Informal Groups of States and The UN Security Council

International Organization Foundation
Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council

Author(s): Jochen Prantl
Source: International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Summer, 2005), pp. 559-592
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Organization
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Informal Groups of States and the
UN Security Council
Jochen Prantl
Abstract This article discusses the dynamics between informal groups of states
and the UN Security Council. First, I argue that informal groups have proliferated in
response to systemic change. Second, these groups serve as a mechanism that allows
for exit from structural constraints of the Security Council and voice for stakehold-
ers in a conflict. In effect, they may narrow the operational and participatory gap
growing out of the multiple incapacities that prevents the Council from formulating
an effective response to crisis situations. Third, the processes of diplomatic problem
solving and its collective legitimation have become increasingly decoupled. The for-
mer tends to be delegated to informal groups or coalition of states, while the Council
provides the latter. I illustrate how these findings affect one's understanding of power,
legitimacy, and change in the theory of international relations.
The U.S. intervention in March 2003 aiming at Iraq's disarmament and the change
of its regime without explicit authorization of the United Nations (UN) Security
Council has revived discussions about potential and limits of this international
institution.! Some scholars concluded that the Security Council fails to meet its
primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,
because the international system has transformed in a way which is "incompati-
ble" with the original design of the UN.2 "The Security Council is dead. Long
live the Council!" may be the provocative summary of the periodically recurring
exchange of arguments between opponents and proponents of the Council that is
This article is the extensively revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Academic Council on the United Nations System in 2003. The project received financial support from
the Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom (Grant No. R42200024335), and the
Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford. The UN Studies Program at Yale University
was a frequent host and home over recent years. I would like to express my gratitude for the long-term
support and advice of Karl Kaiser, Bruce Russett, James Sutterlin, and especially Neil MacFarlane. I
also wish to thank Mats Berdal, Richard Caplan, Sam Daws, Kurt Gaubatz, Marrack Goulding, Jean
Krasno, Edward Luck, David Malone, Lisa Martin, James Mayall, Joseph Nye, Adam Roberts, Avi
Shlaim, Ngaire Woods, and two anonymous referees for comments and criticism.
1. I follow Mearsheimer's definition of institutions as a "set of rules that stipulate the ways in which
states should cooperate and compete with each other." Mearsheimer 1994/95, 8. See also Mearshe-
imer 2001, 14-22.
2. Glennon 2003, 18.
International Organization 59, Summer 2005, pp. 559-592

? 2005 by The IO Foundation. DOI: 10.1017/S0020818305050204
560 International Organization
TABLE 1. Emergence and proliferation of informal groups of states, 1956-2004
Period Conflict setting
1950s Sinai (1956); Lebanon (1958)

1960s Congo (1960)
1970s Namibia (1972; 1977)
1980s El Salvador (1989)
1990s Cambodia (1990); Angola (1991); Haiti (1992); Western Sahara (1993); Guatemala (1994);
Suriname (1994); Bosnia and Herzegovina (1994); Georgia/Abkhazia (1994); Afghanistan
(1994); Tajikistan (1995); Sierra Leone (1998); Central African Republic (1998); Kosovo
(1999); East Timor (1999); Guinea-Bissau (1999); Democratic Republic of the Congo (1999)
2000- Ethiopia and Eritrea (2000); Sudan (2002); Somalia (2002); Liberia (2002); Iraq (2003);
Great Lakes Region of Africa (2003); Uganda (2004)
Source: United Nations documents; Prantl forthcoming; and Prantl and Krasno 2004.
often based on a superficial analysis of its actual workings and a misreading of its
functions.3 While it is certainly true that the Council is challenged by structural
constraints that will not disappear, even in case of formal adaptations, I show that
conclusions of failure are premature. Analysis of the Council's workings should
not exclusively focus on levels of formal cooperation. In order to gain a proper
understanding of the variables that define its performance, first one needs to ana-
lyze levels of informal cooperation, as epitomized in the plethora of ad hoc group-
ings of states gathering outside the Council's chambers. Those informal settings
emerged early in UN history and proliferated in the postbipolar era, as Table 1
illustrates. Second, one must not underestimate the importance and persistence of
the "symbolic life"4 of the Security Council, which exerts a strong pull on UN
member states to seek its blessing, though sometimes post hoc.
This article seeks to grasp the dynamics between informal groups of states and
the UN Security Council. My assessment touches on wider questions that are at
the heart of the discourse over the extent to which international organizations (IOs)
are able to adapt to systemic change. While other scholars have attempted to address
the causes of why states choose to act through formal IOs, such analysis provided
a rather static view and neglected the effects of systemic change on IO gover-
nance.5 In this context, I define governance as "the processes and institutions, both
formal and informal, that guide and restrain the collective activities of a group."6
The article aims at establishing the importance of informal groups as part and
3. Malone, for example, points to the lack of "a sound understanding of what the Security Council
is good at and what it is bad at." Malone 2004, 1.
4. Hurd 2002; see also the account by the same author on why legitimacy matters to international
institutions, Hurd 1999.
5. Abbott and Snidal 1998.
6. Keohane and Nye 2000, 12.
Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council 561
parcel of Council governance. Here, I concentrate on informal settings such as

