Hostname: page-component-cd4964975-96cn4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2023-03-29T15:11:37.008Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": false } hasContentIssue true
  • English

The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2005

Erik Voeten
Erik Voeten
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., voeten@gwu.edu
Get access

Abstract

Since, at least, the Persian Gulf War, states have behaved “as if” it is costly to be unsuccessful in acquiring the legitimacy the UN Security Council confers on uses of force. This observation is puzzling for theories that seek the origins of modern institutional legitimacy in legalities or moral values. I argue that when governments and citizens look for an authority to legitimize the use of force, they generally do not seek an independent judgment on the appropriateness of an intervention but political reassurance about the consequences of proposed military adventures. Council decisions legitimize or delegitimize uses of force in the sense that they form widely accepted political judgments on whether uses of force transgress a limit that should be defended. These judgments become focal points in the collaboration and coordination dilemmas states face in enforcing limits to U.S. power while preserving mutually beneficial cooperation. In this article, I discuss the implications for the Council's legitimacy and theories of international legitimacy.Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2003 International Studies Association Conference, Portland, Ore., 1 March; the 2003 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 29 August; Columbia University International Politics Series, New York, 29 September 2003; and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, 6 October 2003. I thank the participants in these seminars, the editor, and anonymous referees of International Organization; and I also thank Bob Axelrod, Bruce Cronin, Michael Dark, Monica Duffy Toft, Nisha Fazal, Jim Fearon, Martha Finnemore, Page Fortna, Stacy Goddard, Macartan Humphries, Ian Hurd, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Andrew Kydd, Edward Miller, Katia Papagianni, Rita Parhad, Holger Schmidt, Arturo Sotomayor, and Joel Westra for useful comments, suggestions, and corrections. As usual, remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 527 - 557
Copyright
© 2005 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, Kenneth, and Duncan Snidal. 1998. Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (1):3–32.Google Scholar
Alvarez, Jose E. 1995. The Once and Future Security Council. The Washington Quarterly (Spring): 3–20.Google Scholar
Andeweg, Rudy B. 2000. Consociational Democracy. Annual Review of Political Science 3:509–36.Google Scholar
Bailey, Sidney D., and Sam Daws. 1998. The Procedure of the UN Security Council. 3d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Baker, James A. III 1995. The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989–1992. New York: Putnam's Sons.
Barnett, Michael N. 1997. Bringing in the New World Order: Liberalism, Legitimacy, and the United Nations. World Politics 49 (4):526–51.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael N., and Martha Finnemore. 1999. The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations. International Organization 53 (4):699–732.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Joseph Lepgold. 1993. Reinventing Collective Security after the Cold War and the Gulf Conflict. Political Science Quarterly 108 (2):213–237.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, Joseph Lepgold, and Danny Unger. 1994. Burden-Sharing in the Persian Gulf War. International Organization 48 (1):39–75.Google Scholar
Blokker, Niels. 2000. Is the Authorization Authorized? Powers and Practice of the UN Security Council to Authorize the Use of Force by ‘Coalitions of the Able and Willing.’ European Journal of International Law 11 (3):541–68.Google Scholar
Bobrow, Davis B., and Mark A. Boyer. 1997. Maintaining System Stability: Contributions to Peacekeeping Operations. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (6):723–48.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Allen, and Robert O. Keohane. 2004. The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal. Ethics and International Affairs 18 (1):1–23.Google Scholar
Burley, Anne-Marie, and Walter Mattli. 1993. Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration. International Organization 47 (1):41–76.Google Scholar
Caron, David C. 1993. The Legitimacy of the Collective Authority of the Security Council. American Journal of International Law 87 (4):552–88.Google Scholar
Christopher, Warren. 1998. In the Stream of History: Shaping Foreign Policy for a New Era. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Claude, Inis L. 1964. Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization. 3d ed. New York: Random House.
Claude, Inis L. 1966. Collective Legitimation as a Political Function of the United Nations. International Organization 20 (3):367–79.Google Scholar
Coleman, Katharina P. 2004. States, International Organizations, and Legitimacy: The Role of International Organizations in Contemporary Peace Enforcement Operations. Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.
Daalder, Ivo H., and Michael E. O'Hanlon. 2000. Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Downs, George, and Keisuke Iida, eds. 1994. Collective Security Beyond the Cold War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Doyle, Michael W., and Nicholas Sambanis. 2000. International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis, American Political Science Review 94 (4):779–801.Google Scholar
Drezner, Daniel. 2003. Clubs, Neighborhoods, and Universes: The Governance of Global Finance. Unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago, Chicago.
