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A Changing United Nations: Multilateral Evolution and the Quest for Global Governance. By W. Andy Knight. New York: Palgrave, 2000. 257p. $65.00.
Andy Knight examines the prospects for United Nations refrm in the post-Cold War era, offering both historical context as well as speculation about how conducive the contemporary international system is to building a nextgeneration global organization in the foreseeable future. This useful study, which seeks to blend a theoretical discussion with prescription, starts with a survey of the literature and competing perspectives on UN reform as well as a conceptual treatment of institutional change. It then traces the evolution of the UN, how it has responded to changes in its environment, and the many failed efforts at UN reform. Finally, Knight suggests a new governance model as the basis for a rejuvenated UN.
The author "tries to understand the UN's place in the broader history of multilateral evolution, how the UN system has changed, and why" (p. 11). Although he nicely captures the "institutional foundations" in 1945 (p. 65) and summarizes the key developments since, it is hard to improve on the work of many who have traveled this path, notably Inis Claude (Swords into Plowshares, 4th ed., 1984, and "The Record of International Organizations in the Twentieth Century," Tamkang Chair Lecture Series, 1986). The most original aspect of the book is the conceptual treatment of organizational change processes and how these relate to the problem of global governance, that is, the analysis of the pressures being felt by the UN, as a sovereignty-based interstate organization, to adapt to a world being buffeted by both centrifugal...