This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
The United Nations was established by the victorious states of the Second World War in 1945. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations declared that the organisation's aim is to 'save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’; promote fundamental human rights and the rights of nations large and small; maintain international law and promote social progress. This module will explore how successfully the organisation has met its founding ideals. In doing so, it will consider major issues that faced the United Nations during the first fifty years of its existence. It will examine how policy was formulated in the committee rooms of the General Assembly and the Security Council. It will then explore how effective such policy proved in the context of the Cold War and the changing post-colonial environment of the late twentieth century.
Weekly three-hour seminars.
40% Coursework:
1 gobbets exercise (2,000 words): 10%
3 essays of 3,000 words: 10% each
60% Examination:
2 examinations, each of two hours and worth 30% each: 1) Source Analysis paper and 2) a paper of standard essay questions
CARPENTER, T. G. (ed) (2001) Delusions of Grandeur: The United Nations and Global Intervention. Washington DC: Cato Institute.
FINKELSTEIN, L. S. (ed) (1990), Politics in the United Nations System. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
GARIES, S. B. (2012) The United Nations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
KARNS, M. P. and MINGST, K. A. (2009) International Organizations. New York: Lynne Rienner Publishers inc.
KI-MOON, B. and AHTISAARI, M. (2015) The United Nations at 70. New York: Rizzoli International Publishers.
KENNEDY, P. (2007) The Parliament of Man: the past, the present, and the future of the United Nations. London: Penguin.
MAZOWER, M. (2013) No Enchanted Palace. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
MEISLER, S. (2011) United Nations: A History. New York: Grove Press.
RYAN, S. (200) The United Nations and International Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
WEISS T. G. and DAWS S. (eds) (2007), The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
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