Deliberative Diplomacy: The Nordic Approach to Global Governance and Societal Representation at the United Nations

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DELIBERATIVE DIPLOMACY : THE NORDIC APPROACH TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND SOCIETAL

REPRESENTATION AT THE UNITED NATIONS

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS STUDIES SERIES

Series Editor

Patrick James

University of Southern California

Editorial Board

Mark Theodore Berger, Naval Postgraduate School Annette Freyberg-Inan, University of Amsterdam Ewan Harrison, Washington University, St. Louis

Axel Huelsemeyer, Concordia University Steven Lamy, University of Southern California

Stephen M. Seideman, McGill University

V OLUME 11

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DELIBERATIVE DIPLOMACY :

THE NORDIC APPROACH TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND SOCIETAL

REPRESENTATION AT THE UNITED NATIONS

by Norbert Götz

DORDRECHT

2011

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Cover Design / Illustration: studio Thorsten / The Royal Library Copenhagen

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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ISSN 1570-6451

hardbound ISBN 9789089790583

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PREFACE

This study is the product of historical and political interest in the peculiarities of Northern Europe and the United Nations, as well as a belief in democracy and the need to find timely global solutions to current problems. It was begun at the University of Greifswald, continued at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and concluded at the University of Helsinki. The manuscript was finalised at Södertörn University. The Danish Institute for International Studies and the University of Oslo hosted me as a guest researcher.

The book has benefited from all of these scholarly environments.

Among the numerous individuals and colleagues to whom I am indebted, two stand out: Jens E. Olesen and Henrik Stenius whose support and friendship were crucial for writing this book. I would also like to express my gratitude to Tomas Ries, Pertti Joenniemi, and Helge Pharo for their generous hospitality. The chapters on Finland could not have been written were it not for the committed assistance of Tiina Saksman-Harb. A key passage from Icelandic was kindly translated by Hartmut Mittelstädt. The continual encouragement of my long-time mentors Bernd Henningsen and Heinrich August Winkler has meant much to me. Jens E. Olesen, Thorsten B. Olesen, Reinhard Wolf and an anonymous reviewer have commented insightfully on earlier versions of the manuscript. Henrik Stenius and my friends at the EINO-seminar at the Centre for Nordic Studies, University of Helsinki, have discussed several draft chapters and been a source of inspiration.

Apart from my employers in Germany and Finland, funding for the research and writing of this study was mainly provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The Wenner-Gren Foundations and the Norwegian–German Willy Brandt Foundation also offered benefits and financial support. My host institutions all graciously waived overhead charges, thereby enabling me to conduct research that would otherwise not have been possible. I feel privileged to have been able to work at a point in time when academic institutions still felt they were able to afford the luxury of non-paying guest researchers.

Friends and family had direct influence on this study; it was in a conversation with the late Alfred Maria Polczyk that the idea of writing about the Nordic countries in the United Nations first emerged. Alexandra Widl, Christa Götz, Hans Norbert Götz, and Volkmar Götz provided significant support under extraordinary circumstances. Other friends and family were always there for me. Finally, the research and writing of this book were made delightfully more complicated and enjoyable by the

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presence of Linus, Joella, and Philine. The greatest ‘thank you’ of all goes to Alexandra – for sharing her life with me, despite this book.

Stockholm and Helsinki, March 2010 Norbert Götz

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: Peoples representation in Scandinavian UN delegations

Figure 2: Swedish delegation to the UN General Assembly, 20 October 1949

Table 1: Women in selected delegations to the General Assembly (by percentage)

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

~ Probably, approximately

AGMA Alva and Gunnar Myrdal’s Archive BOA Bertil Ohlin’s Archive

BPCAH Brage Press Cutting Archive, Helsinki

CAMDUN Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations

CM Cabinet meetings

D.C. District of Columbia

EC European Community

ECA Ernst Christiansen’s Archive

ECOSOC Economic and Social Council (United Nations)

EO Embassy Oslo

ES Embassy Stockholm

EU European Union

EW Embassy Washington

FA Foreign Affairs

FM Foreign Ministry

FMAH Foreign Ministry Archives, Helsinki FMAO Foreign Ministry Archives, Oslo FMAS Foreign Ministry Archives, Stockholm FS Filing system of

GA General Assembly

GGC Georg A. Gripenberg’s Collection HLA Halvard Lange’s Archive

ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ILO International Labour Organisation

INFUSA International Network for a UN Second Assembly INGO(s) International non-governmental organisation(s) IO(s) International organisation(s)

IPU Inter-parliamentary Union KHC Kerstin Hesselgren’s Collection KNA Konrad Nordahl’s Archive LPA Labour Party Archives LPG Liberal Party Group

LMAC Labour Movement Archives, Copenhagen LMAO Labour Movement Archives, Oslo

LMAS Labour Movement Archives, Stockholm M.P.(s) Member(s) of Parliament

MS Manuscripts’ Section NAC National Archives, Copenhagen

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NAH National Archives, Helsinki NAO National Archives, Oslo NAS National Archives, Stockholm NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGO(s) Non-governmental organisation(s) NLS National Library, Stockholm

N.S. New Series

PLO Palestine Liberation Organisation PM Permanent mission to the United Nations PMO Prime Minister’s Office

REC Ralph Enckell’s Collection

SCAH Swedish Central Archives, Helsinki SDPG Social Democratic Party Group

SG Secretary General

SPP Swedish People’s Party (of Finland)

UK United Kingdom

ULA Ulla Lindström’s Archive ULG University Library, Gothenburg UN(O) United Nations (Organisation) UNA United Nations Association

UNCIO United Nations Conference on International Organization (1945)

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

UNIO United Nations Information Office

UNITAR United Nations Institute for Training and Research UNPA United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (suggested) UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration US(A) United States of America

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WAWF World Association of World Federalists WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions WHC Women’s History Collections WTUC World Trade Union Conference

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Die UNO zeigt der Weltöffentlichkeit doch mehr als die Diplomatie

der einzelnen Staaten.

Ein Organ der Menschheit – und sei es noch so miserabel –

zeigt sich der Menschheit¹

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1 Karl Jaspers. Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen: Politisches Bewußtsein in unserer Zeit. Munich: Piper, 1958. 218. In the American edition of the book, this sentence was translated as: “The UN shows us more than the diplomacy of its members. An organ of mankind, however wretched, appears to mankind” (Karl Jaspers. The Atom Bomb and the Future of Man. Chicago: University Press, 1984. 157).

