Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T19:33:23.726Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UN reform, biopolitics, and global governmentality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

Hans-Martin Jaeger
Hans-Martin Jaeger*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
*
* E-mail: Hans-Martin_Jaeger@carleton.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Commentary on the United Nations (UN) reform efforts of 2004–05 has broadly followed two different trajectories. International lawyers and political theorists have focused on the implications of reform for sovereignty as a fundamental principle of international law and international relations. International Relations (IR) scholars have discussed reform focusing on state power and the UN’s institutional authority. Against the background of these debates and drawing on Foucault’s political theory and related IR scholarship, this article argues that UN reform discourse indicates a biopolitical ‘reprogramming’ of contemporary sovereignty and global governance. The analysis ‘displaces’ the concerns with sovereignty, state power, and institutional authority by demonstrating that UN reform (also) constitutes the UN as a project of managing and regulating the global population through a variety of securitizing, economizing, and normalizing rationalities and techniques. The article illustrates this by pointing to the biopolitical rationales of reform conceptions of human security and collective security, and to (neo)liberal governmentalities of risk and responsibility, contractualism, benchmarking, and networks. It thereby challenges the conceptual and normative priority accorded to juridical sovereignty in international law, and to state- and institution-centric accounts in IR theorizations of UN-relayed global governance.

Keywords

biopoliticsgovernmentalityFoucaultUnited Nationsglobal governancesovereignty
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 50 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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

Abrahamsen, R. (2004), ‘The power of partnerships in global governance’, Third World Quarterly 25(8): 1453–1467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agamben, G. (1998), Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ban, K. (2008). ‘Responsible sovereignty: international cooperation for a changed world’. Address at ‘Managing Global Insecurity’ conference, Berlin, 15 July. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11701.doc.htmGoogle Scholar
Barnett, M.Finnemore, M. (2004), Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, D. (1987), ‘The world and the United States in 2013’, Daedalus 116(3): 1–31.Google Scholar
Buchanan, A. (2003), ‘Reforming the international law of humanitarian intervention’, in J.L. Holzgrefe and R.O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burchell, G. (1996), ‘Liberal government and techniques of the self’, in A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, London: UCL Press, pp. 19–36.Google Scholar
Buzan, B. (2004), From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Byers, M.Chesterman, S. (2003), ‘Changing the rules about rules? Unilateral humanitarian intervention and the future of international law’, in J.L. Holzgrefe and R.O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, M. (2007), ‘World Health Day debate on international health security’, Singapore, 2 April. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/020407_whd2007/en/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Chandler, D. (2009), ‘Critiquing liberal cosmopolitanism? The limits of the biopolitical approach’, International Political Sociology 3(1): 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherchye, L.Kuosmanen, T. (2006), ‘Benchmarking sustainable development: a synthetic meta-index approach’, in M. McGillivray and M. Clarke (eds), Understanding Human Well-being, Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 139–168.Google Scholar
Cohen, J.L. (2004), ‘Whose sovereignty? Empire versus international law’, Ethics and International Affairs 18(3): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J.L. (2006), ‘Sovereign equality vs. imperial right: the battle over the “new world order” ’, Constellations 13(4): 485–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J.L. (2008), ‘A global state of emergency or the further constitutionalization of international law: a pluralist approach’, Constellations 15(4): 456–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commission on Human Security [CHS] (2003), Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People, New York: Commission on Human Security.Google Scholar
Cox, R.W. (1983), ‘Gramsci, hegemony, and international relations: an essay in method’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 12(2): 162–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crossette, B. (2007), ‘WHO seeks the invisible millions’, UNA-USA E-Newsletter (6 November). Retrieved 6 August 2008 from http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=3561873Google Scholar
Dean, M. (1999), Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Dean, M. (2006), ‘Military intervention as “police” action?’, in M.D. Dubber and M. Valverde (eds), The New Police Science: The Police Power in Domestic and International Governance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 185–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Defert, D. (1991), ‘ “Popular life” and insurance technology’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 211–233.Google Scholar
