Organized Hypocrisy and Global Governance: Implications for United Nations Reform Michael Lipson Department of Political Science Concordia University 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Canada Tel. (514) 848-2424, ext. 2129 Fax (514) 848-4072 e-mail: mlipson@alcor.concordia.ca DRAFT: Do not quote or cite without permission. Comments welcome. Paper prepared for presentation at panel on International Institutions and the Hypocrisy Trap, annual convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego, California, March 22-25, 2006Abstract This paper considers organized hypocrisy as both a source of and potential obstacle to proposed institutional reforms to the United Nations, with a particular focus on UN peace operations. International organizations such as the UN are subject to conflicting demands to meet the requirements of both normative standards and efficient coordinated action. Such pressures give rise to “organized hypocrisy,” a concept from organization theory describing organizations’ response to conflicting pressures in their external environments through contradictory actions and statements. Organized hypocrisy can have dysfunctional effects, decoupling organizational behavior from its stated purposes and eroding institutional legitimacy. UN peacekeeping failures in Bosnia and Rwanda are cases in point. But organized hypocrisy can also be functional, even necessary for the survival of international organizations, allowing them to manage irreconcilable pressures that might otherwise cause organizational demise. Organized hypocrisy can both give rise to and complicate organizational reform initiatives. Criticism of hypocrisy generates pressure for reforms to reconcile inconsistent rhetoric and behavior. But merely symbolic reforms, decoupled from action, themselves constitute organized hypocrisy. Thus, organized hypocrisy has contradictory implications for UN reform.1 Introduction On March 7, 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed a package of major reforms to the United Nations (United Nations, 2006). Such reform proposals have become commonplace. In his term as Secretary-General, Annan had already introduced major reform initiatives in 1997, 2002, and 2005, and commissioned reports by expert panels that recommended significant reforms – implemented to varying extents – pertaining to UN peace operations, development, and relations with civil society and private businesses.1 This attention to reform is not specific to the tenure of the current Secretary-General, and is certain to continue when his successor assumes office in January 2007.2 Indeed, proposals for major reforms to the organization date back nearly to its founding (Luck, 2004a, p. 359). A “Center for UN Reform Education,” founded to “encourage, generate and sustain discussion of various specific proposals to reform and restructure the United Nations,” has been in existence since 1978.3 Edward C. Luck, a leading authority on UN reform, has noted that, “If gauged by the sheer quantity of deliberations, studies, 1 Recent and ongoing UN reform proposals include: United Nations, 1997; 2000, 2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2005a, b. 2 In fact, one candidate for Secretary-General, Jayantha Dhanapala, has discussed ideas for UN reform in relation to his candidacy (Ariyoruk, 2006). At a web page promoting his candidacy established by the Sri Lankan government (http://www.jayanthadhanapala.com), “UN Reform” appears prominently at the top of a list of topics of writings and statements by Mr. Dhanapala. Luck does note, however, that “Kofi Annan, perhaps because of his thirty-plus years in the Secretariat, has been more attentive to reform issues than his predecessors” (Luck, 2004, p. 392). 3 Center for UN Reform Education web site, “http://www.centerforunreform.org/aboutus/index.htm, Accessed March 12, 2006.2 and resolutions devoted to it, reform has become one of the enduring pastimes and primary products of the UN system” (Luck, 2004a, p. 361). Recent analyses of the reform of international organizations (IOs) employing principal-agent models explain IO reform primarily in terms of external pressure for change (Nielson and Tierney, 2003; Weaver, 2003).4 In this account, external member state principals contract with and delegate authority to international organizations. Because monitoring an agent’s conduct is costly, principals do not supervise everything the agent does. Instead, agents such as IOs are granted a degree of autonomy subject to general oversight by principals. Principals’ ability to control IO agents is further complicated by the fact that IOs are part of long chains of delegation and respond to collective and multiple principals, not a single principal.5 These factors expand “slack” allowing international organizations to act autonomously. However, sufficiently large deviations by IOs from member state preferences will prompt reassertions of control by principals. Thus, Nielson and Tierney predict, “In our P-A framework, we should observe significant institutional reforms and intervention by the member governments if and only if the IO strays from its principals’ mandated objectives or the preferences of member governments change in concert” (Nielson and Tierney, 245). The near constant tempo of 4 Weaver (2003, pp. 239-246) discusses internal reform catalysts within the World Bank, but treats them as intervening variables in relation to the independent variable of external demands. 5 Nielson and Tierney (2003, 247) distinguish P-A relationships involving multiple principals – “when an agent has more than one employment contract with organizationally distinct principals” – and collective principals, in which a single entity composed of more than one actor (e.g., the UN Security Council, with respect to arms inspection commissions such as UNSCOM and UNMOVIC).3 UN reform initiatives appears to significantly exceed the magnitude of such efforts predicted by this approach. Weaver (2003) and Weaver and Leiteritz (2005) integrate a principal-agent model of IO delegation with a sociological model of organizational culture. Changes in member state preferences and in the normative environment of international organizations are the basic impetus behind reforms, with internal reform advocates playing a secondary role. However, organizational culture—defined as “the ideologies, norms, and routines governing the expectations and behavior of the bureaucratic staff”—diffuses, refracts, and frustrates the implementation of reforms incongruent with organizational culture (Weaver and Leiteritz, 2005, p. 370). As a result, proclaimed commitment to organizational change and reform are not realized in practice, leading to divergent statements and action – hypocrisy. Specifically, this inconsistency between rhetoric and behavior constitutes organized hypocrisy, a form of hypocrisy exhibited by formal organizations subject to inconsistent external operational and normative demands. Organized hypocrisy is a way of responding to such pressures, by using rhetorical and symbolic means to satisfy one set of demands (usually normative) while behavior responds to other (i.e., material and operational) imperatives that contradict the first set of demands. These inconsistent organizational responses to external pressures may have no causal effect on each other (“decoupling”) or they may compensate for and facilitate each other. In short, organized hypocrisy, as distinct from ordinary hypocrisy, refers to4 inconsistent – decoupled and compensatory – responses to conflicting external normative and material pressures (Brunsson, 1989; Krasner 1999).6 Conflicts between external reform demands and internal organizational culture are not, however, the sole or even primary source of organized hypocrisy.7 Organized hypocrisy also arises as an organizational response to conflicting external normative and material pressures. Reform programs may be initiated from within an organization, to managing irreconcilable demands (not necessarily for reform) from the organizational environment. Because the external pressures to which they respond are inconsistent, the responses must be decoupled – causally unrelated – to avoid interfering with each other.8 If this is accomplished through symbolic reform rhetoric decoupled from implementing action, the reform initiative is itself a manifestation of organized hypocrisy. Similarly, reforms aimed at improving coordination and efficiency often take the form of reorganization and restructuring. If the formal structures so established are not linked to organizational behavior, the reform’s intended results will not be realized. This also represents organized hypocrisy. While organizational culture is an important source 6 Weaver (2003), following Brunsson (1989) uses the term organizational hypocrisy. Brunsson (2003) has subsequently adopted Krasner’s (1999) usage of organized hypocrisy. I employ the latter usage. For other work on hypocrisy in international politics, see: Dovi, 2001; Steinberg, 2002; Iankova and Katzenstein, 2003; Weaver, 2003; Bukovansky, 2005. 