Faksh, Mahmud A., and Ramzi F. Faris. 1993. The Saudi Conundrum: Squaring the Security-Stability Circle. Third World Quarterly 14 (2):277–94.Google Scholar
Farer, Tom. 2002. Beyond the Charter Frame: Unilateralism or Condominium Frame? American Journal of International Law 96 (2):359–64.Google Scholar
Franck, Thomas M. 1990. The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Franck, Thomas M. 1999. Sidelined in Kosovo? The United Nation's Demise Has Been Exaggerated. Foreign Affairs 78 (4):116–18.Google Scholar
Franck, Thomas M. 2001. Terrorism and the Right of Self-Defense. American Journal of International Law 95 (4):839–43.Google Scholar
Fravel, Taylor M. 1996. China's Attitude Toward U.N. Peacekeeping Operations Since 1989. Asian Survey 36 (11):1102–21.Google Scholar
Frederking, Brian. 2003. Constructing Post–Cold War Collective Security American Political Science Review 97 (3):363–78.Google Scholar
Freedman, Lawrence, and Efraim Karsh. 1993. The Gulf Conflict, 1990–91: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Garrett, Geoffrey, and Barry Weingast. 1993. Ideas, Interests and Institutions: Constructing the European Community's Internal Market. In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, edited by Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, 173–206. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
German Marshall Fund and Compagnia di San Paolo. 2003. Transatlantic Trends 2003. Washington, D.C.: German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Gibson, James L. 1989. Understandings of Justice: Institutional Legitimacy, Procedural Justice and Political Tolerance. Law and Society Review 23 (3):469–96.Google Scholar
Glennon, Michael J. 1999. The New Interventionism. Foreign Affairs 78 (3):2–7.Google Scholar
Glennon, Michael J. 2001. Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power: Intervention After Kosovo. New York: Palgrave.
Glennon, Michael J. 2003. Why the Security Council Failed. Foreign Affairs 82 (3):16–35.Google Scholar
Gordon, Ruth. 1994. United Nations Intervention in Internal Conflicts: Iraq, Somalia, and Beyond. Michigan Journal of International Law 15(2):519–89.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner, and David Laitin. 2004. A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change. American Political Science Review 98 (4):633–52.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner, Paul Milgrom, and Barry R. Weingast. 1994. Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild. Journal of Political Economy 102 (4):745–76.Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B. 1983. Regime Decay: Conflict Management and International Organizations, 1945–1981. International Organization 37 (2):189–256.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hoffmann, Stanley. 1998. World Disorders: Troubled Peace in the Post–Cold War Era. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Holsti, Ole. 2004. Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hurd, Ian. 1997. Security Council Reform: Informal Membership and Practice. In The Once and Future Security Council, edited by Bruce Russett and Ian Hurd, 135–52, New York: St. Martin's Press.
Hurd, Ian. 1999. Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics. International Organization 53 (2):379–408.Google Scholar
Hurd, Ian. 2002. Legitimacy, Power, and the Symbolic Life of the UN Security Council. Global Governance 8 (1):35–51.Google Scholar
Hurd, Ian. 2003. Stayin' Alive: The Rumours of the UN's Death Have Been Exaggerated: Too Legit to Quit. Foreign Affairs 82 (4):204–5.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, John. 2001. After Victory. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Jakobsen, Peter Viggo. 2002. The Transformation of United Nations Peace Operations in the 1990s. Cooperation and Conflict 37 (3):267–82.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1985. From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation. World Politics 38 (1):58–79.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Ian. 2003. Security Council Deliberations: The Power of the Better Argument. European Journal of International Law 14 (3):437–80.Google Scholar
Kelemen, R. Daniel. 2001. The Limits of Judicial Power: Trade-Environment Disputes in the GATT/WTO and the EU Comparative Political Studies 34 (6):622–50.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye Jr. 2001. Democracy, Accountability, and Global Governance. Politics Research Group Working Paper 01–04. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University.
Khanna, Jyoti, Todd Sandler, and Hirofumi Shimizu. 1998. Sharing the Financial Burden for U.N. and NATO Peacekeeping, 1976–1996. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (2):176–95.Google Scholar
Khong, Yuen Foong. 1992. Analogies at War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Kirgis, Frederic L. 1995. The Security Council's First Fifty Years. The American Journal of International Law 89 (3):506–39.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1982. Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables. International Organization 36 (2):185–205.Google Scholar
Krauthammer, Charles. 1990/1991. The Unipolar Moment. Foreign Affairs 70 (1):5–12.Google Scholar
Krishnasamy, Kabilan. 2003. The Paradox of India's Peacekeeping. Contemporary South Asia 12 (2):263–64.Google Scholar
Kull, Steven. 2002. Public Attitudes Towards Multilateralism. In Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, 99–120. London: Lynne Rienner.