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1. INTRODUCTION

THE PROBLEM

“Everyone’s a delegate”, declared the television and billboard ads promoting the 2005 United Nations World Summit.¹ The publicity campaign surrounding the descent of UN representatives from all over the world on New York City tried to make the disruptions occasioned by the event more palatable to residents and visitors alike. The idea was to convince everyone of the Summit’s relevance and create a feeling of personal involvement with the UN agenda. Signs on busses and subways announced, “We apologize for causing traffic gridlock, but hopefully we’ll break through a little political gridlock.” Posters at airports and in railway stations, speaking more to the spirit of the campaign, showed an average white male or black female behind nameplates reading ‘Pete Jones’ or

‘Michele Johnson’ surrounded by suit-clad officials behind similar nameplates inscribed ‘Liechtenstein’ or ‘Iceland’.²

The micro states and small states identified on these last advertisements seemed to speak with greater reserve of the intention of the campaign: upgrading ‘Everyone’ to delegate status at the United Nations was not necessarily meant to represent empowerment. The campaign’s internet home page toned down the rhetoric considerably. Instead of suggesting that the public be given direct influence, the appeal here was lower key: “We need you: to be aware and to support our efforts. […]

Many ordinary people come to the UN to get involved in issues.” The intention was clearly to channel people into NGOs and youth organisations, while disseminating information supportive of the UN’s activities.³

It is no secret that the 2005 summit was a highly profiled yet largely unsuccessful attempt by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to leave his mark on the world body by forcing through a comprehensive reform agenda before his retirement. However, only a small number of Annan’s suggestions were actually adopted.⁴ What he did manage to have passed

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1 Available at <http://www.un.org/summit/>. Accessed 25 March 2010.

2 Available at <http://www.un.org/summit/adcampaign.html>. Accessed 25 March 2010.

3 Available at <http://www.un.org/summit/everybody.html>. Accessed 25 March 2010.

4 Thomas Fues. “Die aktuellen Reformbestrebungen der Vereinten Nationen: Implikationen für eine repräsentative Gestaltung der Weltpolitik.” ‘Wir, die Völker (…)’ – Strukturwandel in der Weltorganisation: Konferenzband aus Anlass des 60-jährigen Bestehens der Vereinten Nationen vom 27.–28. Oktober 2005 in Dresden. Sabine von Schorlemer (ed.).

Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2006. 169–179, at 169.

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was his proposal to open the United Nations not only to “States” (with a capital S), but also to civil society. Annan succeeded in this by calling on the General Assembly to act on the recommendations of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations – Civil Society Relations (the Cardoso Report) and on his own reserved comments to the report.⁵ The Cardoso Report, which bore the title We the Peoples, referred to the opening phrase of the Charter of the United Nations, the main symbolic point of reference for all attempts to make the world organisation more democratic (although it may be noted that the peoples is not the same as saying the people).⁶ The report applied the term ‘civil society’ in an unusually broad manner which subsumed parliaments as well. Its proposal that member states more regularly include parliamentarians in their UN delegations was among the suggestions endorsed by Annan (although in very general terms).

Other sections of the report also encouraged governments to include representatives of civil society in delegations to United Nations forums.⁷ In addition, it contained a large number of suggestions meant to intensify UN relations with organisations in civil society as well as parliaments in order to enhance democratic global governance.

The only mention of civil society and parliaments in the ‘outcome’

document of the summit were two short references that may have been mandatory in light of contemporary discourse on global governance. In the section “Strengthening the United Nations”, the document referred to

“Participation of local authorities, the private sector and civil society, including non-governmental organizations” and to “Cooperation between the United Nations and parliaments”. As is evident from the titles of these sub-sections, the notion of interaction with civil society was somewhat more inclusive than with parliaments. Whereas parliaments were merely called on to help with the implementation of United Nations policies, the

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5 Kofi Annan. In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All. A/59/2005. New York: United Nations, 2005. 39, 41.

6 Cf. James Bohman. Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.

7 We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance: Report of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations. A/58/817. New York:

United Nations, 2004. 48, 70; with regard to Annan’s endorsement: Kofi Annan. Report of the Secretary-General in Response to the Report of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations. A/59/354. New York: United Nations, 2004. 5; cf. in general: Helmut Volger. “Mehr Partizipation nicht erwünscht. Der Bericht des Cardoso- Panels über die Reform der Beziehungen zwischen den Vereinten Nationen und der Zivilgesellschaft.” Vereinte Nationen 53 (2005) 1: 12–18. In the context of the present study it is worth noting that Birgitta Dahl of Sweden figured as one of the co-authors of the Cardoso Report (named after the Brazilian politician Fernando Henrique Cardoso).

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document welcomed the contributions of civil society for the promotion and enactment of overarching programmes.⁸

Nonetheless, the position assigned to civil society and its representatives in the world summit outcome document does not go much further than that assigned to parliaments or parliamentarians. In both instances the paper fails to even approach what one might expect from discourse on global governance, cosmopolitan democracy, and non-state actors in international affairs.⁹ The current discourse on the reconfiguration of democracy at the global level is fed by the observation of empirical phenomena and normative claims. For example, students of diplomacy have noted that governments find it useful to send representatives of civil society to international conferences as advisers and are doing so more frequently.¹⁰ At the same time, the call for a more representative United Nations with improved conditions for the inclusion of civil society and parliamentarians is apparent.¹¹

There is a widespread notion of global civil society as a transforming force “something like a world proletariat in civvies”.¹² The establishment or enhancement of a parliamentary dimension is en vogue in international relations – as an artefact of an intergovernmental world’s contested conceptualisation of parliamentarians belonging to ‘civil society’, as a coherent balancing force against the growing influence of unelected interest group-driven ad hoc democratisation in global politics, and for intrinsic reasons.¹³ Observers of what is perhaps the central question in contemporary world politics, the much-discussed ‘democratic deficit’ in

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8 2005 World Summit Outcome. A/RES/60/1. New York: United Nations, 2005. 37–38; cf.

on the conceptual history of the term ‘non-governmental organisations’: Norbert Götz.

“Reframing NGOs: The Identity of an International Relations Non-Starter.” European Journal of International Relations 14 (2008a) 2: 231–258.

