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Double Standards, Distance and Disengagement: Collective Legitimization in the Post-Cold War Security Council

The article examines three specific aspects of military operations authorized by the UN Security Council in the post-Cold War period. The trends examined respond to the following questions: Who chooses what gets on the Security Council's agenda? Who implements actions authorized by the Security Council? And what is it that they are doing? The answers reveal that it is the P-5 who control both what gets on the Security Council agenda and, importantly, what does not. In terms of carrying out Security Council activity, the post-Cold War period has generated a division of labour whereby developing states are the main providers of troops for blue-helmeted UN operations, while developed states contribute to coalition operations in their own regions and/or when their own vital interests are at stake. The main activity is post-conflict or what might be termed pre-post-conflict operations. Taken together, these trends characterize a Council that can be described as distant and disengaged, at least for some conflicts in some parts of the world. Using Claude's idea of collective legitimization, the article argues that these trends suggest that greater consideration needs to be given to how to recoup Council legitimacy, not just how to increase its representative nature, when debating UN reform. While both representativeness and legitimacy are desirable, the pursuit of one without considering the repercussions to the other may ultimately undermine the objectives of reform.