Rosemary Righter examines the UN's future place in a world of tumultuous political and technological change, presenting an anatomy of the complex tangle of global organizations that has evolved since 1946, and of their struggle to adapt. She argues that the ideals and cooperative purposes the UN stands for retain their resonance, and that powerful governments are now readier, in principle, to turn to it. But they will continue to do so only where, and if, it matches the needs of a new and more active era of multilateral diplomacy. Righter examines every aspect of the UN: the hopes and contradictions built into its Charter, the unreality which has come to permeate what passes for debate there, the legacy of ideological confrontation, and the tides of reforming zeal that, almost since its inception, have washed over it and left almost no trace.
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Supplier : ADCO International, Glendale, NY; Price : $ 29.95; recd 06/07/95; Contents : Foreword; Preface; Introduction - The United Nations at the Watershed : Foreground; The Perspective; An Enterprise in Question; A Changing Debate; Part 1 - The Layout of the Labyrinth : 1. Utopia Invented; Wartime Beginnings; Collective Security; "A Layer of Peaceful Life"; More than the Sum of Its Member States; 2. Boxes of Tricks : The UN Machine; The Consequences of Polycentrism; The Myth of "The UN System"; Chasing the Development Dollar; Dealing with the Consequences; 3. The Politics of Illusion; Halls of Mirrors; The Impact of New States; The Fiction of "Nonintervention"; Rhetoric and Rights; Illusions of Control; Part II - The Webs of Ideology : 4. "New Orders" : The Politics of Confrontation; Myth and Identity; The Third World Invents Itself; The Radicalization of the Agenda; "New Orders" as Declaratory Politics; The Power of Incantation; 5. The Western Dilemma; Western Misgivings; Ideas, Bread, and Colonial Guilt; The Art of the Possible; "No Instructions, No Policy"; Part III - From Reform to Revolt : 6. Tinkering with Utopia; "Everything has been tried"; Shutting the Stable Door; Design for Development : The "Capacity Study"; Political Fictions : "Restructuring"; Efficiency Is Not Enough; The View from Within; Impasse; 7. Multilateralism for the Marketplace; Experimental Institutions; The Turbulent 1970s; Problems of "Adjustment"; Fire Engine and Hydrant; 8. The Challenge from Washington; The New American Agenda; A Special Relationship; Style and Substance; The Washington Tea Party; Playing the Game; Part IV - Beyond Utopia : 9. Ways Ahead : The Options; Points of Departure; Opting Out; Structural Reform; Fac?ade Management; Selective Action; The Options in Context; 10. The Discriminating Buyer's UN; The Uses of Leverage; Transforming Development; Shaking Out the Bureaucracy; Humanitarian Challenges; Citizen's Causes; 11. Another "New World Order"?; "The Scourge of War"; The Wind from the East; Under the UN Umbrella; A "Common Power to Keep Men in Awe"; 12. An Improbable Phoenix; Security's Novel Dimensions; Global Stabilizers; The Shifting Paradigm; Notes; Index; About the Author;.
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-399) and index.