9 The discourse took off with a number of publications in the mid-1990s, see: Commission on Global Governance. Our Global Neighbourhood. Oxford: University Press, 1995;

Daniele Archibugi and David Held (eds). Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order. Cambridge: Polity, 1995; Peter Willetts (ed.). ‘The Conscience of the World’:

The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN System. London: Hurst, 1996;

see also: Daniele Archibugi (ed.). Debating Cosmopolitics. London: Verso, 2003.

10 Richard Langhorne. “Current Developments in Diplomacy: Who Are the Diplomats Now?” Diplomacy and Statecraft 8 (1997) 2: 1–15, at 12.

11 To give just one representative example: Lloyd Axworthy. “United Nations.” The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. Joel Krieger (ed.). 2^nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 868–870, at 870.

12 John Keane. Global Civil Society? Cambridge: University Press, 2003. 65.

13 With regard to the balancing of interest groups: Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss.

“Toward Global Parliament.” Foreign Affairs 80 (2001) 1: 212–220.

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international relations,¹⁴ view parliamentarians as directly embodying the legitimising power of the people. Whereas notions of the necessity of democratising foreign policy and introducing ‘parliamentary diplomacy’

(as exercised by parliamentarians) date back to the time of the First World War and the peace movement of the late nineteenth century, the widespread perception that globalisation has accelerated since the end of the Cold War appears to incite urgency. At the same time, organs known as models for the exercise of ‘parliamentary diplomacy’ (in the sense of diplomats’

adoption of parliamentary methods), particularly the Assembly of the League of Nations and the UN General Assembly, have always retained the connotation of a ‘parliament of man’, despite their undisputed intergovernmental character.¹⁵ In this sense it is almost taken for granted that improved democratic global governance must assign a leading role to the United Nations.¹⁶

Ideas of a world forum representative of the people are as old as the United Nations itself and the world organisations established in the twentieth century. They can be traced at least as far back as the seventeenth-century Czech pedagogue Jan Amos Komenský (Johann Amos Comenius) whose ideas on universal reform included the establishment of a universal assembly (concilium oecumenicum) of philosophers, theologians and politicians convening periodically at alternating sites on the four continents known at the time.¹⁷ Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson was among many authors who expressed similar ideas in the nineteenth century.

Tennyson’s literary vision was embodied in the inspiring and much-quoted phrase “the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world”.¹⁸ US President Harry S. Truman, instant heir of the United Nations Organisation after the death of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1945, is said to have

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14 Cf. Andrew Moravcsik. “Is there a ‘Democratic Deficit’ in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis.” Government and Opposition 39 (2004): 336–363, at 336.

15 Cf. Norbert Götz. “On the Origins of ‘Parliamentary Diplomacy’: Scandinavian ‘Bloc Politics’ and Delegation Policy in the League of Nations.” Cooperation and Conflict 40 (2005a) 3: 263–279.

16 Cf. Daniele Archibugi. “From the United Nations to Cosmopolitan Democracy.”

Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order. Daniele Archibugi and David Held (eds). Cambridge: Polity, 1995. 121–162, at 122.

17 Johann Amos Comenius. De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica, vol.

2: Pampaediam, Panglottiam, Panorthosiam, Pannuthesiam necnon Lexicon reale pansophicum continens. Prague: Czechoslovakian Academy of Science, 1966. A history of subsequent ideas of a world parliament is provided by Claudia Kissling. “Repräsentativ- parlamentarische Entwürfe globaler Demokratiegestaltung im Laufe der Zeit: Eine rechtspolitische Ideengeschichte.” Forum historiae iuris 9 (2005). Available at

<http://fhi.rg.mpg.de/articles/0502kissling.htm>. Accessed 25 March 2010.

18 Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall.” Poems, vol. 1. London: Moxon, 1842.

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kept a clipping of these lines in his wallet for years.¹⁹ Albert Einstein endorsed the idea of the UN General Assembly being “composed of men and women who are responsible not to national governments but only to the people who elect them”.²⁰ There have been Scandinavian contributions to this discourse, too.²¹

After 1982, the International Network for a UN Second Assembly (INFUSA), whose activities continued in the following under the name Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN), pushed the issue of a consultative parliamentary body operating under authority of the General Assembly.²² However, observers noted that CAMDUN had yet to gain acceptance by the time the campaign lost its momentum in the mid- 1990s.²³ Similar proposals for a global parliament were advocated by the world federalist movement and a number of allied authors.²⁴ In recent times, the Committee for a Democratic UN (Komitee für eine demokratische UNO), based in Germany, has been the most active proponent of augmenting the United Nations with a parliamentary body. In April 2007 the Committee was the main force behind the ongoing international Campaign for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations (UNPA).²⁵ Promoting the idea that “Everyone’s a delegate” has been a more academic project. Two Swiss economists have recently suggested representative citizens (trustees) be appointed by means of ‘random selection’.²⁶

Despite such attempts and a modest breakthrough for non- governmental organisations at the United Nations in the mid-1990s as well as the increasingly close cooperation of the United Nations with the Inter- parliamentary Union (IPU) since that time, the atmosphere of departure that

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19 Paul M. Kennedy. The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations. New York: Random House, 2006. ix.

20 Albert Einstein. Einstein On Peace. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. 416.

21 E.g. Torbjörn Tännsjö. Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government.

Edinburgh: University Press, 2008. 95–99.

22 Cf. Frank Barnaby (ed.). Building a More Democratic United Nations: Proceedings of CAMDUN 1. London: Cass, 1991.

23 A.J.R. Groom and Paul Taylor. “The United Kingdom and the United Nations.” The United Nations System: The Policies of Member States. Chadwick F. Alger, Gene M. Lyons and John E. Trent (eds). Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995. 367–409, at 406.

24 Cf. Saul H. Mendlovitz and Barbara Walker (eds). A Reader on Second Assembly and Parliamentary Proposals. Wayne: Center for UN Reform Education, 2003.

25 The campaign website is at <http://www.unpacampaign.org>. Accessed 25 March 2010;

cf. Andreas Bummel. Developing International Democracy: For a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations. Nauheim: Committee for a Democratic U.N., 2005.

26 Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer. “Strengthening the Citizens’ Role in International Organizations.” Review of International Organizations 1 (2006) 1: 27–43.

