathering in order to acquire thick descriptions of the loose networks of individuals and groups across the three UNs. Lacking such data, we cannot move beyond black boxes and sweeping generaliza-

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tions as explanations for action or inaction. Anne-Marie Slaughter, for in- stance, has done ground-breaking work in tracking transgovernmental net- works, for which the building blocks are not “states but parts of states: courts, regulator agencies, ministries, legislatures.”41 Other scholars have dissected networks of transnational activists organized to “multiply chan- nels of access to the international system,”42 transnational movements to end the Cold War,43 and knowledge-based networks.44

Multiactor policymaking networks for the United Nations are less pre- cisely defined, which poses a substantial analytical challenge. However, the basic notion that transnational actors contribute to changes in thinking and policy is similar to that put forward by Slaughter. As such, social network analysis holds the promise of better being able to capture complex relation- ships among the three UNs.45 This research method focuses on the patterns of interactions among actors rather than on the attributes of individual units. Some networks have informal, decentralized, and horizontal relationships, while others have a more hierarchical organization. There is little defini- tional consensus about networks, given wide variations in structures. How- ever, network analysts do agree that, regardless of the type of structure, the nodes (or actors) in these networks are interdependent. They are therefore “not seen as acting in isolation, but within complex linkages with other ac- tors that influence decision making.”46

Social network analysis potentially can help explain which portions of which networks are more important than others under specified circum- stances. Key individuals are so embedded in diplomatic, policy, research, and other social networks that separating them for analytical purposes is ex- tremely challenging, but nonetheless it is a critical part of the contemporary puzzle of international cooperation and global governance. The next step is to move the discussion beyond which nonstate actors matter toward deter- mining more precisely how each matters in the UN’s policy-shaping process.

Tracing Individuals’ Trajectories The second research area involves mapping the movements of key individ- uals who are active in UN policymaking. In view of the increasing ease of movement by policy professionals, a proposition to be tested is that promi- nent individuals may be more influential, internationally or nationally, be- cause of their firsthand exposure to a wide variety of institutions. Many in- dividuals are, in effect, “cross-dressers” whose membership at any moment in one of the three UNs reflects the extent to which they are embedded in larger social networks.

As Barnett and Finnemore observe, “Many UN staff and field personnel have varied careers and move back and forth between UN appointments, jobs within their own governments at home, and positions in the private sector, universities, and NGOs.” They go on to note that work by sociologists,

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anthropologists, and scholars of organizational behavior indicates that such backgrounds are important in explaining flows of information and individ- ual behavior. “Good network analysis and good ethnographic work on the UN would contribute greatly to our understanding of its behavior.”47 While privacy legislation applying to personnel files may be an obstacle to ob- taining relevant data, a pertinent research task is to track career movements and to explore whether exposure to the culture of an international secre- tariat, for instance, is an asset in career development in government or NGO service, and vice versa.

Weighing Influence Distinguishing forums for state decisionmaking, international secretariats, and the outside-insiders are essential to determine which UN is behind which policy or action, and to what extent they are responsible for desirable outcomes to be emulated or for undesirable results to be avoided. Analysts of global governance are obliged to design better empirical indicators to move beyond the adage that success has numerous parents, but failure is an orphan.

States rarely are willing to blame themselves for breakdowns in inter- national order and society; and UN secretariats often indiscriminately fault governments for their lack of political will. The first UN has a convenient scapegoat in the second UN, and vice versa. Sometimes the third UN adds to this confusion, blaming or praising the world organization in general. But in other cases—say, the influence of the Bretton Woods institutions on structural adjustment policy or the slowness of developed country govern- ments to finance debt relief—members of the third UN have pointed fingers with more precision and effect.

Agency is crucial, but students of global governance know too little about the relative influences of the actors in what Conor Cruise O’Brien aptly called the “sacred drama” of the United Nations.48 The stage with Claude’s two United Nations has, over the last six decades, become in- creasingly crowded with other actors who play more than bit parts. States are still on the marquee, and national interests have not receded as the basis for decisionmaking; and international secretariats still largely serve these state masters but with margins for independence and maneuver. And there is substantial evidence that the third UN is increasingly salient—sometimes in the wings or dressing room, sometimes in the limelight. Hence, numer- ous individuals and institutions that are neither states nor their creation in the form of intergovernmental bureaucracies contribute to and circumscribe virtually every deliberation, decision, and operation by either of the other two UNs.

Deciphering what Robert Cox and Harold Jacobson long ago called “the anatomy of influence”49 requires identifying the strengths and weaknesses

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of a seemingly ever growing number of actors. A third research task in- volves identifying better criteria to measure which actors have contributed to “success” and which to “failure” within the United Nations. And a com- parable research task for global governance would apply to other intergov- ernmental arenas—for example the “third EU” and the “third OECD.”