7 Both Weaver (2003) and Barnett and Finnemore (2004) implicitly adopt what Joanne Martin (2002) has termed an “integration” perspective on organizational culture, regarding organizational cultures as relatively coherent and unified. In defining political organizations in terms of conflict incorporated from institutional environments, and cultivation of multiple ideologies, Brunsson employs a “differentiation” perspective emphasizing inconsistent subcultures rather than coherent monocultures. 8 The concept of decoupling was introduced by Meyer and Rowan (1977). Rather than decoupling, a relationship I term counter-coupling may also perform this function. I explain counter-coupling in the next section.5 of such implementation failures, it is not the only source. Decoupling may result from independent, uncoordinated action by different elements or divisions of an organization. It may be a byproduct of decentralization of decision-making authority to lower levels or field missions. Or it may be due to shifting participation in organizational policy-making in implementation, creating inconsistency over time. Thus, reform can themselves constitute organized hypocrisy, or they can be undermined by organized hypocrisy. Organizations can also address accusations of hypocrisy by making promises, decoupled from action, to reconcile organizational talk and action through reforms – a practice Nils Brunsson labels “meta-hypocrisy” (Brunsson, 2003, pp. 214-215). Further, principal agent models of IO reform assume that reforms are intended to alter behavior or improve task efficiency. However, the purpose of reforms can be predominantly or purely symbolic – aimed at satisfying external pressures to conform to institutionalized standards of legitimacy – rather than to improve coordination or task efficiency or produce material change in behavior. Recognizing these additional functions of organizational reform better accounts for the levels of observed reform activity at the UN. Thus, while conflicts between organizational culture and externally-imposed reforms are an important source of organized hypocrisy, the implications of organized hypocrisy for IO reform extend beyond the powerful insight that organizational cultures can frustrate member states efforts to use IOs as instruments (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004; Weaver and Leiteritz, 2005). In this paper, I present a reinterpretation of the concept of organized hypocrisy, adapted for application to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). I argue that organized hypocrisy has unappreciated significance for6 organizational reforms in IGOs, and elaborate on its implications, with reference to recent UN reform initiatives, especially as they pertain to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. In the next section, I explain and distinguish the contending formulations of the organized hypocrisy concept offered by Nils Brunsson and Stephen Krasner. I embed these alternatives in a larger framework, indicating the conditions under which each is applicable. Then I explain organized hypocrisy’s implications for organizational reform generally, and present a preliminary application of these implications to recent UN reform initiatives, with particular focus on peacekeeping and peacebuilding.9 I conclude by considering implications for the theory and practice of global governance. Organized Hypocrisy10 Organized hypocrisy is a response to conflicting material and ideational pressures. The concept, therefore, lies at the intersection of rationalist and constructivist theorizing. Its roots, however, are in the neo-institutionalist school of organizational sociology, known as “sociological institutionalism” in the international relations literature (Finnemore, 1996). Organized hypocrisy is a variant of the institutionalist concept of “decoupling” between organizational structure and behavior.11 9 I define reform loosely as changes to organizational structures and processes with the stated purpose of increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, or nature of organizational outputs and conduct. 10 This section is taken from Lipson (forthcoming). 11 Meyer and Rowan (1977). Throughout, I use the term institutionalist to refer to sociological, not rational institutionalism.7 Sociological institutionalism emphasizes the importance of cultural aspects of organizational environments in determining the structure and activity of organizations. Organizational environments impose upon organizations both material and resource constraints related to competitive efficiency (“technical” pressures, in institutionalist terminology) and societal expectations of conformity with external normative and cultural (“institutional”) standards. In modern societies, this approach maintains, institutional environments—the cultural and normative dimension of organizations’ environments—increasingly outweigh technical (or “material-resource”) environments as determinants of formal structure. 12 Organizations adopt formal structures, and other forms of presentation, to symbolize conformity with legitimized standards in their respective “organizational fields” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Organizational structures reflect institutional more than technical pressures. However, global standards are often practically unsuited to local conditions and available resources. Consequently, formal structures adopted in response to institutional pressures are often inappropriate to the technical requirements of organizational tasks. Developing states, for example, may attempt to conform to standards of modern statehood, but lack the resources to give effect to the formal trappings of sovereignty (Meyer et al., 1997). In response, organizations will often develop separate, “decoupled” responses to conflicting demands (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Decoupling allows organizations to buffer their technical cores—the techniques and processes by which organizational tasks are fulfilled—against disruptive institutional pressures. Typically, formal structures are 12 Meyer and Rowan (1977); DiMaggio and Powell (1983). On technical and institutional environments, see: Scott and Meyer (1991: 123-24); Scott (2003: 138-140). Environments can be simultaneously weakly or strongly technical and institutional, and technical criteria can be institutionally constituted.8 created to symbolically comply with cultural expectations, but are decoupled—causally disconnected—from incompatible internal organizational activities. Thus, firms may formally establish affirmative action offices, but not change their hiring practices (Edelman, 1992). Because they are decoupled, inconsistent structures and processes do not interfere with each other. When this takes the form of inconsistent rhetoric and behavior, it constitutes organized hypocrisy. Starting from this point, Krasner and Brunsson offer distinct conceptions of organized hypocrisy. Each modifies the basic concept of decoupling. As I describe below, Brunsson’s version retains the original sociological foundations, but elaborates different forms of organizational hypocrisy, moving well beyond the seminal concept of decoupling (Brunsson, 1989). Krasner’s adaptations—to which I turn first—are more radical, transplanting the concept of organized hypocrisy from its sociological origins into a rationalist, “actor-oriented” model embedded within realist international theory (Krasner, 1999b). Realism, conceiving of international politics in terms of the struggle for power among states in an anarchic system, emphasizes material, technical environments (Morgenthau, 1948; Waltz, 1979). Adopting March and Olsen’s distinction between instrumental logics of consequences and cultural-normative logics of appropriateness, Krasner argues that the former dominate the latter in world politics.13 Logics of consequences correspond to technical, and logics of appropriateness to institutional environments. Krasner argues that the international system is weakly institutionalized, 13 Krasner (1999a, b). The distinction is from March and Olsen (1989, 1998). For critiques, see Sending (2002) and Goldman (2005).9 and lacks legitimate authority. Domestic and international norms are inconsistent, while material pressures—competition for power under anarchy—are strong. Logics of appropriateness, such sovereignty norms, are therefore ambiguous, and subordinate to logics of consequences (Krasner, 1999b: 5). In world politics, then, “clubs can always be trump,” and sovereignty is symbolically affirmed but often violated by powerful states (Krasner, 1999b: 238). Krasner, however, departs from conventional realism in making rulers, rather than states, the unit of analysis (Krasner, 1999b: 7). Krasner’s rulers are rational, unitary