Lefever, Ernest W. 1993. Reining in the U.N.: Mistaking the Instrument for the Actor. Foreign Affairs 72 (3):17–20.Google Scholar
Lesch, Ann M. 1991. Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crisis: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Middle East Journal 45 (1):30–50.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1969. Convention, A Philosophical Study. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Lijphart, Arend. 1969. Consociational Democracy. World Politics 21 (2):207–25.Google Scholar
Luck, Edward C. 2002. The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy. In: Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, 47–74, London: Lynne Rienner.
Luck, Edward C. 2003. Reforming the United Nations: Lessons from a History in Progress. International Relations Studies and the United Nations Occasional Paper 2003:1. Waterloo, Canada: Academic Council on the United Nations System.
Malone, David M. 1998. Decision-Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti, 1990–1997. New York: Oxford University Press.
Martin, Lisa L. 1992. Interests, Power, and Multilateralism. International Organization 46 (4):765–92.Google Scholar
Martin, Lisa L. 2003. Distribution, Information, and Delegation to International Organizations: The Case of IMF Conditionality. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Morgenthau, Hans. 1954. The United Nations and the Revision of the Charter. Review of Politics 16 (1):3–21.Google Scholar
Morrow, James D. 1994. Modeling the Forms of International Cooperation: Distribution Versus Information. International Organization 48 (3):387–423.Google Scholar
Murphy, John F. 1997. Force and Arms. In The United Nations and International Law, edited by Christopher C. Joyner, 97–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nielson, Daniel, and Michael Tierney. 2003. Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform. International Organization 57 (2):241–76.Google Scholar
Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). 2003a. PIPA Knowledge Networks Poll: Americans on Iraq and the UN Inspections I, 21–26 January 2003.
PIPA. 2003b. PIPA Knowledge Networks Poll: Americans on Iraq and the UN Inspections II, 21 February 2003.
Risse, Thomas. 2000. “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics. International Organization 54 (1):1–40.Google Scholar
Rosecrance, Richard. 1992. A New Concert of Powers. Foreign Affairs 71 (2):64–82.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1993. Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution. In Multilateralism Matters, edited by John G. Ruggie, 3–48. New York: Columbia University Press.
Russett, Bruce, and James Sutterlin. 1991. The UN in a New World Order. Foreign Affairs 70 (2):69–83.Google Scholar
Rustow, Dankwart. 1970. Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model. Comparative Politics 2 (3):337–63.Google Scholar
Sandholtz, Wayne, and Alec Stone Sweet. 2004. Law, Politics and International Governance In The Politics of International Law, edited by Christian Reus-Smit, 238–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schachter, Oscar. 1989. Self-Defense and the Rule of Law. American Journal of International Law 83(2):259–77.Google Scholar
Schmitz, Hans Peter, and Kathryn Sikkink. 2002. International Human Rights. In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse-Kappen, and Beth A. Simmons, 517–37, London: Sage Publications.
Shimizu, Hirofumi, and Todd Sandler. 2002. Peacekeeping and Burden-Sharing, 1994–2000. Journal of Peace Research 39 (6):651–68.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1995. International Law in a World of Liberal States. The European Journal of International Law 6 (4):503–38.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2003. Misreading the Record. Foreign Affairs 82 (4):202–4.Google Scholar
Thompson, Alexander. 2004. Understanding IO Legitimation. Unpublished paper, Ohio State University, Columbus.
Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Urquhart, Brian. 1991. Learning from the Gulf. New York Review of Books 38 (5):34–37.Google Scholar
Voeten, Erik. 2001. Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action. American Political Science Review 95 (4):845–58.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. The Types of Legitimate Domination. In Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, 212–301. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weingast, Barry. 1997. The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law. American Political Science Review 91 (2):245–63.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry, and William J. Marshall. 1988. The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets. Journal of Political Economy 96 (1):132–63.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wood, Michael. 1996. Security Council Working Methods and Procedure: Recent Developments. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 45 (1):150–61.Google Scholar
Woods, Ngaire. 1999. Good Governance in International Organizations. Global Governance 5 (1):39–61.Google Scholar
Young, H. Peyton. 1993. The Evolution of Conventions. Econometrica 61 (1):57–84.Google Scholar