De Larrinaga, M.Doucet, M.G. (2008), ‘Sovereign power and the biopolitics of human security’, Security Dialogue 39(5): 517–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillon, M. (2007), ‘Governing terror: the state of emergency of biopolitical emergence’, International Political Sociology 1(1): 7–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubber, M.D.Valverde, M. (eds) (2006), The New Police Science: The Police Power in Domestic and International Governance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, G. (2005), ‘UN missed the chance of a lifetime’, The Globe and Mail, 11 October, p. A19.Google Scholar
Ewald, F. (1991), ‘Insurance and risk’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 197–210.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1990), The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction, New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2003), ‘Society Must be Defended’: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–76, New York: Picador.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2007), Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2008), The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Glennon, M.J. (2005), ‘Idealism at the U.N.’, Policy Review 129: 3–14.Google Scholar
Gordon, C. (1991), ‘Governmental rationality: an introduction’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–51.Google Scholar
Hardt, M.Negri, A. (2000), Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hoge, W. (2005), ‘Envoys reach compromise on scaled-back U.N. reform plans’, New York Times, 13 September, A5.Google Scholar
Hurrell, A. (2007), On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imber, M. (2006), ‘The reform of the UN Security Council’, International Relations 20(3): 328–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inayatullah, N.Blaney, D.L. (2004), International Relations and the Problem of Difference, New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, H.-M. (2008), ‘ “World opinion” and the founding of the UN: governmentalizing international politics’, European Journal of International Relations 14(4): 589–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. (2006), ‘Bio-security, nonstate actors, and the need for global cooperation’, Ethics and International Affairs 20(2): 225–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, J.L. (2009) ‘Remarks by National Security Adviser Jones at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy’, 9 February. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/RemarksByNationalSecurityAdviserJonesAt45thMunichConferenceOnSecurityPolicy/Google Scholar
Kendall, G. (2004), ‘Global networks, international networks, actor networks’, in W. Larner and W. Walters (eds), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, New York: Routledge, pp. 59–75.Google Scholar
Larner, W.Le Heron, R. (2004), ‘Global benchmarking: participating “at a distance” in the globalizing economy’, in W. Larner and W. Walters (eds), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, New York: Routledge, pp. 212–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larner, W.Walters, W. (eds) (2004), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luck, E.C. (2003), ‘Reforming the United Nations: lessons from a history in progress’. International Relations Studies and the United Nations Occasional Paper No. 1. Retrieved 6 August 2008 from http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/cio/cio/luck.htmlGoogle Scholar
Luck, E.C. (2005a), ‘Rediscovering the Security Council: the high-level panel and beyond’, in E. Zedillo (ed.), Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security: Proceedings of a Workshop to Analyze the Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, New Haven, CT: Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, pp. 126–152. Retrieved 6 August 2008 from http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/cio/cio/luck.htmlGoogle Scholar
Luck, E.C. (2005b), ‘The UN Security Council: reform or enlarge?’, in P. Heinbecker and P. Goff (eds), Irrelevant or Indispensable? The United Nations in the Twenty-First Century, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 143–152.Google Scholar
Lui, R. (2004), ‘The international government of refugees’, in W. Larner and W. Walters (eds), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, New York: Routledge, pp. 116–135.Google Scholar
MacAskill, E. (2005), ‘UN summit: low marks on the final scorecard’, The Guardian, 17 September, p. 18.Google Scholar
McGillivray, M.Clarke, M. (eds) (2006), Understanding Human Well-being, Tokyo: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
Merlingen, M. (2003), ‘Governmentality: towards a Foucauldian framework for the study of IGOs’, Cooperation and Conflict 38(4): 361–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migiro, A.-R. (2007), ‘Opening remarks’. Symposium of International Institute on Peace Education, New York. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/dsgsm332.doc.htmGoogle Scholar
Millennium Project (2006a), ‘Goals, targets and indicators’. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/gti.htmGoogle Scholar