actors, relatively autonomous from societal influences and pursuing exogenously given preferences (to remain in power and promote the interests of the constituencies that maintain their position). They are closed-rational systems in organization theory’s terms, clearly bounded and distinct from their environments, with goals set exogenously from their environments.14 In fact, although they act through states, Krasner’s individual rulers—the “ontological givens” of his analysis and the actors exhibiting organized hypocrisy—are not themselves organizations. Thus, organized hypocrisy as portrayed by Krasner is largely devoid of organizations. In Brunsson’s formulation, organized hypocrisy is fundamentally about organizations. Organizations, not rulers, face competing logics of consequences and action. These organizations, in turn, are not unitary actors but rather, collectivities constituted and endowed with social agency by their social environments (Meyer and 14 Scott (2003). Realism conventionally conceives of states as closed systems (Ansell and Weber, 1999). Krasner’s treatment resembles the open systems perspective of resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), which describes managers (rulers) as actively reducing and buffering firms’ (states’) dependencies. However, in Krasner’s analysis rulers—the referents of organized hypocrisy—are closed systems.10 Jepperson, 2000). Thus, Brunsson’s perspective falls within the “open systems” approach to organization theory, which regards organizations as possessing porous boundaries, and as constituted by and reproduced through their interactions with their environment (Katz and Kahn, 1966; Ansell and Weber, 1999; Scott, 2003). In such organizations, organized hypocrisy often arises unintentionally as a byproduct of uncoordinated responses to conflicting environmental pressures by loosely coupled or decoupled internal organizational elements.15 Thus, the negative moral connotation usually attached to hypocrisy does not apply in this understanding of organized hypocrisy.16 Condemnations of hypocrisy, in the normal sense of the term, assume that the hypocrite is a coherent, unitary actor. The moral stigma attached to hypocrisy flows from this assumption.17 Just as it makes little sense to speak of an individual afflicted with schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder (i.e., multiple personalities) as hypocritical, the censure associated with the term is inappropriate to consideration of organized hypocrisy in open systems organizations. Brunsson introduces two significant innovations. First, he offers a distinction between decoupling of divergent internal aspects of an organization, which he terms “the organization of hypocrisy,” and decoupling of inconsistent organizational outputs—for 15 On loose coupling, see Weick (1976). 16 Against conventional condemnations, Machiavelli portrays hypocrisy as a virtue on grounds of political necessity. See Grant’s (1997) discussion. 17 Conduct deemed hypocritical is assumed to be intentional. As Grant (1997: 26) writes, “To profess principles that on has no intention of following is hypocrisy; to be unable to live up to our best expectations of ourselves is not hypocrisy but human nature.”11 which he reserves the term “organized hypocrisy”.18 Second, he revises the conventional understanding of decoupling by interpreting organized hypocrisy in terms of an inverse, rather than absent, causal relationship between rhetoric and action.19 The concept of “the organization of hypocrisy” (OOH) builds on Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) classic argument that organizations in institutionalized environments reflect their organizational environments in their internal structure. In environments characterized by contradictory imperatives, these contradictions will be incorporated into organizations’ internal structures. Brunsson refers to such organizations—those operating in institutional environments characterized by conflicting values and preferences—as “political” (as opposed to action) organizations.20 If a political organization’s structures and processes for responding to these pressures are decoupled, they can each independently respond to their corresponding external demands, and—because they are decoupled—not be significantly affected by the inconsistency between them. Thus, the inconsistent pressures of the organization’s environment are “reflected in organizational structures, processes, and ideologies,” within the organization, and “these incorporated 18 This distinction is introduced in the introduction added to the otherwise unrevised second edition of The Organization of Hypocrisy (Brunsson, 2002). Brunsson’s writings (1989, 1995, 2002, 2003) employ the term “hypocrisy” in varying ways that blur the relationship between different forms of organizational hypocrisy. 19 Although Brunsson discusses this relationship in the first edition (Brunsson, 1989: 168-173, 188-189), he does not distinguish it from decoupling. The distinction is made explicit in the introduction to the (2002) second edition. 20 Brunsson (1989: 13-39). Action and political organizations are ideal types roughly corresponding to technical and (conflictual) institutional environments (and therefore also to logics of consequences and appropriateness), respectively. Meyer, Scott, and Deal’s (1983) terminology of technical and institutional organizations is basically equivalent except that Brunsson’s political organizations are institutional organizations in environments characterized by inconsistent norms.12 inconsistencies define the ‘organization of hypocrisy.’”21 Because the inconsistencies stem from the organizational environment, OOH is a property of open systems. Organized hypocrisy, as opposed to OOH, refers to inconsistencies between organizational outputs. Brunsson identifies three fundamental types of organizational output–talk, decisions, and action.22 In organized hypocrisy, talk and decisions are inconsistent with action. But they are not decoupled. Rather, as Brunsson (2003: 205-206) explains: In the model of [organized] hypocrisy talk, decisions and actions are still causally related, but the causality is the reverse: talk or decisions in one direction decrease the likelihood of corresponding actions, and actions in one direction decrease the likelihood of corresponding talk and decisions. The model of [organized] hypocrisy implies that talk, decisions and actions are “coupled” rather than “decouppled or “loosely coupled,” but they are coupled in a way other than usually assumed. Talk and decisions “compensate for” inconsistent action, and vice versa.23 Talk and decisions can satisfy demands to address an issue without actually taking action. Action 21 Brunsson (2002: xiii). OOH defines the internal structure of an ideal-typical political organization. Compare Brunsson’s (2002: xiii) definition of OOH to his (1989, 19-25) discussion of structure in political organizations in essentially identical terms. 22 Brunsson (1989: 26) describes decisions as “a form of talk important enough to warrant classification as a separate category.” 23 Brunsson (2002: xiv). Italics in original.13 can be insulated from opposition by contrary formal decisions that diffuse pressure to change the action. Thus, the causal relationship under organized hypocrisy between action, on the one hand, and talk and decisions on the other, is one of “reverse” or “compensatory” coupling. I will use the term counter-coupling to describe this relationship.24 Figure 1 summarizes the distinctions presented above, between decoupling and counter-coupling, and between OOH and organized hypocrisy. OOH–internalized and decoupled inconsistency–occupies the upper-left quadrant. The lower-left quadrant—counter-coupled internalized inconsistencies—is empty. Krasner's understanding of organized hypocrisy as decoupled norms and behavior corresponds to the upper right quadrant. Brunsson's more recent (2002, 2003) definition in terms of counter-coupled outputs falls in the lower right-hand cell. His initial (1989) discussion is consistent with the upper right-hand cell. The open and closed system distinction could be conceived as a third dimension in Figure 1 (extending out from the page), separating the two entries in the upper right-hand cell along this dimension. Both types of coupling relationship are compatible with either open or closed systems. However, as noted above, OOH is specific to open systems. And internal decoupling or counter-coupling cannot arise in closed-rational systems, which are internally coordinated and coherent.25 24 Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui (2005, 1383) use the term “radical decoupling” to refer to the condition “wherein treaties have an effect opposite to what are [sic] intended.” Counter-coupling is a mechanism that can produce radical decoupling. 