groups of friends of the UN secretary-general and contact groups. These group-
ings are diplomatic devices operating with no formal mandate from the Security
Council or the General Assembly. By name, a group of friends is first and fore-
most a gathering of like-minded UN member states supporting the implementa-
tion of good offices, peacemaking and peacekeeping mandates entrusted to the
secretary general. In essence, such group may provide an element of privacy in
the process of peacemaking "to redress the balance between the public and private
procedures of the United Nations."' Groups of friends constitute a platform for
quiet diplomacy in the process of peacemaking on a consensual basis, making up
like-minded countries that lend leverage to the efforts taken by the secretary gen-
eral. These groups help to keep the parties to a conflict engaged throughout the
process. In contrast, contact groups are rather self-selected ad hoc coalitions of
able and willing countries, working separately from the Council and outside the
UN framework. Contact groups may either operate within the objectives of the
organization or act according to their own agenda. These broad division lines
between groups of friends and contact groups become blurred however, when we
look at empirical evidence. Here, I subsume these diplomatic devices under the
term of "informal groups of states." In essence, the formation of the groups occurs
ad hoc, the meeting structure is informal, and the effect on Security Council gov-
ernance varies in its degree.
In this article, I set forth three main arguments. First, informal groups of states
proliferated in the 1990s in response to increasing demands on the UN to adapt to
the security environment of the postbipolar world, without changing formally the
constitutional foundation of the organization. These state groups are agents of incre-
mental change. Second, informal groups of states serve as a mechanism that allow
for exit from structural constraints of the Security Council and voice for stakehold-
ers in a conflict. In effect, they may narrow the operational and participatory gap
growing out of the multiple incapacities that prevents the Security Council from
formulating an effective response to crisis situations. Third, the post-Cold War
era has fostered an environment where the processes of diplomatic problem solv-
ing and its collective legitimation have become increasingly decoupled. The for-
mer tends to be delegated to informal groups or coalition of states, while the UN
Security Council provides the latter.
The article is organized into four parts. The following section establishes the
framework of analysis to grasp the dynamics between informal groups of states
and the UN Security Council. Then, I examine the causes of informal groups of
states, focusing in particular on the question of why informal groups of states have
been proliferating in the postbipolar era. The third section applies the analytical
7. Former UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjiold emphasized this aspect in his address on "The
Element of Privacy in Peacemaking," delivered at Ohio University, Athens/Ohio, on 5 February 1958.
Cordier and Foote 1974, 27.
framework to three specific conflict settings, that is, Namibia, El Salvador, and
Kosovo. In the final section, I summarize the effects of informal groups of states
on Council governance, highlighting implications for understanding power, legit-
imacy, and change in the theory of international relations.
Informal Groups of States and the Security Council:

Grasping the Dynamics
Underlying my analysis is the assumption that the Security Council can best be
described as a Janus-faced structure of both an open system and a closed shop.
This notion reflects its sensitivity toward external change while the restrictive pro-
visions of the Charter constrain the possibilities of formal adaptation.8 Article 24
of the UN Charter allocates primary, although not exclusive, responsibility for the
maintenance of international peace and security to the Security Council. Groups
of friends and contact groups increasingly complement or even compete with the
original functions of the Council as provided for in the Charter. Yet, the UN Char-
ter does not have any provisions at its disposal that would grant ad hoc groupings
formal access to Council consultations. The performance of groups of friends and
contact groups suggests that they are able to exert considerable influence on an
informal level. In this context, I define influence as "the modification of one actor's
behavior by that of another." 9 This includes the modification or, in the extreme
case, the hijacking, of Council decision making by ad hoc groupings. The phenom-
enon of influencing different stages of Council decision making by informal groups
of states shall be defined as informal influence. It does not occur on a permanent
basis, but differs significantly from case to case. Informal influence takes place on
different levels and varies in its extent. At the same time, informal groups of states
are only two out of various possibilities to influence Council decision making.'0
In this article, I adopt a predominantly rationalist theoretical approach." Although
such a framework has been designed by scholars to assess the actual workings of
international institutions, this approach clearly has its limits. It is my primary con-
cern to establish the importance of informal groups of states as empirical phenom-
ena rather than following a single line of international relations theory. IOs are
complex settings, which cannot be analyzed through the exclusive lens of the ratio-
8. Prantl and Krasno 2004, 312-15.