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characterised the tenure of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has given way to stagnation.²⁷ The alignment of the United Nations with the Inter-parliamentary Union might be interpreted as a fig leaf that is a noncommittal substitute for the development of a genuine parliamentary dimension within the United Nations system. The following conjecture by Finnish politician Kimmo Kiljunen addresses a topic that must be confronted, in one way or another, by all international organisations:

What has gotten into the leaders of international organisations? Why are they vying with each other in their eagerness to attach parliamentary bodies to their organisations? Are they hoping parliamentarians will give them a shield against demonstrators hurling rotten tomatoes and administering cream pies?²⁸

To place this utterance in a global perspective, would parliamentarians, or

‘the people’, be an appropriate shield for international organisations against terrorists and suicide bombers?

In the outcome paper for the 2005 world summit, parliaments and civil society associations were not treated better than ‘Everyone’ in the accompanying public relations campaign; in other words, they were viewed as tools of the United Nations. However, unlike ‘Everyone’ as depicted in the campaign, they were not even pictured at the conference table. With regard to its organisation and procedure, the 2005 summit has been characterised as a low point in relations between the United Nations and civil society.²⁹ Similarly, the suggested collaboration between the United Nations and parliaments has been described as reasonable but missing the point of the quest for democratisation of the United Nations.³⁰ Nothing of significance relative to the status of non-governmental organisations or

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27 Cf. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. An Agenda for Democratization. New York: United Nations, 1996; with regard to NGOs: Götz 2008a; with regard to the IPU: Claudia Kissling. Die Interparlamentarische Union im Wandel: Rechtspolitische Ansätze einer repräsentativ- parlamentarischen Gestaltung der Weltpolitik. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2006.

28 Kimmo Kiljunen. “Global Governance and Parliamentary Influence.” Helsinki: Helsinki Process, 2004. Available at

http://www.helsinkiprocess.fi/netcomm/ImgLib/24/89/hp_track1_kiljunen.pdf. Accessed 25 March 2010.

29 Jens Martens. “Zukunftsperspektiven der Mitwirkung von Nichtregierungsorganisationen in den Vereinten Nationen nach dem Weltgipfel 2005.” ‘Wir, die Völker (…)’ – Strukturwandel in der Weltorganisation: Konferenzband aus Anlass des 60-jährigen Bestehens der Vereinten Nationen vom 27.–28. Oktober 2005 in Dresden. Sabine von Schorlemer (ed.). Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2006. 53–67, at 60.

30 Christian Much. “Revitalisierung der UN-Generalversammlung: Die unendliche Geschichte.” Die Reform der Vereinten Nationen: Bilanz und Perspektiven. Johannes Varwick and Andreas Zimmermann (eds). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2006. 85–99.

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parliamentarians has happened since then. The observation by Harold Nicolson in his classical study on diplomacy published seventy years ago remains valid today: “Democratic diplomacy has not as yet discovered its own formula.”³¹

The concept of democracy was not always viewed with the positive connotations it bears today. In classical Greek political philosophy, democratic government was mainly associated with irresponsibility and incompetence. Despite a minority of more optimistic voices, democratic government was believed to fall short of the essential utilitarian goals of the political community. In an odd way this school of thought, which denies the feasibility of rule by the common people,³² continues in the field of international relations today. As demonstrated by the so-called incompatibility hypothesis, democracy is not generally regarded as an asset to international affairs. Alexis de Tocqueville, the most prominent observer of democracy in the first half of the nineteenth century, was convinced that democracies were inferior to other governments in their conduct of foreign policy.³³ A logical extention of this thought was the realist approach, the dominant international relations theory of the Cold War era. It assumed that democratic principles did not apply to the handling of international affairs.³⁴ Although there has recently been a strong tendency to consider democracy a product suited for export, it is questionable whether decision making in this regard has been based on good democratic practice and whether the results achieved have been favourable or counterproductive. In effect, the question of how compatible democracy and foreign policy are remains.

The answer to such a question cannot be adjudicated here, although the empirical evidence presented may be interpreted in terms of the incompatibility hypothesis. It may here suffice to point to the historical dynamics of democracy as a force altering the conditions for legitimate

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31 Harold Nicolson. Diplomacy. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1939. 101.

32 Cf. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought. Princeton: University Press, 1994; A. H. M. Jones. “The Athenian Democracy and Its Critics.” Athenian Democracy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1957[1953]. 41–72; Christian Maier et al. “Demokratie.” Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch- sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 1: A–D. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds). Stuttgart: Klett, 1972. 821–899.

33 Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Garden City: Anchor, 1969. 228.

34 Cf. Philip Everts. “Democracy and Foreign Policy: The Incompatibility Thesis Revisited.”

The Role of the Nation-State in the 21^st Century: Human Rights, International Organisations, and Foreign Policy: Essays in Honour of Peter Baehr. Monique Castermans-Holleman, Fried van Hoof and Jacqueline Smith (eds). The Hague: Kluwer, 1998. 411–425, at 411.

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action. As suggested by Volker Rittberger in an article calling for a more inclusive United Nations, the lack of response to the Cardoso report does not alter the need for the world organisation to confront societal transnational politics in order to adequately deal with the challenges of the future.³⁵

Democracy has been a challenge for the past 250 years as it has spread from groups of privileged white males in Western societies to all adults in countries around the world. Nonetheless, it may be premature to imagine global democracy by analogy to nation-state voter democracy.

Such a concept would presuppose the establishment of a supranational global authority – a world state.³⁶ Yet, in addition to being far in advance of what would seem feasible in view of the current state of the world, a close analogy might not even be desirable. Immanuel Kant, one of the most distinguished proponents of the idea of a world state, did not actually propose that sovereignty be transferred from world confederates to a world republic; he advocated the idea of a “negative surrogate” for such a republic, namely, a confederation or league. This was partly due to his belief that a world state would not be endorsed by the peoples of the Earth – likely a paraphrase of his own concern for the potentially totalising effect of such a superstructure. Moreover, Kant’s confidence in reason and civil society and what is today called ‘democratic peace’ led him to favour the less demanding model of a league, despite his awareness that this enhanced the risk for hostilities.³⁷

Jürgen Habermas has broken down the Kantian project into two antagonistic paradigms. By distinguishing between genuine Eurofederalist and cosmopolitan views that regard a federated Europe as the starting point for more ambitious goals, Habermas seeks to harmonise these views by framing the former within the latter’s project. This results in the manageable proportion of “a transnational network of regimes that can pursue something akin to a global domestic politics, even without a world

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35 Volker Rittberger. “Der Wandel im internationalen System und die Tendenz zu inklusiveren Vereinten Nationen.” ‘Wir, die Völker (…)’ – Strukturwandel in der Weltorganisation: Konferenzband aus Anlass des 60-jährigen Bestehens der Vereinten Nationen vom 27.–28. Oktober 2005 in Dresden. Sabine von Schorlemer (ed.).

Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2006. 133–146, at 145.

36 Cf. on this idea: Barbara Walker (ed.). Uniting the Peoples and Nations: Readings in World Federalism. New York: World Federalist Movement, 1993.

37 Immanuel Kant. Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Königsberg:

Nicolovius, 1795. 35–38; cf. on Kant’s concerns: Jürgen Habermas. “Does the Constitutionalization of International Law Still Have a Chance?” The Divided West.

Cambridge: Polity, 2006[2004]. 115–193, at 125–126.

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government”.³⁸ This ambiguity is the intellectual outcome of Habermas’

universalist disposition, on the one hand, and his preoccupation with the public sphere, on the other hand, which require “‘thick’ communicative embeddedness” and give rise to the “troubling question of whether democratic opinion- and will-formation could ever achieve a binding force that extends beyond the level of the nation-state”.³⁹ In this context, even Europe presents a difficult objective – a global public sphere is almost beyond comprehension. Thus, in addition to pragmatic concerns, there are substantial theoretical reasons for framing the issue of global democracy – not in analogy to nation-state majority democracy, but as a question of establishing an “international negotiation democracy”.⁴⁰ For this reason, a deliberative understanding of democracy is particularly fitting for global governance, which characteristically lacks competitive elections and a transnational public sphere.⁴¹

A discussion of the incompatibility hypothesis or the notion of enhancing democracy by way of foreign policy would require a study of rhetoric, aid, pressure, and war, as well as a comparative analysis of why in some instances ‘democracy’ matters to ‘democracies’ and not in others or why ‘democracies’ might even outrightly oppose some democratically- elected regimes. It might also be linked to the idea of a democratically derived foreign or international policy mentioned above. The normative frame of reference in this study is one that presents democracy as an intrinsic value that cannot be compromised in principle. At the same time, the theoretical framework is primarily constructivist, questioning any claim of ahistorical truths. Although this approach may at first glance seem contradictory, as soon as democracy is accepted as a voluntarily chosen principle (rather than as a ‘truth’), the two-fold outlook employed here will be seen as compatible. Hence, the issue is not whether democracy and foreign policy are compatible, but how attempts to align democracy and

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38 Jürgen Habermas. “Euroskepticism, Market Europe, or a Europe of (World) Citizens?”

Time of Transitions. Cambridge: Polity, 2006. 73–88, at 85; cf. Jürgen Habermas. “The Postnational Constellation and the Future of Democracy.” The Postnational Constellation:

Political Essays. Oxford: Polity, 2001. 58–112, at 89–90.

39 Habermas 2001: 109 (first quote); Jürgen Habermas. “The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship.” The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998a. 105–127, at 127 (second quote); among the Nordic peoples, the question posed by Habermas has troubled particularly Norwegian observers, e.g. Øyvind Østerud. “Rokkan mot Habermas.” Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (2003) 2:

152–160.

40 Cf. Klaus Dieter Wolf. Die UNO: Geschichte, Aufgaben, Perspektiven. München: Beck, 2005. 117.

41 Patrizia Nanz, and Jens Steffek. “Global Governance, Participation and the Public Sphere.” Government and Opposition 39 (2004): 314–335, at 318.

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foreign policy might appear, and how democracy might function in foreign affairs and international relations.

No ideal solution to this question can be expected. Instead, one must reckon with a set of historically contingent answers that depend on time and place. In what follows, some such attempts to associate democracy and foreign policy will be reconstructed and analysed in detail.

The present study employs a historical perspective on the various practises applied by the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (collectively known as Norden) in composing their delegations to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The empirical focus will be on the years 1945 to 1975, or what the French call Les Trente Glorieuses.

WHY DO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND NORDEN MATTER?

Why study delegations sent by the five Nordic countries to the General Assembly to understand the democratic conduct of international affairs and global governance? Although the General Assembly and the Nordic states are separate issues, an empirical link exists between them. Renowned International Relations⁴² scholar Robert Keohane once wrote an article entitled “Who Cares About the General Assembly?” and produced complex data meant to help provide an answer. In the end, however, he refraind from making a serious attempt to interpret it. Nonetheless, Keohane did establish that Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were among those who cared most about the General Assembly, and maintained this corresponded to the common sense observation that these countries exerted a certain leadership role at the United Nations. Hence, both statistical and hermeneutic evidence for a particular link of the General Assembly and Nordic politics exists.⁴³ In another article, Keohane observed that the moral authority of the Scandinavian states enabled them to be among those commanding a measure of influence in the General Assembly.⁴⁴

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42 Here the convention is followed to use capital letters for the scholarly discipline of International Relations.

43 Robert O. Keohane, “Who Cares About the General Assembly?” International Organization 23 (1969a) 1: 141–149, at 146, 149; cf. Ole Elgström. Aktiv utrikespolitik: En jämförelse mellan svensk och dansk parlamentarisk utrikesdebatt 1962–1978. Lund:

Studentlitteratur, 1982. 90, 98; it is worth noting that Canadians at the United Nations used to call themselves “displaced Scandinavians” (Andrew Boyd. United Nations: Piety, Myth, and Truth. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964[1962]. 81).

44 Robert O. Keohane. “The Study of Political Influence in the General Assembly.”

International Organization 21 (1967): 221–237, at 222.