25 Scott (2003) identifies rational and natural systems variants of open and closed systems perspectives. Some “closed-natural” systems theories conceive of formal and informal intra-organizational structures as loosely coupled or decoupled, but not due to conflicting external pressures (Scott, 2003: 31-81).14 Figure 1 Typology of Organizational Hypocrisies Locus of organizational inconsistency Internal Outputs (between (between structures, processes, talk, decisions, ideologies) actions) Decoupling OOH (Brunsson 1989) OH (Krasner) Form of OH (Brunsson 1989) coupling Counter-coupling OH (Brunsson 2002) OH: Organized Hypocrisy OOH: Organization of Hypocrisy Interpreting the two conceptions of organized hypocrisy in terms of the distinction between closed and open systems points to the conditions under which each concept will be analytically appropriate. “Krasnerian” organized hypocrisy is suited to the analysis of autonomous rational, unitary actors while Brunsson’s conception is superior for the analysis of organizational actors with porous boundaries, interpenetrated and constituted by their institutional environments. The United Nations, including its peacekeeping apparatus, is the latter sort of actor, making an analysis in terms of open-systems organized hypocrisy most appropriate. Therefore, imputing organized hypocrisy to the UN in an institutionalist sense—the sense intended in the title of this article—does not carry the conventional moral connotations associated with hypocrisy.15 The UN – an institution constituted and penetrated by the member states that largely make up its organizational environment – is appropriately conceptualized in opensysste terms. Examining UN peacekeeping through the lens of Krasnerian closed system organized hypocrisy raises the problem of identifying who or what at the UN plays the role of ruler with respect to peacekeeping. Is it the Secretary-General? The Security Council? The Department of Peacekeeping Operations? Individual member states? Relatedly, what is the relevant logic of political consequences? Consequences for whose interests? Recognizing the UN’s open system nature allows us to avoid this conceptual quicksand. In Brunsson’s open system formulation, the focus shifts from identifying an analogue for the ruler to delineating the ambiguous boundaries between organization and environment, and identifying inconsistent pressures in the environment. Organized Hypocrisy and Organizational Reform Organized hypocrisy and organizational reform have certain things in common. Both stem, in many cases, from organizational dilemmas, by which I mean irresolvably inconsistent demands on organizations. Both can placate organizational critics, at least temporarily. Both comprise discrepancies between current behavior and promised conduct. In fact, organizational reform can constitute organized hypocrisy, when reform “talk” is decoupled from organizational behavior. However, organized hypocrisy can also subvert practical reforms, by decoupling or counter-coupling of reforms to action. And reforms may stabilize organized hypocrisy, sustaining it in the face of pressure to reconcile rhetoric and action.16 Hypocritical Reform From the point of view of organizational survival, reform-as-organized hypocrisy can be functional, buffering the organization’s technical core from external demands that would destabilize the organization’s core activities and sometimes satisfying external demands for organizational change with formal responses that don’t require disruption to internal processes (Thompson, 1967). As Brunsson puts it, “The reforming zeal results in talk and decisions which compensate for present actions” (Brunsson, 1989, p. 205). In this case, reform proposals perform primarily symbolic functions within political organizations. Their purpose is to preserve organizational legitimacy through norm-compliant reform rhetoric despite the organization’s ongoing failure to act in accordance with normative expectations. Impaired Reform However, when the purpose of reform is practical rather than symbolic – aimed at improving efficiency and task performance – organized hypocrisy can also undermine reform. By decoupling the formal discourse, decisions, and organizational structures established by reforms from informal behavior and social networks, organized hypocrisy17 can short-circuit the intended effects of reform. For example, Thomas Weiss has described the 1997 reforms of the UN’s humanitarian coordination mechanisms, replacing the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) with a newly created Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as a “humanitarian shell game” (Weiss, 1998). He argues that member state and institutional participants in the reform process spoke “out of two sides of their mouths to reflect politics in the UN goldfish bowl and operational reality in the field” (Weiss, 1998, p. 10). Structural reforms reflecting organizational politics more than operational requirements for effective coordination led to decoupling between redrawn organizational charts and rhetoric regarding coordination, on the one hand, and actual achievement of improved humanitarian coordination on the other. While the undermining of reforms by decoupled organized hypocrisy would seem to be straightforwardly undesirable from an organizational standpoint, Brunsson argues that the failure of practical reforms may be functional, even necessary for the survival of political organizations.26 “Political” organizations, again, refer in Brunsson’s usage to organizations in environments characterized by inconsistent norms and values. Organizations in such environments obtain external resources and support by incorporating the external conflicts into their international structures and reflecting the institutionalized environment’s inconsistencies. A parliament, for example, incorporates conflicting societal interests within itself and – through political party structures, debates, 26 This argument parallels Barnett and Finnemore’s point that “behaviors that seem selfdefeeatin or undesirable from one perspective might make perfect sense from another” (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004, p. 36).18 and legislation – reflects the society’s conflicts, thereby securing legitimacy and political support.An organization with the structures and processes of an “action” organization – optimized for efficient and coordinated production – will not be able to perform these political functions. Therefore, “action-oriented reforms must not succeed if the organization is to be able to continue to reflect inconsistencies ” (Brunsson, 1989, p. 205). If management reforms were to transform the UN Secretariat into an organization optimized for maximally efficient production of services in a competitive market at the expense of its ability to perform representative and symbolic functions, the organization’s legitimacy – and therefore its survival as a political organization – would indeed be endangered. Therefore, to some extent organizational failure may be desirable from the organization’s perspective. Organized hypocrisy in the form of decoupling between reforms and action can, therefore, have both functional and dysfunctional effects. The possibility of counter-coupling between reform initiatives and organizational behavior, however, holds darker implications. If reforms and behavior are countercouppled reform discourse and decisions will actually reduce the chance of realizing the intended effects of the reforms. If those intended effects include goals such as greater effectiveness in conflict prevention and resolution, humanitarian assistance, and peacebuilding, the consequences of counter-coupled organized hypocrisy could be truly tragic. This could occur if the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission were to become counter-coupled with actual peacebuilding activity – symbolically addressing demand for improved coordination and thereby dissipating needed political commitment from member states. Such a development would fit Barnett and Finnemore’s definition of19 organizational pathologies – “dysfunctions that are attributable to bureaucratic culture and internal bureaucratic processes and that lead the IO to act in a manner that subverts its self-professed goals” (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004, p. 8). Counter-coupling organized hypocrisy is a process that can produce pathology.27 Meta-hypocrisy, or Stabilizing Reform Finally, reform can stabilize organized hypocrisy. Brunsson notes that, “Hypocrisy may be a more or less stable phenomenon – it may persist or it may disappear over time” 27 Barnett and Finnemore classify sources of organizational dysfunction/pathology in terms of whether they arise from material or cultural causes, and whether those causes are internal or external to the organization. Cross-classifying these distinctions produces a four-cell table within which the authors classify different theories of IOs (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004, p. 