9. Cox and Jacobson 1973, 3.
10. This article does not aim at providing an encyclopedic overview on all possibilities of informal
influence on Council decision making. Others have done that; see, for example, Bailey and Daws 1998.
Although the influence displayed by other players such as the African Union, the European Union, the
G-77, the Nonaligned movement, or the Organization of American States (OAS) is clearly important,
these institutions do not match two crucial criteria of groups of friends and contact groups. They are
neither informal nor ad hoc.
11. Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2004.
nalist research agenda.12 Such approach would face the danger of what Lippmann
has called the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts.13 Instead, it
is preferable to develop a synergistic approach that employs theoretical strands in
a complementary rather than competitive manner. I identify the causal mecha-
nisms that contribute to the formation of informal groups of states by borrowing
from insights of theories of agency and delegation. Agency theory helps us to under-
stand the development of institutions under conditions of systemic change, which
alters agency relationships.14 At the same time, and this is particularly relevant for
explaining the workings of groups of friends of the UN secretary-general, one
also needs to integrate a constructivist element in the analytical framework to fully
appreciate the autonomous role of IO's bureaucracies in this process, that is, the
UN Secretariat.
How do international institutions cope with the problem of adjustment? As orga-
nization theory has illustrated, there are considerable constraints on initiating a
formal adaptation process to respond to both changes in the relative power of states
and the demands of a changed security environment."1 Formal organizations reflect
the institutionalization of the distribution of their member states' relative influ-
ence and power over governance at a certain point of time. Such institutionaliza-
tion tends to result in the maintenance of the status quo, given the sunk costs and
a high degree of risk aversion to initiate adaptations in response to changes in
structural variables. While some scholars have taken the Security Council as an
example to illustrate the stability of institutions,16 others have claimed that the
Council is an unstable system because there are no mechanisms to adapt its hier-
archy of influence in response to external changes.17 One needs to qualify both
views. On the one hand, the Security Council is indeed affected by systemic
changes, with consequences for the decision making, effectiveness, and represen-
tativeness of this international institution. In effect, systemic change endangers
organizational stability. However, does this inevitably lead to the conclusion that
the Council is unstable? Not necessarily. Empirical evidence is much more diverse
than these two propositions suggest. Informal groups of states provide a bridge to
solve this puzzle. These groups may be instrumental in incrementally adapting the
Security Council to systemic change without formally altering its structure and
composition. At the same time, they may alleviate unanticipated effects.18 In con-
sequence, ad hoc mechanisms may accommodate the potential to serve as a stabi-
lizing element for international institutions in transition.
12. Barnett and Finnemore, for example, gain important insights by applying a constructivist approach
treating IOs as bureaucracies to explain their autonomy, including their propensity for self-defeating
behaviour; see Barnett and Finnemore 1999 and 2004.
13. Lippmann 1922, 10.
14. Keohane and Martin 2003, 102-4.
15. Keohane 1984, 100-3.
16. Keohane and Martin 2003, 100-2.
17. See McCarthy 1997; and Glennon 2003.
18. On the problem of unanticipated effects of international institutions, see Gallarotti 1991.
The findings of this article that are related to governance in and of the UN Secu-
rity Council may force a reexamination of Abbott's and Snidal's proposition that
centralization and independence are key functional characteristics of IOs, which
provide a powerful incentive for states to act through formal IOs.19 Empirical evi-
dence presents a much more complex picture. It demonstrates that informal groups
of states in fact decentralize the workings of the UN Security Council, with the
effect of ameliorating its structural deficiencies. Seen from the perspective of agency
theory, those findings have direct impact on one's understanding of the nature of
delegation to IOs, including the relationship between principal and agent.20 The
findings explain two puzzles: first, why states continue to delegate certain tasks
and responsibilities to IOs despite the limits of the institutional problem-solving
capacity; and, second, how "delegation in reverse," that is, redelegating tasks away
from IOs to other agents such as informal groups of states, can ultimately enhance
IO governance. One must therefore reconsider Abbott's and Snidal's claim that
the functions of centralization and independence enhance efficiency.21 Contrary to
them, I argue that decentralization through the establishment of informal groups
of states allows UN member states to achieve policy goals that would be unattain-
able in a centralized setting. However, centralization still matters. Analysis of the
dynamics between informal groups of states and the Security Council suggests
that the main benefits of centralization lies in the procedural legitimation of mem-
ber states' actions, which remains one of the most important functions of IOs.22
In order to examine the dynamics between informal groups of states and the
UN Security Council, I complement my analytical framework further by incorpo-
rating concepts and methods developed in the domestic context. Here, I draw on
Hirschman's typology of exit, voice, and loyalty.23 Such an analytical framework
provides one with explanatory leverage to analyze institutional effects of the UN
Security Council under conditions of systemic change. Exit signifies the option of
leaving the UN framework, either partially or completely, in order to escape from
the structural constraints of the UN. Exit is partial if it occurs within the objec-
tives of the UN, for example, by acting under the umbrella of a Security Council
resolution. I illustrate this further in the case of Namibia. Exit is complete if it
occurs outside UN objectives. This may take form of (temporarily) bypassing the
UN, as it has been the case during the Kosovo and Iraq wars in 1999 and 2003,
19. Abbott and Snidal 1998, 8.