Conclusion A special section of the journal Foreign Policy in fall 2002 was titled, “What Is the International Community?”50 The lead-in quipped, “Invoking the in- ternational community is a lot easier than defining it.” It no longer makes sense to use the term restrictively to states alone, because nonstate charac- ters are playing essential roles with respect to virtually every global chal- lenge to human survival and dignity. International lawyers conceive of the international community narrowly in terms of “peace-loving states”—that is, euphemistically, the first UN. Other observers employ the concept more ex- pansively and also include the creations of states in the form of intergovern- mental secretariats—that is, the second UN. Still other commentators also embrace nonstate actors operating internationally—that is, the third UN.

We hazard a step in this wider direction by beginning to parse the con- temporary international community in terms of interactions among three United Nations. Filling the glaring gaps in global governance51 leads us to urge that “the UN”—first, second, and third—continue to pool energies and make maximum use of its comparative advantages.

The value of the third UN, in practice as well as in theory, is clear. States and intergovernmental organizations cannot adequately address threats to human security. Whether the UN is seen as a convener, a norm entrepre- neur, or an operator, we the peoples require all the helping hands we can get—and many of those are toiling in the third United Nations. c

Notes Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, and codirector of the UN Intellectual History Project (UNIHP). Tatiana Carayannis is associate director at the Social Science Research Council and, until recently, UNIHP’s research manager. Richard Jolly is honorary professor at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and codirector of UNIHP.

1. Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, and Thomas G. Weiss, The Power of UN Ideas: Lessons from the First Sixty Years, available along with other information at www.unhistory.org. See also Robert J. Berg, “The UN Intellectual History Project,” Global Governance 12, no. 4 (2006): 325–341. For the capstone book in the series, see Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, and Thomas G. Weiss, UN Ideas That Changed the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming 2009).

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2. Inis L. Claude Jr., Swords Into Plowshares: The Problems and Prospects of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1956); Inis L. Claude Jr., “Peace and Security: Prospective Roles for the Two United Nations,” Global Gov- ernance 2, no. 3 (1996): 289–298.

3. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Robert C. Cox, The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).

4. Barry Carin, Richard Higgott, Jan Aart Scholte, Gordon Smith, and Diane Stone, “Global Governance: Looking Ahead,” Global Governance 12, no. 1 (2006): 1–6. Other authors have begun to speak of “new multilateralism”: Michael G. Schechter, ed., Innovation in Multilateralism (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999); “complex multilateralism”: Robert O’Brien, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte, and Marc Williams, Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); “polylateralism”: Geoffrey Wiseman, “‘Polylateralism’ and New Modes of Global Dialogue,” Discussion Paper No. 59 (Leicester: Leicester Diplomatic Stud- ies Programme, 1999); and “plurilateralism”: Philip G. Cerny, “Plurilateralism: Structural Differentiation and Functional Conflict in the Post–Cold War World Order,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 22, no. 1 (1993): 27–51.

5. Thomas G. Weiss and Leon Gordenker, eds., NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996); Peter Willetts, ed., The “Conscience” of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN System (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1996); Bob Deacon, Global Social Policy and Governance (London: Sage, 2007); Jan Aart Scholte, Civil Society Voices and the International Monetary Fund (Ottawa: North-South Institute, 2002).

6. Wolfgang R. Reinicke, Global Public Policy: Governing Without Govern- ment? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998); Wolfgang R. Reinicke, Fran- cis Deng, Thorsten Benner, and Jan Martin Witte, Critical Choices: The United Na- tions, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance (Ottawa: IDRC Publishers, 2000). Jan Aart Scholte has suggested that it may be more useful to distinguish be- tween “conformist,” “rejectionist,” “reformist,” and “transformist” orientations rather than focus on sectors, in Democratizing the Global Economy: The Role of Civil So- ciety (Coventry: Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, 2004).

7. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).

8. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “Political Approaches,” in Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws, eds., The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (Ox- ford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 42.

9. Dag Hammarskjöld, “The International Civil Servant in Law and in Fact,” reprinted by permission of Clarendon Press, Oxford, quotes at pp. 329 and 349.

10. Thomas G. Weiss, Tatiana Carayannis, Louis Emmerij, and Richard Jolly, UN Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005). See also The Complete Oral History Transcripts from UN Voices, CD-ROM (New York: United Nations Intellectual History Project, 2007).

11. Thant Myint-U and Amy Scott, The UN Secretariat: A Brief History (1945– 2006) (New York: International Peace Academy, 2007), pp. 126–128.