Millennium Project (2006b) [2005], ‘Investing in development: a practical plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals’, in J. Müller (ed.), Reforming the United Nations: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Effectiveness, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 199–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, J. (ed.) (1997), Reforming the United Nations: New Initiatives and Past Efforts, (Vols I–III). The Hague: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Müller, J. (ed.) (2006), Reforming the United Nations: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Effectiveness, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, C.N. (1994), International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ojakangas, M. (2005), ‘Impossible dialogue on bio-power: Agamben and Foucault’, Foucault Studies 2: 5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Malley, P. (1996), ‘Risk and responsibility’, in A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, London: UCL Press, pp. 189–207.Google Scholar
Patton, P. (2007), ‘Agamben and Foucault on biopower and biopolitics’, in M. Calarco and S. DeCaroli (eds), Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and Life, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 203–218.Google Scholar
Puchala, D.J. (2005), ‘World hegemony and the United Nations’, International Studies Perspectives 7(4): 571–584.Google Scholar
Rabinow, P.Rose, N. (2006), ‘Biopower today’, BioSocieties 1: 195–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, J. (2005), ‘The biopolitics of the war on terror: a critique of the “return of imperialism” thesis in international relations’, Third World Quarterly 26(2): 237–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rojas, C. (2004), ‘Governing through the social: representations of poverty and global governmentality’, in W. Larner and W. Walters (eds), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, New York: Routledge, pp. 97–115.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1996), ‘Governing “advanced” liberal democracies’, in A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, London: UCL Press, pp. 37–64.Google Scholar
Rose, N.Miller, P. (1992), ‘Political power beyond the state: problematics of government’, British Journal of Sociology 43(2): 173–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenau, J. (1997), Along the Domestic–Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, J.J. (1988) [1762], ‘On social contract or principles of political right’, in A. Ritter and J.C. Bondanella (eds), Rousseau’s Political Writings, New York: Norton, pp. 84–173.Google Scholar
Senellart, M. (2007), ‘Course context’, in M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 369–401.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. (2001), ‘Two liberalisms’, European Journal of International Law 12(3): 537–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. (2004), A New World Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. (2005), ‘Security, solidarity, and sovereignty: the grand themes of UN reform’, American Journal of International Law 99(3): 619–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. (2006a), ‘A new U.N. for a new century’, Fordham Law Review 74(6): 2961–2970.Google Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. (2006b), ‘Reinventing the United Nations’, in Will Marshall (ed.), With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 175–189.Google Scholar
South Centre (2005), What UN for the 21st Century? A New North–South Divide, Geneva: South Centre.Google Scholar
Stedman, S.J. (2007), ‘UN transformation in an era of soft balancing’, International Affairs 83(5): 933–944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franck, T.M., Glennon, M.J.Yoo, J.C.Samuels, K.Maley, W.Jones, S.G.Dobbins, J. (2006), ‘Symposium on UN Reform’, Chicago Journal of International Law 6(2): 511–851.Google Scholar
Tesón, F.R. (2003), ‘The liberal case for humanitarian intervention’, in J.L. Holzgrefe and R.O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 93–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traub, J. (2006), The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
United Nations (2004), A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
United Nations (2005a), ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All’. Report of the Secretary-General, UN Document A/59/2005. Retrieved 22 June 2007 from http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/Google Scholar
United Nations (2005b), ‘2005 world summit outcome’, General Assembly Resolution, 16 September, UN Document A/RES/60/1. Retrieved 22 June 2007 from http://www.un.org/summit2005/documents.htmlGoogle Scholar
United Nations (2006a), ‘Investing in the United Nations: for a stronger organization worldwide’, Report of the Secretary-General, UN Document A/60/692. Retrieved 26 October 2007 from http://www.un.org/reform/investinginun/investing-in-un.shtmlGoogle Scholar
United Nations (2006b), ‘Delivering as one’, Report of the High-level Panel on United Nations System-wide Coherence, UN Document A/61/583. Retrieved 26 October 2007 from http://www.un.org/events/panelGoogle Scholar
United Nations Cyberschoolbus (2007), ‘Disarmament and nonproliferation’. Retrieved 31 August 2009 from http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/dnp/sub1.asp?ipage=securityGoogle Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (1994), Human Development Report: New Dimensions of Human Security, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Virno, P. (2004), A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, New York: Semiotext(e).Google Scholar
Walters, W.Haahr, J.H. (2005), Governing Europe: Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, T.G. (2003), ‘The illusion of UN Security Council reform’, The Washington Quarterly 26(4): 147–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zanotti, L. (2005), ‘Governmentalizing the post-cold war international regime: the UN debate on democratization and good governance’, Alternatives 30(4): 461–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar