CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Polgár, Péter |
|---|---|
| Title | Explaining Outcomes of Reform Proposals in the UN Security Council: A Neorealist Approach |
| Summary | The composition of the UN Security Council reflects the distribution of power in 1945. There were many attempts in the history of the UN to change the working methods and extend the membership of the Council. The only successful reform occurred in the 1960s and after that all the reform proposals failed. This topic is not entirely explored by IR theories and I claim that neorealism is the most relevant choice to explain the outcomes of different reform processes. The change in the distribution of power is important, but the change in the interest of great powers and groups of states had the greatest impact on the outcomes of reform proposals. I show causal explanations through process tracing between events in the three historical cases of reform endeavors (1963–1965, 1990s and 2003–2005) in order to show the relevance of neorealism and map out the answers to the research question: what are the causes, factors and circumstances that led to failure or success of a reform attempt in the Security Council? Many UN member states started to use representation as power when they formed large groups around their common interest. I conclude that institutional change in the Council is more likely to occur, when the interest of great powers and/or the interest of large groups of states change. |
| Supervisor | Jenne, Erin Kristin |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/polgar_peter.pdf |
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