36). Organized hypocrisy does not fit neatly in this typology. For one thing, both Krasner and Brunsson regard organized hypocrisy as both functional and dysfunctional. Limiting the focus to dysfunctional aspects of organized hypocrisy, other difficulties arise in classifying either version of OH. Organized hypocrisy, for both authors, is a byproduct of conflict between material and cultural aspects of actor/organizational environments. Thus, it is difficult to classify as material or cultural. Krasner, moreover, does not present a theory of IOs, although he does theorize institutions, broadly defined to include sovereignty. Ultimately, his argument that logics of consequences dominate logics of appropriateness justifies a classification as material more than cultural. Placing the causes of Krasnerian OH along the internal/external dimension is more difficult. If we consider the states to be the relevant organization, the source of organized hypocrisy for Krasner is rulers within states, suggesting that Krasner’s analysis belongs in the upper left hand cell (material/internal) of Barnett and Finnemore’s table. However, these rulers are responding to conflicting pressures both external (sovereignty norms and material pressures of power politics) and internal (domestic norms and political competition). However, as an explicitly non-state-centric theory, Krasnerian OH fits poorly in the upper right hand (material/external) cell occupied by neorealism and neoliberalism. On balance, the upper left cell seems the most appropriate. In Brunssonian organized hypocrisy, dysfunction is seen as a byproduct of the (conflictual) interaction between material and cultural pressures and of dynamics operating across the boundaries of open systems (both internal and external to the organization). Brunsson, therefore, arguably occupies the point at the center of the table.20 (Brunsson 2003, p. 216). Brunsson posits three mechanisms by which hypocrisy may be destabilized and eliminated, explaining that, “[t]he stability of hypocrisy is threatened by tendencies towards implementation, tendencies towards justification, and by the norm of consistency” (Brunsson 2003, 217). However, the norm of consistency (i.e., that talk, decisions, and action should be consistent), is not independent of the others. Instead, it is prior to, and gives rise to, both. Following Krasner’s argument that under international anarchy logics of consequences dominate logics of appropriateness, one mechanism by which organized hypocrisy can become destabilized is through norms being thoroughly discredited as a result of contrary behavior responding to technical and material pressures. Brunsson somewhat awkwardly labels this “justification,” indicating that norms change to correspond to practice.28 Some legal scholars have argued, for example, that persistent violations of the UN’s Charter’s provisions on the use of force have largely nullified the Charter rules as legal and moral requirements (Arend and Beck, 1993; Glennon, 1999). Alternatively, organized hypocrisy may end if behavior changes to conform to norms, which Brunsson calls “implementation”29 Pressure to make behavior consistent with norms reflects global cultural norms of individual agency and rationality, which produce expectations that actors’ actions conform to their discourse (Meyer, et al., 1997; Meyer and Jepperson, 2000). While organized hypocrisy arises from forces opposing implementation, over time the inconsistency between talk and action becomes 28 Brunsson calls justification, “preaching what we practiced” (Brunsson 2003, p. 218). 29 “Implementation de-stabilizes hypocrisy by actions being adapted to past talk and decisions” (Brunsson 2003, p. 218).21 increasingly evident, and pressure for implementation can override the bases of hypocrisy. Though implementation is often desirable, in the case of action-oriented reforms in political organizations, it can threaten organizational survival. Thus, political organizations often require means to stabilize organized hypocrisy under pressure to reconcile rhetoric and practice. Reforms can serve this function, by holding out the promise that currently inconsistent talk and behavior will be reconciled through reform. This is a form of what Brunsson calls “meta-hypocrisy—the posture that a hypocritical organization is not a hypocrite” (Brunsson, 2003, p. 215). For example, the nuclear nonproliferation regime’s normative basis is destabilized by the inconsistency between nuclear weapons states’ (NWS) actual nuclear strategies and force structures and their article VI commitments to disarmament. However, what I have elsewhere (Lipson, 2005) called the “nuclear organized hypocrisy” of the nonproliferation regime has been stabilized through institutionalized review conferences (RevCons), at which parties to the Nonproliferation Treaty have periodically symbolically renewed their rhetorical commitments to the treaty. The U.S. position of malign neglect at the 2005 RevCon undermined this means of regularly shoring up the regime’s legitimacy. The UN is a political organization characterized by nearly constant reform activities in a conflictual institutional environment. It meets the conditions under which we would expect to observe some or all of the three relationships (reform embodying OH; OH subverting reform; and reform stabilizing OH) between organized hypocrisy and organizational reform described above. The normative and practical implications are complex, as organized hypocrisy may have both dysfunctional and functional22 implications, and reform failure may sometimes be necessary for organizational survival. The next section considers possible effects of organized hypocrisy in recent UN reform efforts. What follows is not intended as systematic theory testing. My more modest aim here is a tentative exploration of the relevance of the concept of organized hypocrisy to the recent history of UN reform. The Recent History of UN Reform Initiatives: An Overview Edward Luck observes that, “The never-ending quest for reform, for improving the functioning of the United Nations, has been an integral part of the life of the world body since its earliest days” (Luck, 2004a, p. 359). The first reorganization of the Secretariat took place under Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (Caldwell, n.d.). In 1947, the U.S. Senate Expenditures Committee conducted a critical review of UN organization and management (Luck, 2004a, p. 359). These early precedents initiated a pattern of “cycles of reform” (United States General Accounting Office, 2004, p. 6). Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali oversaw a major reorganization of the Secretariat in 1992, integrating various units into three departments: the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), and Department of Peacekeeping Operations, or DPKO (Caldwell, n.d.). Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace program significantly changed the practice of peacekeeping in the 1990s (United Nations, 1992). Renewing the United Nations, 199723 Under Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN has seen a series of major reforms and reform programs over the past decade. In 1997, Annan proposed a major reform program, involving both significant reorganization and a broader attempt to change the management culture of the organization and make it more efficient (United Nations, 1997). Annan’s 1997 proposals were divided into two “tracks.” Track I included administrative matters that the Secretary-General could implement under his own authority. Track II comprised broader issues requiring member state approval. A 2004 study found that 70% of specific Track I reform proposals had been substantially or completely implemented. Only 40% of Track II objectives were similarly fulfilled (United States General Accounting Office, 2004, p. 9). The Brahimi Report, 2000 Responding to peacekeeping failures in Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda during the 1990s, Secretary General Kofi Annan commissioned independent reports on the UN's failure to prevent genocidal killings in Srebrenica and Rwanda, and an independent panel to assess problems with UN peace operations and recommend reforms. The panel's report, known as the Brahimi Report after its chair, Lakhdar Brahimi, offered a harsh assessment of the state of UN peace operations, and 57 recommendations in 20 categories for improving the UN's capacity for planning, rapid and effective deployment, headquarters support, and operational effectiveness of peace operations (United Nations, 2000). While many of the August 2000 Brahimi Report's recommendations had been previously advanced in the General Assembly's Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, the Report24 crystallized them on the UN's agenda, and led to a reform process widely regarded as having significantly improved the UN's capacity to undertake peacekeeping. The