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Similarly, Nordic self-understanding points to a special link between the Nordic countries and the General Assembly which, due to their infrequent membership in the Security Council, remains their main forum at the United Nations. Such a self-conception was also expressed by another quantifying political scientist, who noted “a strong identification with the United Nations in the Nordic countries is a fact which need not be proved.”⁴⁵ From the perspective of one of the countries involved, it might even seem that “a type of a personal union” between Sweden, the other Scandinavian countries and the United Nations existed.⁴⁶ This theory calls to mind the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953 to 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld, and could similarly be applied to his predecessor, Trygve Lie of Norway (1946 to 1953). In Denmark and Finland, Hammarskjöld was ‘adopted’ as ‘Scandinavian’ and, thus, as one of their

‘own’.⁴⁷ However, as indicated by current Swedish and Norwegian rhetoric that portrays each country as the “best friend” of the United Nations, the spiritual union between the Nordic countries and the world organisation – not the personal factor – is and has been decisive.⁴⁸ Their own self- understanding classifies the people from the Nordic countries as “genuine multilateralists” and, thus, as decisively interested in the General Assembly and the United Nations.⁴⁹

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45 Kurt Jacobsen. The Nordic Countries in the United Nations: A Quantitative Analysis of Roll-call Votes Cast in the General Assembly. Oslo: Institute of Political Science, 1967a.

17–18.

46 Gunnar Romdahl. “Swedish Foreign Policy 1945–1961 [1961?].” NAS, BOA, F, vol. 35.

See appendix on abbreviations for the basic meaning of the archival codes.

47 Cf. “Saaromsröstningen och FN-dagen.” Hufvudstadsbladet (23 October 1955); Hermond Lannung. “‘Stor-Skandinavien’ i FN. ” Fremtiden 14 (1959) 1: 13–16. On Hammarskjöld see also Brian Urquhart. Hammarskjold. New York: Knopf, 1972.

48 Swedish Under-Secretary of State Hans Dahlgren at the hearing “Seminarium inför FN:s 60:e generalförsamling: Ett nytt FN och en bättre värld står på dagordningen”. Stockholm, Riksdagens andrakammarsal, 6 September 2005; Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson:

“Statsministerns information till riksdagen den 21 september 2005 om FN:s högnivåmöte den 14–16 september.” Available at

<http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/05/03/59/53fdebf8.pdf>. Accessed 25 March 2010;

Secretary-General of the Swedish UN Association Bonian Golmohammadi according to:

Lars-Olof Lundberg. Bilder av Sverige i utlandet: En studie om förändringar, nuläge och mätmetoder. Stockholm: Utrikesdepartementet, 2005. 54; Norwegian Prime Minister: Jens Stoltenberg. “Øyeblikkets givervilje.” Dagsavisen (3 June 2006); Norwegian Foreign Minister: Jonas Gahr Støre. “Derfor trenger vi FN.” Aftenposten (7 September 2006 ). All translations from Scandinavian languages into English are the author’s, the exceptions being translations from Finnish, which have been made with the assistance of Tiina Saksman- Harb, and from Icelandic, with the help of Hartmut Mittelstädt.

49 Quote: “FN – på terskelen til et nyt århundre: Om reform av De forente nasjoner.”

Stortings forhandlinger (1996/1997) St. meld nr 43: 39. An impressive proof of the stated multilateralist orientation of Nordic countries has been delivered by a study counting the (continued)

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Nevertheless, the fact that Scandinavians care about the General Assembly and the United Nations and that they exert a certain influence therein fails to answer the question of whether the General Assembly matters or not. Rather, according to the Charter of the United Nations, the status of the General Assembly is secondary to that of the Security Council.⁵⁰ Moreover, since 1991 the ongoing discussion over what has become (in official United Nations terminology) the agenda point of

‘revitalization’ of the General Assembly makes evident that not all has been well with that organ for a long time.⁵¹ The term ‘revitalisation’ can be seen as a euphemism because it implies the restoration of a previous vigour.

However, apart from the special configuration that prevailed in the early 1950s at the time of the Korean War, it would be difficult to find historical examples to justify attributing to the General Assembly dynamic qualities that the ‘revitalisation discourse’ purports to celebrate, namely, ‘strength’,

‘effectiveness’, and ‘action-orientation’.⁵² It is worth recalling what Edward Stettinius, US Secretary of State at the time of the drafting conference of the United Nations Charter, reported to President Truman. Stettinius made it clear that the United Nations Organisation was not a super-state, nor was the General Assembly a legislative body in the usual sense of the term.

Instead, he described the General Assembly as a deliberative body having the authority to discuss any subject within the scope of the Charter.⁵³ Hence, if the General Assembly carries any weight, it is not based on ‘hard power’. Rather, it functions as “a talking shop, with all the potentialities

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number of membership of countries in international governmental organisations. Among the 26 countries in the survey, Denmark ranked first with 164 memberships, Norway third with 154 memberships, Sweden fourth with 153 memberships, Finland sixth with 139 memberships, and Iceland fifteeth with 105 memberships. France ranked second, the United Kingdom fifth, the Federal Republic of Germany seventh, and the USA eleventh (Harold K.Jacobson, William M. Reisinger and Todd Mathers. “National Entanglements in International Governmental Organizations.” American Political Science Review 80 (1986):

141–159, at 149).

50 E.g. Bengt Broms. The United Nations. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1990. 155;

Gunnar Hägglöf. Fredens vägar 1945–1950. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1973. 121.

51 Cf. Much 2006; the first resolution of the General Assembly applying the ‘revitalisation discourse’, which had earlier been reserved for the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), was: “46/77. Revitalization of the Work of the General Assembly.” Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the General Assembly During Its Session 46 (1991): 30.

52 Norbert Götz. “Sechzig Jahre und kein bisschen weise: Die Vereinten Nationen in der postnationalen Konstellation.” Neue Politische Literatur 52 (2007) 1: 37–55, at 45; cf. on the attributes of ‘revitalisation’: Revitalization of the Work of the General Assembly: Note by the President of the General Assembly. A/57/861. New York: United Nations, 2003. 1.

53 Edward R. Stettinius. Charter of the United Nations: Report to the President on the Results of the San Francisco Conference. Washington: Government, 1945. 55 (emphasis in the original).

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and disabilities that that implies”.⁵⁴ Because this description corresponds with the overall image of the United Nations, it preempts a separate discussion on whether the world organisation as a whole matters in the first place.

