Rising Powers, UN Security Council Reform, and the Failure of Rhetorical Coercion

Abstract

Despite repeated calls for reform, the UN Security Council has as yet resisted to satisfy the demands of a group of rising powers-Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan (G4)for a permanent seat. We focus on one strategy of institutional adaptation to power shifts mentioned in the introductory article to this special issue and examine why the G4's rhetorical coercion strategy has failed to resonate with the Council's permanent members and the wider UN membership. Looking at the key debate on Security Council reform in the General Assembly in 2005, we examine the justifications the G4 have offered to support their proposal and whether these have been accepted as legitimate by UN member states. We show that the G4's rhetorical coercion strategy has failed to resonate with the targeted audience because the G4 have justified their demand strongly in terms of how their material contributions would enhance the UN's performance. In contrast, the G4's opponents provided justifications predominantly based on fair and democratic procedures, generating higher levels of expressed support. The importance of procedural fairness is consistent with findings in social psychology and challenges the prominent argument that performance is the main path to legitimacy for international institutions. Policy Implications • States seeking institutional reform cannot just state their demands, they need to justify why their demands are legitimate. For these justifications to resonate with the targeted audience and, in particular, with veto players who can thwart their reform attempts, states must appeal to widely accepted norms. • Improving the performance matters for the legitimacy of international institutions, but member states place as much, if not more, value on procedural fairness. Hence, states that strive for institutional reform cannot just point to resulting increases in the institutions' performance. They must be able to appeal to gains in procedural fairness that result from their proposed reforms. • Investing political capital and resources in a campaign for institutional reforms at the UN Security Council that cannot be justified with a view to enhancing procedural fairness does not pay off for states. Not only does it deflect attention from other pressing issues that need to be addressed at the UN, but states that do so also risk alienating states whose support they need for other initiatives at the UN or elsewhere.

The show must go on: The EU's quest to sustain multilateral institutions since 2016

“…Where many developed states criticise the UN's inefficiencies and overspending and prefer greater executive power of the Secretary‐General, developing states often press for greater development spending and further empowerment of the General Assembly (e.g., Baumann 2018). Moreover, non‐permanent members of the Security Council have long sought to reform and enlarge the highest decision‐making body to better reflect the power distribution of the 21st century (e.g., Binder and Heupel 2020). Upon his appointment in 2017, UN Secretary‐General Guterres set out to address some of those criticisms via a comprehensive reform of the development system, management of the organisation, and the peace and security architecture (see Mueller 2021).…”

Rhetorical coercion, institutional legitimacy and the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

“…Such justificatory accounts hold special import for public debates as they establish normative grounds on which the audience evaluates ‘the propriety or legitimacy of action’ or ‘the actor's role and status and the relevant institutional and procedural trappings surrounding the action’ (Bennett, 1980, 794). If these justifications do not resonate with the audience, they will not be able to forestall the emergence of competing and more appropriate claims (Binder & Heupel, 2020, 94).…”

“…Actors engaging in rhetorical coercion do not need to truly believe in the validity of the claims they make. Rather, ‘they are strategic actors who use justifications instrumentally, choosing those rhetorical devices they expect to yield most traction’ (Binder & Heupel, 2020, 95). Rhetorical coercion is often about inflicting hypocrisy costs and force opponents into acceptance (Kruck & Zangl, 2020, 8–9).…”

Making sense of citizen desire for IO democracy: an analysis of public opinion across 44 countries

“…UNSC membership, IMF voting rights), a long-standing issue in international governance, is not discussed in direct connection with IO democracy. The G4 (Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan), for instance, has long tried to justify their bid to become permanent members of the UNSC with “performance-based arguments” rather than arguing from democracy (Binder and Heupel, 2020). This might have to do with the fact that, in classical democratic theories, the subjects of democracy are the people, not the states.…”