Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat

Paul Novosad and Eric Werker ()
Additional contact information
Eric Werker: Harvard Business School, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit

No 15-018, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: National governments frequently pull strings to get their citizens appointed to senior positions in international institutions. We examine, over a 60 year period, the nationalities of the most senior positions in the United Nations Secretariat, ostensibly the world's most representative international institution. The results indicate which nations are successful in this zero-sum game, and what national characteristics correlate with power in international institutions. The most overrepresented countries are small, rich democracies like the Nordic countries. Statistically, democracy, investment in diplomacy, and economic/military power are predictors of senior positions?even after controlling for the U.N. staffing mandate of competence and integrity. National control over the United Nations is remarkably sticky; however the influence of the United States has diminished as U.S. ideology has shifted away from its early allies. In spite of the decline in U.S. influence, the Secretariat remains pro-American relative to the world at large.

Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2014-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke and nep-pol
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=15-018.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:15-018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HBS ().