What, then, is the significance of the General Assembly as forum for discussion? First, as suggested earlier, it is relevant in discourses and in current United Nations non-decision making in terms of situating global governance in civil society, parliamentary models, and democratic ideals. It was the General Assembly that adopted the lackluster 2005 World Summit Outcome. More importantly, with the institutionalised principle of ‘one state – one vote’ the General Assembly is frequently conceived of as “the most democratic of all the instruments of the United Nations”, or even as

“the people’s organ” (perhaps more accurately ‘the peoples’ organ’).⁵⁵ It is frequently envisioned as at least as close to the ‘parliament of man’ as one can find in the world of today.⁵⁶ Most post-Second World War notions of a

‘parliament of man’ with greater scope than merely representing governments refer explicitly to the General Assembly, proposing either its redesign or augmentation.⁵⁷ Likewise, the General Assembly is the most prominent forum cited in discussions about the strengthening of bonds between the United Nations system and civil society.⁵⁸ Whereas the United Nations Economic and Social Council remains for the time being the primary point of contact with civil society, the United Nations as a whole functions as the “coordinator of public and private efforts in weaving a worldwide web of interdependence”.⁵⁹

Second, the General Assembly is frequently regarded as the principal organ of the United Nations. In addition to the view that the General Assembly comes closest of any organisation to the idea of a ‘world

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54 Herbert G. Nicholas. The United Nations as a Political Institution. 3^rd ed. Oxford:

University Press, 1967[1959]. 101.

55 Herbert Evatt. “The General Assembly.” Peace on Earth. New York: Hermitage, 1949.

27–45, at 27.

56 Heikki Patomäki, and Teivo Tivainen. Global Democracy Initiatives: The Art of Possible.

Helsinki: Network Institute for Global Democratization, 2002. 36.

57 Cf. David Held. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity, 1995. 273.

58 E.g. Bertram Pickard. The Greater United Nations: An Essay Concerning the Place and Significance of International Non-governmental Organizations. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1956. 74; Dianne Otto. “Nongovernmental Organizations in the United Nations System: The Emerging Role of International Civil Society.” Human Rights Quarterly 18 (1996) 1: 107–141, at 120.

59 Pei-heng Chiang. Non-Governmental Organizations at the United Nations: Identity, Role, and Function. New York: Praeger, 1981. 276.

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parliament’,⁶⁰ we encounter a more elaborate version of an argument equating a “quasi-governmental organization” like the United Nations with what John Stuart Mill once remarked about representative government: if the character of a representative government is fixed by the constitution of the popular House, it is the General Assembly that resembles the ‘popular House’.⁶¹ This “quasi-parliament” of the world is crucial in helping create

“some level of common discourse” with global outreach.⁶² Among the more detailed elements that underline the significance of the General Assembly within the United Nations system are the universality of its membership, the wide scope of its agenda, the supervisory role it carries vis-à-vis other organs, its budgetary powers, and the continuing attendance of high-ranking statesmen.⁶³ This argument is derived solely from characteristics of the General Assembly and does not refer to the far- reaching blockade that largely paralysed the Security Council during the Cold War; it remains valid despite the increase in the Security Council’s capacity to take action in the decades since 1989.

Third, with regard to the category of ‘meaning’, the most original study to date on the world organisation, Conor Cruise O’Brien’s The United Nations: Sacred Drama, argues that the General Assembly “is the main focus of such power as does reside in the United Nations – moral, imaginative, religious power”. In O’Brien’s view the General Assembly resembles a theatre, rather than a legislature, because its main thrust concerns the symbolic, whereas the parliamentary metaphor gives a

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60 Johan Kaufmann. United Nations Decision Making. Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff &

Noordhoff, 1980. 25.

61 Catherine Senf Manno. “Problems and Trends in the Composition of Nonplenary UN Organs.” International Organization 19 (1965): 37–55; cf. John Stuart Mill. Considerations on Representative Government. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, 1861. 241. From a structural point of view, this analogy is somewhat problematic. As remarked by Egon Glesinger in connection with an unrealised book project in collaboration with Gunnar Myrdal: “The [ ] GA of the UN is not very different from a superparliament and resembles in many ways the upper house composed of provincial reps, senators sent there by the States of the Union etc. The point to stress is that despite these resemblances, the UN general assemblies are attended by delegates appointed by governments. Moreover many such delegations comprise several parliamentarians (incl US senators) representing both the ruling parties + the opposition.” (Comment by Glesinger on a Manuscript by Myrdal of September 1971, LMAS, AGMA, vol. 89b).

62 First quote: Robert O. Keohane. “Institutionalization in the United Nations General Assembly.” International Organization 23 (1969b) 4: 859–896, at 870; second quote:

Mildred J. Peterson. The General Assembly in World Politics. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986. 217.

63 Kaufmann 1980: 25; cf. Peterson 1986: 1–2; Christian Tomuschat.

“Generalversammlung.” Handbuch Vereinte Nationen. Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed.). 2^nd rev. ed.

Munich: Beck, 1991. 225–234, at 225.

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misleading impression of solidity and power that sustains a ‘platonic’ as-if United Nations: “The Assembly is not a legislative body except in the sense that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind.” As an

“essentially dramatic organization” with only diffuse symbolic power, the United Nations receives O’Brien’s praise for having restored to international life an element of play in Huizinga’s sense. Despite the powerlessness of such a configuration, O’Brien argued that the role of imagination in politics, and the dynamics of rhetoric (especially when it involves arguments of international law), should not be underestimated:

“The ‘power of the United Nations’, and in particular of the General Assembly, is the power to evoke such rhetoric and squeeze it towards action.”

On a more existential level, O’Brien suggests that the United Nations stage, with its theatrical ‘parliamentary diplomacy’, functions as a substitute arena for fighting out ‘real world’ conflicts in a ritualised, sublime (and at the same time absurd) form. In his view, the United Nations provides a time-consuming face-saving apparatus and represents an easy scapegoat in the Cold War era, enhancing the chances for survival in case the primary security mechanism of a balance of atomic terror ceases to function as an adequate deterrent from escalating conflicts. Thus, according to O’Brien, “Like the liturgy according to Guardini, the typical United Nations spectacle is ‘zwecklos aber doch sinnvoll’ – pointless but full of meaning.”⁶⁴ From a similar perspective, Max Jakobson, a former Finnish candidate for UN Secretary-General, compared voting in the United Nations to the scenario in Hermann Hesse’s Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game) in which the players avail themselves of meaningful signs for signalling values and coming into contact with each other.⁶⁵ In this environment the formal ‘policy outcomes’ are negligible, at least in comparison with the significance of the quasi-parliamentary entanglement itself.⁶⁶

In summary, the General Assembly can be regarded as relevant in the discourse on democratising international relations and global

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64 Conor Cruise O’Brien and Feliks Topolski. The United Nations: Sacred Drama. London:

Hutchinson, 1968. 19, 23, 49, 52 (quotes), 50, 66, 222, 227, 245, 274, 277, 282, 287, 292;

cf. Conor Cruise O’Brien. Memoir: My Life and Themes. London: Profile, 1998. 180; Johan Huizinga. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1955[1938]; Romano Guardini. Vom Geist der Liturgie. Ecclesia orans 1. Freiburg: Herder, 1918.