report was quickly endorsed by the Secretary General and Security Council, and the General Assembly subsequently approved substantial funding for implementation of many of the report's recommendations.30 Staffing of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations was significantly expanded. The Secretary-General was granted Pre-Mandate Commitment Authority to use funds to prepare for a mission’s deployment prior to Security Council approval of a mandate. Strategic Deployment Stocks were created for logistics support in the start-up phases of missions. And on-call lists of personnel were created to support rapid deployment of new missions. These measures have significantly enhanced the UN’s capacity to conduct peacekeeping (Durch et al., 2003; Tardy, 2004). While its recommendations were for the most part not new, the Brahimi report served an effective agenda-setting function, crystallizing attention and energy around its proposed reforms. Strengthening of the United Nations, 2002 30 The Secretary General threw his support behind the report’s recommendations. The Millennium Declaration (General Assembly Resolution 55/2, 8 September 2000 (II.9) took “note of the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations and request[ed] the General Assembly to consider its recommendations expeditiously.” In November, the Security Council approved the report, supporting most of its proposals. S/Res/1327, 13 Nov. 2000. The General Assembly endorsed the report in December and subsequently approved funding for $9.5 million of $22 million requested, and the creation of 93 new posts on an emergency basis in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). General Assembly Resolutions A/Res/55/135, 8 Dec. 2000 and A/Res 55/238, 23 December 2000.25 Following up on the September 2000 Millennium Summit, Annan presented a second round of comprehensive reforms in 2002 (United Nations, 2002). The program of reform, entitled Strengthening of the United Nations: An Agenda for Further Change, focused on adapting the UN’s activities to the goals set out in the Millennium Declaration. Specific reforms addressed a range of issues, improved support for human rights, overhaul of the UN’s public information apparatus, streamlined reports and better conference support, improved coordination of Secretariat leadership and field missions, outreach to civil society and business, and improved human resource policy (United Nations, 2002; United States General Accounting Office, 2004, pp. 50-53). In the wake of the 2003 Iraq War, undertaken by the US and UK without specific Security Council authorization, the UN’s continued relevance was briefly questioned.31 However, within months, a “surge” in UN peacekeeping began, with new missions initiated in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi, Haiti during 2003 and 2004, and the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo significantly expanded and strengthened. This surge powerfully demonstrated the continued need for the UN’s capabilities (Berdal, 2004). As angst following the Iraq invasion gave way to the challenge of dramatically expanded peacekeeping responsibilities, the Secretary-General appointed another expert panel to offer recommendations on reforms to the UN’s role in addressing threats to international peace and security. From the High-Level Panel to the World Summit, 2003-2005 31 The August 19, 2003 suicide bombing attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad led to reforms—not addressed here—to the UN security management system.26 Appointed in late 2003, the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change (HLP) released its ambitious report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, in December 2004 (United Nations, 2004). Portraying a range of nontraditional threats arising from globalization, the report offered various responses including two alternative models of Security Council expansion, improved global public health capacity, restraints on fissile material production, a proposed definition of terrorism, renewal of the UN Charter’s role in governing the use of force, endorsement of the principle of a responsibility to protect, reform of the discredited Human Rights Commission, and establishment of a Peacebuilding Commission to coordinate and provide sustained focus to peacebuilding activities across the UN system. The Secretary-General, in a follow-on report titled In Larger Freedom (United Nations, 2005b), endorsed most of the HLP report’s recommendations and called for member states to adopt them at the September 2005 high level plenary meeting of the General Assembly’s opening session, labeled the “World Summit.” Subtitled “towards security, development, and human rights for all,” In Larger Freedom emphasized the relationship between development and security, declaring that “Humanity will not enjoy security without development, it will not enjoy development without security, and it will not enjoy either without respect for human rights” (United Nations, 2005).32 If adopted, this program would have amounted to a dramatic overhaul of the organization. Anne-Marie Slaughter has termed it “a blueprint for profound change, through nothing less than a reconception of security, solidarity, even sovereignty” 32 The above quotation is from the report’s executive summary, available at . It does not appear in the body of the report, but it expresses the larger argument.27 (Slaughter, 2005, p. 619). However, many of the highest profile recommendations, most notably Security Council expansion, were not adopted at the World Summit. Member states did endorse, among other proposals, the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle, creation of a Peacebuilding Commission, replacement of the Human Rights Commission with a more credible Human Rights Council (United Nations, 2005a). Investing in the United Nations, 2006 The Secretary-General’s March 2006 report, Investing in the United Nations: For a Stronger Organization Worldwide focuses on administrative reforms to the Secretariat. While many of the key issues addressed in the report are familiar from the 1997 and 2002 reforms, the measures proposed in Investing in the United Nations still amount to, in the words of the report, “a radical overhaul of the United Nations Secretariat – its rules, structure, systems, and culture” (United Nations, 2006, pp. ii). Arguing that the Secretariat retains a structure and procedures built for an era when the organization served primarily to manage intergovernmental conferences and meetings in New York and Geneva, the report notes that the UN today supports operational activities spanning the globe, and the majority of UN staff work in field missions rather than at headquarters offices. Referring to the earlier reform efforts discussed above, Annan writes that, “these earlier efforts addressed the symptoms and not the causes of the organization’s weaknesses” (United Nations, 2005, p. 4). In response, the Secretary-General proposes major changes regarding human resources, senior management, information technology, service delivery, finance and budgeting, and institutional governance, far exceeding less28 ambitious reforms proposed in previous initiatives, many still only partially implemented (United States General Accounting Office, 2004, pp. 48-49). The 2006 report proposes human resources reforms including procedures for accelerated recruitment and improved training and development. It also recommends integration and harmonization of policies regarding headquarters and field staff, to encourage greater mobility among UN employees, proposing to “integrate field and Headquarters staff into one global Secretariat” (United Nations, 2006, p. 9). Bluntly observing that, “I am expected to be the world’s chief diplomat and at the same time to run a large and complex Organization, as it were, in my spare time,” Annan recommends that the Deputy Secretary-General be made primarily responsible for Secretariat administration and that fewer departments and offices report directly to the Secretary-General (United Nations, 2006, p. 12). The report also recommends streamlined budget and reporting procedures under which member states would establish general policies delegating authority and discretion to the Secretariat to implement them, and holding the Secretariat accountable for results. Most controversially, Investing in the United Nations recommends outsourcing of functions such as printing of documents, and relocating work such as translation services to lower cost locations than New York and Geneva (United Nations, 2006, p. 18). (Press reports mention China as a likely destination.) The latter recommendations sparked a near revolt among UN headquarters staff upon the report’s release (Reuters, 2006). Prospects for approval and implementation of these reforms are unclear, especially as significant additional resources would be required for implementation in the short