Politics and Process at the United Nations: The Global Dance

How does the United Nations actually work? How does it reconcile the diverse interests of 191 sovereign member states—plus those of the multinational corporations that lobby it, the numerous NGOs with which it interacts, and the enormous international secretariat that services it—in the search for effective solutions to the myriad problems it confronts daily? Politics and Process at the United Nations answers these questions, providing a vivid picture of the dynamic interaction between actors and institutional structures. Drawing readers into the "global dance" that takes place at UN headquarters, Courtney Smith introduces the various members of the troupe and explains the procedures and processes that make up the movements of the dance. He also addresses an often neglected core issue: do UN decisions really matter? The result is an unusual book, valuable both for scholars and for students in UN and IO courses.