Does multilateralism go to your head? (updated)
Laura Rozen is reporting that Brooke Anderson, a major player at the U.S. mission to the United Nations is D.C.-bound. She’ll reportedly take over as chief of staff at the National Security Council, filling the spot vacated by Denis McDonough when he was elevated to deputy national security advisor. "Anderson, a former senior official at ...
Laura Rozen is reporting that Brooke Anderson, a major player at the U.S. mission to the United Nations is D.C.-bound. She'll reportedly take over as chief of staff at the National Security Council, filling the spot vacated by Denis McDonough when he was elevated to deputy national security advisor. "Anderson, a former senior official at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, has focused in New York on United Nations Security Council matters, including nonproliferation and UN peacekeeping missions."
Laura Rozen is reporting that Brooke Anderson, a major player at the U.S. mission to the United Nations is D.C.-bound. She’ll reportedly take over as chief of staff at the National Security Council, filling the spot vacated by Denis McDonough when he was elevated to deputy national security advisor. "Anderson, a former senior official at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, has focused in New York on United Nations Security Council matters, including nonproliferation and UN peacekeeping missions."
One question that I’ve wanted to follow-up—although I’m not sure exactly how—is whether the perceptions of officials change after immersion in an intense multilateral context. Like all folks working on Security Council matters, Anderson has been in the mode of constantly negotiating with other Council members, but particularly the other members of the P5. You’ve got to think that experience, particularly if it’s prolonged, starts to subtly alter the worldview of senior policymakers. A number of long-time UN ambassadors have gone on to serve as foreign ministers or secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov. And, who knows, Susan Rice might at some point continue the tradition. Whether officials like these carry the habits of New York multilateralism with them to Washington and Moscow seems well worth exploring.
Update: a reader points out correctly that there’s some important work in this area already. I’m not familiar with Johnston’s (yet) but Barnett’s work is excellent.
The effect of individuals being immersed in particular institutional environments is indeed a major element of academic research into the processes of change in world politics – at least for those who give much credence to the significance of particular individuals, or the value of microprocesses (rather than more systemic, macro-analyses).
So in terms of altering worlviews – a highly persuasive work comes from Iain Johnston, for whom such individual socialization is a key factor in explaining China’s involvement with global security institutions and treaty commitments. Having to work within global norms associated with these obligations in turn influences their own positions and worldviews, which (arguably) has a knock-on effect on their advocacy within Chinese decisionmaking.
But a highly vivid account also comes from Minnesota professor Michael Barnett, who has written about his own role as a UN official (I think, during the Rwandan genocide) and the socializing effects of that experience on his own thinking.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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