run, though long term savings and significantly improved organizational effectiveness are promised in return.29 The Politics of UN Reform All of the above initiatives emerge in the context of political pressures confronting (and driving) UN reform. Member state pressure, particularly from the U.S. and other major financial contributors, is a critical impetus to reform, especially with regard to UN financing and management (Caldwell, n.d.; Luck, 2004a). Developing states have often been concerned, however, that reforms proposed by wealthy industrialized countries would undermine the UN’s commitment to development, and shift power to Western powers leading to policies disadvantageous to developing states. This was manifested in developing states’ concern over the use of “gratis military officers” (GMOs) in UN peacekeeping planning. DPKO relied heavily in the 1990s on military personnel loaned to the UN by predominantly Western member states for military advice. However, developing states feared that this practice gave the GMOs’ governments greater influence over UN peacekeeping policy, and successfully lobbied for an end to the loaning of such personnel, denying the DPKO a source of expertise that it could not easily replace (Griffin, 1999, pp. 15-16). Similar concerns lay behind resistance to the Brahimi Reports proposal for an Executive Committee on Peace and Security (ECPS) Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (EISAS), which developing states feared would constitute a UN intelligence capability that could support UN interventions infringing their sovereignty (Durch et al., 2003, p. 38). Addressing these different perspectives, Edward Luck distinguishes three categories of member states in relation to UN reform: the “elite” or most influential30 member states, such as the US and, when unified, EU; the “wealthy multilateralists,” such as Canada, Australia, and the Nordic countries, which play an influential but secondary role; and the “masses,” which adopt a defensive and suspicious view of many reform initiatives (Luck, 2004b, p. 3). In addition the differing priorities and preferences of member states, the UN as an organization possesses its own bureaucratic authority and institutional legitimacy. This allows the UN and especially the Secretary-General to exercise autonomy and to act as an initiator of reform programs (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004). However, these resources derive from the larger cultural environment in which the UN operates, and are dependent on the UN’s perceived conformity to the standards of that environment. Thus, the UN must conform to accepted models of modernity and to institutionalized standards in the “organizational field” of public administration (Brunsson and Olsen, 1993; Meyer et al, 1997; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). The latter is evident in the appointment of a Director of “Change Management” during the implementation of the Brahimi Reforms, and the March 2006 program’s recommendation to establish a Change Management Office in the Secretariat (United Nations, 2006, p. 31). Organized Hypocrisy and UN Reform The UN, as a political organization in a highly inconsistent institutional environment, is subject to the forces that give rise to organized hypocrisy. Its international setting is characterized by conflicts both between competing sets of norms (e.g., sovereignty and human rights) and between norms and the material pressures of anarchy and power politics (Krasner, 1999). As an organizational “open system,” characterized by porous31 boundaries and a loosely coupled internal structure defined and redefined largely through interactions with the external environment, the UN can be expected to exhibit organized hypocrisy in the form of decoupled or counter-coupled response to inconsistent pressures. UN peacekeeping is, in fact, characterized by organized hypocrisy, with both positive and negative implications (Lipson, forthcoming). Recent and ongoing UN reform activities also display indications of at least potential organized hypocrisy in all three forms (hypocritical reform, impaired reform, stabilizing reform) of hypocrisy-reform relationships discussed above. Hypocritical Reform? Institutional reform can embody organized hypocrisy. For a political organization facing conflicting normative and material-resource pressures, this can be functional and even essential for organizational survival. Yet it may subvert the intent of advocates of the reform, and complicate efforts by principals to hold agents accountable, if those principals find it too costly to distinguish between formal and behavioral compliance by the agent. Just as passing Security Council resolutions declaring “safe areas” in Bosnia without providing the resources and mandates necessary to make such commitments a reality constituted organized hypocrisy, so would the endorsement of a “responsibility to protect” principle if not coupled to action in high profile cases such as the ongoing crisis in Darfur. While recent discussions of expanding and “blue-helmeting” the overstretched African Union Mission in Sudan are encouraging in this respect, there remains a real possibility that the World Summit’s endorsement of R2P may provide merely symbolic (Melander, 2006).32 Impaired Reform There are disturbing indications of impaired reform arising from organized hypocrisy in the early record of the Peacebuilding Commission. The NGO Refugees International has observed that, “The creation of the Commission is important as a demonstration of international commitment to peacebuilding, but several aspects of its formation are problematic” (Refugees International, 2006). Member states endorsed the creation of the Commission and an accompanying Secretariat support office at the 2005 World Summit. The Commission is to be an intergovernmental advisory body with the function of promoting greater coherence across peacebuilding-related activities in different parts of the UN system, and ensuring more sustained attention and commitment to peacebuillding The Security Council and General Assembly adopted identical resolutions (S/RES/1645 and A/RES/60/180) on December 20, 2005 establishing a Peacebuilding Commission and specifying its makeup. Some states, however, expressed dissatisfaction over the perception that the Commission was too subject to control by the P-5 and Security Council rather than the General Assembly, and the General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) has resisted requests to fund new staff positions for an accompanying Peacebuilding Support Office in the Secretariat.33 33 In December, 2005, the ACABQ rejected (A/60/7/Add.25, 16 December 2005) the Secretary-General’s request for additional funding for 21 staff positions, and called upon the Secretary-General to provide further justification. Annan submitted a revised request33 This suggests the danger that the Peacebuilding Commission may be relegated to providing a merely symbolic “demonstration of international commitment to peacebuilding,” through the establishment of a formal structure without the resources, staff, and authority to actually affect behavior. Such an outcome would constitute organized hypocrisy, with formal structure responding to institutional pressure for greater commitment to peacebuilding decoupled from behavior driven by material resource pressures.34 The Brahimi Report, while largely successful as a reform initiative, appears to exhibit a degree of OH-induced impairment. Many of the report’s recommendations have been implemented, significantly enhancing the Secretariat’s capacity to manage peacekeeping operations (Durch et al., 2003). However, as a member of the High Level Panel has observed, “Even the Brahimi Report on peacekeeping in 2001 [sic], which contained much excellent advice and many good recommendations, was only partially implemented. Many states were ready to will the ends but not the means to achieve them” (Hannay, 2005, p. 17). Durch et al. note that “The Report’s more concrete and operational recommendations, implementable by the UN bureaucracy, fared better than those pitched at the level of doctrine or strategy or those addressed to the member states themselves” (Durch et al. 2003, 1). To the extent that member states are unwilling to fulfill the report’s more political recommendations, such as the need to provide clear and (A/60/694, 23 February 2006) requesting 15 positions with 8 funded through secondment and redeployment of existing staff. The ACABQ, on March 9, 2006 (A/60/87/Add.36), grudgingly agreed to support the remaining 7 positions “for the time being” and “as a provisional and extraordinary measure.” 