Third European Congress on World and Global History

Beskrivelse

Together with Katja Naumann (Leipzig), I have organised a panel on "Dynamics of Change within International Organisations. Challenges of Western Dominance and Inequalities in International Relations". Our distinguished panelists are Chloé Maurel (CNRS, Paris), Claudia Prinz (Humboldt University, Berlin) , Craig Murphy (University of Massachussets, Boston) and Changavalli S.R. Murthy (Jawaharlal Nehru University). Date: 15 April 2011, 01:30–03:30 Abstract According to a general assumption, international organisations are mostly designed by western ideas and have been instruments for the enforcement and preservation of Western dominance in a highly hierarchical world shaped by inequalities in international relations. In our panel, we will ask if these global imbalances were challenged in international organisations. We look at the participation, the spaces of manoeuvre and the appropriation of IOs by countries, which were less influential in determining global affairs. In particular we ask to what extent representatives from non-western countries brought about transformations of international organisations. The panel focuses on the period from the 1950s onwards because of the massive extension of membership institutions of global governance experienced since then. Our aim is to trace the changes this new composition caused. Taking a closer look at the UNESCO (Chloé Maurel), the ISO (Craig Murphy), the WHO (Claudia Prinz) and the Non-Alignment-Movement (C.S.R. Murthy) we follow the concerns of non-Western agents, especially their questioning of and resistance against internal regulations, policies and principles which grounded Western hegemony. Convenor / Chair Klaas Dykmann (Roskilde University) Katja Naumann (GWZO at the University of Leipzig) Panelists Chloé Maurel (CNRS, Paris) Craig Murphy (University of Massachusets, Boston) Changavalli S.R. Murthy (Jawaharlal Nehru University) Claudia Prinz (Humboldt University, Berlin) Papers Maurel Chloé: Non-Western countries in Unesco (1945-1987) During the first decade of its existence UNESCO had a predominately ‘western’ membership but in the course of the decolonization states from other world regions progressively joined in. Since 1960, non-Western countries were numerically in the majority and gained increasingly influence. Craig N. Murphy: How international standard-setting became global Southern firms, unions, and activists consider ISO standards unusually legitimate. Southern engineers have taken part in international standard setting from the beginning. The UN helped build national standards bodies that became part of the ISO network. In the 1960s, ISO began subsidizing Southern participation. After the cold war, key Southern standards bodies became allies of groups consolidating new or renewed democracies, and brought ISO into environmental and social fields. Changavalli S. R. Murthy: The Nonaligned and Change in International Organizations Although major intergovernmental organizations (IOs) owe their origins to the West, they owe their continuing relevance to the non-Western (nonaligned) countries. There are both positive and not so positive dimensions of the impact of the nonaligned countries on IOs. Their dogged pursuit of universality of membership transformed the originally aligned UN to an unaligned organization. Not only in influencing UN to reorient its agenda in favour of anti-colonialism and anti-racism, but also in the acknowledgement of peacekeeping as the unique contribution to world peace and security, the role of nonaligned was notable. Emanation of IDA, UNCTAD, and UNIDO exemplifies the institutionalization of aspirations for economic development of Global South. The Fund/Bank reworked their lending policies in response to the criticism that indifferent to the hardships of the poor countries. True, group solidarity governed their interface with IOs; but divergence between individual and group interests - whether on trade, environment or disarmament issues - was not uncommon. The powerful West sought to gain both by exploiting such intra-group contradictions and to undermine inconvenient IOs. Indeed, the lately evident nonaligned solidarity shortfall may impinge on the legitimacy of normative framework evolved by IOs. Claudia Prinz: A "Magic Bullet" After All? Diarrhoeal Diseases Control at WHO and Unicef Diarrhoeal Diseases have been the leading cause of death of children in poor countries for most of the 20th century. Tracing the way in which WHO and Unicef implemented Diarrhoeal Diseases Control reveals much about institutional dynamics, the concerns of member states, donor influence, and change as well as persistence of concepts of health and development in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of reconfiguration in international health.

Periode	15 apr. 2011
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	London, StorbritannienVis på kort