65 Max Jakobson. År av fruktan och hopp. Stockholm: Atlantis, 2002[2001]. 432.

66 Keith S. Petersen. “The Uses of the United Nations.” The United Nations System and Its Functions. Robert W. Gregg and Michael Barkun (eds). Princeton: Van Nostand, 1968.

127–135, at 131.

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governance, relevant within the United Nations system, and as a symbol for the aspirations of humankind, with potentially existential repercussions in international affairs. This evidence should demonstrate that the study of the General Assembly is not only rewarding for the comprehension of democratic tendencies in international affairs, but that it also merits attention in its own right. Moreover, as a semiotic system, the United Nations is relevant both as a producer of material output and as means of seeing how different actors relate to one another and present themselves to the world public and their home audience in a global arena.⁶⁷ Those readers who support the ‘constructivist turn’ in historiography and social science or who accept O’Brien’s view that the predominance of the fantastic, which has tended to repel the serious scholar from studying the United Nations,

“ought on the contrary to attract his concentrated attention”, may find additional reason to regard the General Assembly as a significant subject to survey.⁶⁸

Why, then, focus on Nordic practises that seek to conciliate democracy and foreign policy at the General Assembly? A long quotation from an earlier work by O’Brien may provide a good starting point for an answer. Writing on the disastrous United Nations mission to the Congo in the early 1960s, the author, a former Irish diplomat and UN Secretary- General Dag Hammarskjöld’s personal representative to Katanga, describes how one of the Nordic countries was viewed at the end of the 1950s by foreign service officers of another small, neutral country, namely, his own:

For some of us, particularly the younger members of the Department, the ideal of what constituted good international behaviour was exemplified at this time by Sweden. Sweden’s action in the international field was, as we saw it, independent, disinterested and honourable. The Swedes in international affairs did not spend much time in proclaiming lofty moral principles but they usually acted as men would do who were in fact animated by such principles. Their voting record was more eloquent than their speeches. It seemed to contain few or no votes against conscience […]. Sweden paid its share, and more than its share, for all the humanitarian and peace-making aspects of the UN work and sent out its men, soldiers or civil servants, on various more or less unpleasant or dangerous tasks as the work of the organization required. Sweden’s willingness to sacrifice was already symbolized by the death of Bernadotte. But above all, the example of Dag

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67 Cf. Götz 2007: 55; Norbert Götz. “Kontrasten till allt detta afrikanska bubbeligum: Die Semiotik des Nordens in den Vereinten Nationen.” Lecture at the “18. Arbeitstagung der deutschsprachigen Skandinavistik”, Berlin, 21 September 2007.

68 O’Brien/Topolski 1968: 299; cf. Jürgen Martschukat, and Steffen Patzold (eds).

Geschichtswissenschaft und ‘performative turn’: Ritual, Inszenierung und Performanz vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit. Köln: Böhlau, 2003.

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Hammarskjold showed that, even in an organization, most of whose members seemed to be guided by standards very different from those of Sweden, a few countries and people could achieve remarkable results. Hammarskjold more than anyone had given the United Nations a focus of moral authority which could attract an international loyalty, and use it in the cause of peace and justice.

[…] these were the common assumptions. We hoped that Ireland would become one of the very small (and mainly Scandinavian) group of delegations at the United Nations whose chief concern it was to safeguard that moral authority.⁶⁹

Many elements of Nordic self-description at the United Nations and the characterisations of Nordic countries or representatives by others are condensed in this remarkable piece of prose. It should be noted that the qualities mainly associated with Sweden in this context were largely common Nordic properties (as O’Brien hinted in his reference to

‘Scandinavian’ delegations). Whereas Iceland, in all fields apart from the special interest issue of the law of the seas, due to its small size and limited resources, largely acted (and was perceived) as an appendix to the other Nordic countries, Denmark and Finland conformed to the description given above, although they usually preferred to take a lower profile than Sweden.

Thus, while Finnish diplomat Ralph Enckell defined the foreign policy of Finland as “a sincere endeavour to observe very strictly a code of international good behaviour”, he framed the difference between the Finnish and Swedish policies of neutrality with the following aphorism:

“Finland tries to manage her relations in East and West equally well, Sweden equally badly.”⁷⁰

Norway, a NATO member, had almost as high a profile as neutral Sweden in postwar United Nations politics, and bypassed its eastern neighbour in this orientation after the end of the Cold War. In recent recommendations regarding Norwegian public diplomacy exploring the option of “a meta-story about Norway as an ‘Über-Scandinavian’” and a campaign along the lines that “Some countries are more Scandinavian than others” has been suggested.⁷¹ Norway has also exceeded Sweden as the largest Scandinavian contributor to budgets of the United Nations system.

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69 Conor Cruise O’Brien. To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History. London: Hutchinson, 1962. 14–15.

70 First quote: “Finland on the map of the world.” Speech in Portland, Oregon, International Trade Fair, 4 May 1959, FMAH, REC, vol. 18; second quote: Jakobson 2002[2001]: 463.

71 Mark Leonard and Andrew Small. Norway’s Public Diplomacy: A Strategy: Executive Summary. Oslo: Foreign Ministry, 2003. Available at

<http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/UD/Vedlegg/public.pdf>. Accessed 25 March 2010. 4–

5. My emphasis.

Deliberative Diplomacy: The Nordic Approach to Global Governance and Societal Representation at the United Nations

DELIBERATIVE DIPLOMACY : THE NORDIC APPROACH TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND SOCIETAL

REPRESENTATION AT THE UNITED NATIONS

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS STUDIES SERIES

Patrick James

V OLUME 11

DELIBERATIVE DIPLOMACY :

THE NORDIC APPROACH TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND SOCIETAL

REPRESENTATION AT THE UNITED NATIONS

by Norbert Götz

DORDRECHT

2011

CONTENTS

PREFACE

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1. INTRODUCTION