34 If counter-coupling rather than decoupling is at work the existence of the Commission could actually reduce the chance of achieving effective coordination of and sustained attention to conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding.34 achievable mandates, and the resources and political commitment to accomplish them, DPKO’s improved planning and rapid deployment capacity will be decoupled from actual operations. Thus, some assessments of the Brahimi Report’s impact have raised, “doubts about the link between structure and performance” (Tardy, 2004, p. 2). Metahypocrisy The Brahimi report’s discussion of peacekeeping doctrine also, however, provides an example of meta-hypocritical reform stabilizing organized hypocrisy in ways that support improved operational effectiveness.35 The Brahimi Report’s recommendations on peacekeeping doctrine simultaneously endorse traditional peacekeeping principles—consent, impartiality, and force only in self-defense—and so-called robust peacekeeping, which can involve the use of force beyond self-defense against one party to the conflict in situations in which consent is lacking (United Nations, 2000, pp. 9-10). Dennis Jett observes that the Report, clings to the idea that “the bedrock principles of peacekeeping” are the consent of the local parties, impartiality, and the use of force only in self-defense. At the same time, it acknowledges that in today’s conflicts, none of those principles are possible. Yet it fails to describe effective ways to deal with these facts (Jett, 2001, p. xviii). 35 This section incorporates and adapts material from Lipson (forthcoming).35 Continued profession of commitment to traditional peacekeeping principles performs a meta-hypocritical function in conjunction with “robust peacekeeping” such as recent practice in UN operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) and Haiti (MINUSTAH). In early March 2005, following the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers, MONUC forces using armored vehicles and supported by an attack helicopter killed as many as 60 militia fighters of the ethnically Lendu Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) in an offensive operation in the eastern Ituri province (Associated Press 2005a, b). In July, UN forces in Haiti launched ‘Operation Iron Fist’, involving 1400 troops employing armored personnel carriers and supported by helicopters in a large-scale attack on a pro-Aristide gang in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cité Soleil blamed for violently resisting efforts to establish law and order and disarm local gangs (Lindsay 2005; Lynch 2005). Yet there is still widespread support for the core traditional peacekeeping principles of consent, neutrality, and non-use of force. For instance, the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations’ report on its 2005 meetings notes that, Many delegations observed that peacekeeping operations should strictly observe the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and those that have evolved to govern peacekeeping and have become basic peacekeeping principles, namely the consent of the parties, the non-use of force, except in self-defence, and impartiality. (United Nations, 2005c, p. 4)36 Recent practice in complex peace operations reflects an emerging consensus in peace operations doctrine on the need for peacekeepers to possess, and be mandated and prepared to use, robust capabilities to deter spoilers and defend civilians (Jakobsen, 2000). Peacekeepers facing spoilers attempting to undermine a peace settlement will lack consent, and will be unable to fulfill their mandate and protect civilians without using significant force against spoiler groups, thereby straining or abandoning the principle of impartiality. However, as a political organization, the UN must also contend with political and normative commitments to core traditional peacekeeping principles inconsistent with robust peacekeeping. The result is institutional rhetoric either decoupled from, or even – by satisfying political pressure to reaffirm traditional principles, thereby compensating for action that violates those principles – counter-coupled with robust peacekeeping in complex peace operations. In such cases, organized hypocrisy can facilitate operational effectiveness. Reform discourse reaffirming traditional principles can stabilize such organized hypocrisy in the face of pressure for consistency.36 Managerial reforms aimed at improved coordination – a staple of UN reform efforts including the 1997 and 2002 initiatives and the Brahimi Report – can also serve as meta-hypocrisy. While improved coordination in field missions is often desirable, there are political and operational reasons why some organizational actors will resist coordination. For example, humanitarian agencies’ perceived impartiality, without which they may not be able to function in complex emergencies, can be undermined if a 36 The High Level Panel report, however, emphasizes (paras 210-223) robust peacekeeping doctrine and practice over traditional principles. Coupled with recent practice in MONUC and MINUSTAH, this may indicate that organized hypocrisy is being resolved through Brunsson’s “implementation” mechanisms: operational requirements are overriding traditional norms of consent-based peacekeeping.37 humanitarian coordinator is subject to the overall authority – as is the practice in recent “integrated mission” arrangements – of a Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) who, in robust peacekeeping, may authorize offensive military operations against one party to the conflict (Jefferys and Porter 2004). It may be necessary for actions to be uncoordinated – with elements of the UN claiming neutrality as humanitarian actors while others engage in peace enforcement inconsistent with neutrality. However, uncoordinated and inconsistent activity by different organizational elements of the UN system may bring accusations of hypocrisy. Brunsson writes that, In a worst-case scenario, the criticism could not only censure them [organizations] but also discredit them as actors. An organization can, for example, be accused of not really being a coordinated unit (Brunsson, 2003, p. 214). Reforms promising improved coordination can stabilize organized hypocrisy in such settings. This involves promising that “the organization will be changed so that it comes more in line with the actor concept, with greater coherence and control. That is the theme in much organizational reform” (Brunsson, 2003, p. 215). Conclusion: Implications for the Theory and Practice of Global Governance The foregoing discussion, though preliminary, suggests that UN reform, and institutional reform in general, should be viewed in a broader perspective. Existing theory explains IO reform as the byproduct of principal-agent interactions or intergovernmental bargaining.38 Reform is also often regarded as either “institutional tiddly winks” (Lord David Hannay, quoted in Maxwell, 2004) or mundane, technical issues of international public administration. According to the perspective presented in this paper, reform reflects and responds to dilemmas of global governance that characterize UN institutional environment. This brings into focus effects and implications of organized hypocrisy for reform – and reform for organized hypocrisy – that are not fully recognizable or comprehensible within the terms of other theoretical perspectives. Principal-agent explanations of IO reform predict less UN reform activity than we observe. According to these perspectives, reform should only occur when the preferences of collective or multiple principals undergo convergent shifts. However, as long time UN official Brian Urquhart recently observed, “I don’t think a year has gone by in 60 years when we haven’t heard about UN reform” (Urquhart, 2004-05, p. 230). This suggests that something beyond the contracting of agency theory is at work. An organized hypocrisy perspective, and institutionalist organization theory more generally, can explain other sources and functions of reform, particularly concerning the symbolic aspects of IO reform and the relationship of reform processes to inconsistent pressures in organizational environments. The practical and normative implications of this analysis are complex and often counterintuitive. For example, in the case of reforms exhibiting counter-coupled organized hypocrisy, formal decisions adopting reform actually reduce the likelihood of the reforms’ goals being achieved. If counter-coupling can be reliably identified, reform advocates might be well advised to actually oppose the adoption of such reforms, in order to better achieve their larger ends (Brunsson, 2002, pp. xvi-xvii). Consideration of39 organized hypocrisy’s effects also complicates conventional condemnations of hypocrisy.37 For political organizations like the UN, organized hypocrisy may be unavoidable, and organizational reforms embodying organized hypocrisy may be needed to enable the organization to respond to greater evils, such as widespread cruelty.38 Greater attention is called for, then, to the relationship between organized hypocrisy and IO reform. 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