12. Devaki Jain, Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).

13. John G. Ruggie, “global_governance.net: The Global Compact as Learning Network,” Global Governance 7, no. 4 (2001): 371–378. See also Tagi Sagafi-nejad,

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in collaboration with John Dunning, The UN and Transnational Corporations: From Code of Conduct to Global Compact (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

14. Weiss et al., UN Voices, p. 387. 15. UNRISD, UN World Summits and Civil Society Engagement, UNRISD

Research and Policy Brief 6 (Geneva: UNRISD, 2007), p. 2. See also Michael G. Schechter, United Nations Global Conferences (London: Routledge, 2005).

16. Steve Charnowitz, “Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance,” Michigan Journal of International Law 18, no. 2 (1997): 183–286.

17. Stephen Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Boulder: Westview, 2003), p. 122.

18. Moisés Naím, “Democracy’s Dangerous Impostors,” Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2007.

19. “INGO Accountability Charter,” available at www.ingoaccountabilitycharter .org.

20. Lester M. Salamon et al., Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 1999).

21. Union of International Associations, “International Organizations by Type (Table 1),” in Yearbook of International Organizations, available at www.uia.org// uiastats/stbv196.htm.

22. Peter Waterman, “Global Civil Society: A Concept Worth Defining; A Ter- rain Worth Disputing,” available at www.nigd.org/docs/GlobalCivilSocietyPeter WatermanNovember2005.

23. “Overview by Cyril Ritchie, Secretary of CONGO,” available at www.ngo congo.org/index.php?what=doc&id=1121.

24. W. Andy Knight, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Thomas G. Weiss, “Swan Song,” Global Governance 11, no. 4 (2005): 527–535; Leon Gordenker and Christer Jöns- son, “Knowledge,” in The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, pp. 82–94.

25. Diane Stone, Global Knowledge Networks and International Development (London: Routledge, 2005); Janice Gross Stein, Richard Stren, Joy Fitzgibbon, and Melissa MacLean, Networks of Knowledge: Collaborative Innovation in Inter- national Learning (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).

26. Emanuel Adler and Peter M. Haas, “Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992): 367–390.

27. For example, Leon Gordenker, Roger A. Coate, Christer Jönsson, and Peter Söderholm, International Cooperation in Response to AIDS (London: Pinter, 1995); Peter M. Haas, Robert O. Keohane, and Marc A. Levy, eds., Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).

28. Peter A. Hall, “Introduction,” in Peter A. Hall, ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynsianism Across Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 26.

29. Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly, and Thomas G. Weiss, Ahead of the Curve? UN Ideas and Global Challenges (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 26–42.

30. Weiss et al., UN Voices, p. 373. 31. Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium De-

velopment Goals, and ten reports from thematic task forces, available at www.un millenniumproject.org.

32. John Toye and Richard Toye, The UN and Global Political Economy: Trade, Finance, and Development (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 110–136.

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33. Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng, Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998); Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng, eds., The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Inter- nally Displaced (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998).

34. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Re- sponsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001).

35. Kofi A. Annan, The Question of Intervention: Statements by the Secretary- General of the United Nations (New York: United Nations, 2000).

36. Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action (Cambridge: Polity, 2007).

37. Don Hubert, The Landmine Ban: A Case Study in Humanitarian Advocacy (Providence, RI: Watson Institute, 2000), Occasional Paper No. 42; Richard Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Landmines,” Inter- national Organization 52, no. 3 (1998): 613–644; Motoko Mekata, “Building Part- nerships Toward a Common Goal: Experiences of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines,” in Ann M. Florini, ed., The Third Force: The Rise of Transna- tional Civil Society (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 2000), pp. 143–176.

38. Fanny Benedetti and John L. Washburn, “Drafting the International Crimi- nal Court Treaty,” Global Governance 5, no. 1 (1999): 1–38.

39. Craig N. Murphy, The United Nations Development Programme: A Better Way? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 232–262.

40. Ramesh Thakur, Andrew F. Cooper, and John English, International Com- missions and the Power of Ideas (Tokyo: UN University Press, 2005).

41. Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 5.

42. Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Without Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 1.

43. Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

44. Stein et al., Networks of Knowledge, p. 2. 45. Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods

and Applications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 46. Tatiana Carayannis, “The Complex Wars of the Congo: Towards a New An-

alytic Approach,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 38, no. 2–3 (2003): 236. 47. Barnett and Finnemore, “Political Approaches,” p. 54. 48. Conor Cruise O’Brien, United Nations: Sacred Drama (London: Hutchinson

& Company, 1968). 49. Robert W. Cox and Harold K. Jacobson, eds., The Anatomy of Influence: De-

cision Making in International Organization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).

50. Foreign Policy, no. 132 (September–October 2002): 28–46. 51. Ramesh Thakur and Thomas G. Weiss, The UN and Global Governance: An

Unfinished Journey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

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