20. On the delegation of tasks to IOs and the related issue of IO autonomy, see, for example, Bar-
nett and Finnemore 1999 and 2004; Hawkins et al. 2003; Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2004; Pol-
lack 1997; and Lake and McCubbins 2004.
21. Abbott and Snidal 1998, 9.
22. It is important in this regard to distinguish between procedural and output legitimacy. While
procedural legitimacy refers to the creation of broad acceptance through public discourse over and
through the formal decision making leading towards a specific course of action, output legitimacy
refers to the creation of acceptance through the outcomes a course of action itself is able to produce.
23. Hirschman 1970.
TABLE 2. Exit, voice, and loyalty
Exit The option for UN member states of leaving the Security Council framework to escape the
multiple structural deficiencies of its conflict resolution machinery.
Voice The possibility for stakeholders in a conflict (and the UN Secretariat) to articulate their
interests before the Security Council.
Loyalty An interest-driven pattern of UN member states displaying the following functions:
* Exerts a pull toward compliance with the objectives of the United Nations.
* Exerts a push to seek (post hoc) legitimation by the Security Council.
* Activates the voice option.
* Contains the extent of exit and prevents UN member states from terminating membership
in the organization.
respectively. Voice constitutes the possibility for stakeholders in a conflict (as well
as the UN Secretariat) to articulate their interests before the Security Council and
to take informal influence on its decision making. This is particularly relevant in
those cases where stakeholders are not being represented on the Council, as I dem-
onstrate in the case study on El Salvador. The decision to opt either for exit or
voice is informed by the conflict setting. Underlying the notion of loyalty is the
interest-based argument that achieving legitimacy eventually buttresses the posi-
tion of (groups of) states. Loyalty displays four distinctive functions. First, it exerts
a pull on UN member states toward compliance with the objectives of the organi-
zation. Second, it may push those players acting outside the UN framework to
seek (post hoc) legitimation by the UN Security Council. Third, it activates the
voice option. Fourth, loyalty may contain the extent of exit and limit the damage
created by the marginalization of the organization. Table 2 illustrates the key fea-
tures of exit, voice, and loyalty.
It is important to understand that this analytical framework differs from Hir-
schman's typology in one important respect. The classical exit option implies that
if a customer is so dissatisfied with the quality of the product or the service pro-
vided by a firm, then he or she may buy the product from a competitor. This is
different in the case of the UN, as there are no peer competitors around. This is
neither to suggest that the UN has a monopoly in maintaining international peace
and security nor is this to argue that the organization is the exclusive provider of
legitimacy. However, with its nearly universal membership, the UN enjoys an unpar-
alleled comparative advantage in providing a forum for achieving the broadest
possible international acceptance for state action taken. Procedural legitimacy is
one of the most important products the UN has to sell. The termination of UN
membership is therefore an extremely unlikely option, as the political cost for imple-
mentation would be considerable. Loyalty matters. In the absence of loyalty, exit
would be essentially costless.
In conclusion, analysis of the interplay between levels of formal and informal
cooperation highlights variations in institutional effects. Grasping those variations
constitutes a key challenge to institutional theory.24 It helps to qualify arguments

on the costs and benefits of acting through formal IOs. Such research agenda could
be easily expanded. Future research desiderata would include the extension of the
database by conducting a comparative analysis of the dynamics between informal
groups and central decision-making bodies in organizations such as the European
Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), International Monetary Fund
(IMF), World Bank, or World Trade Organization (WTO).
Informal Groups of States: Causes
The breakdown of the bipolar system has provided the permissive political con-
text to engage the UN conflict resolution machinery in a plethora of conflicts that
had remained unaddressed during the Cold War.25 The quantity and quality of cri-
sis settings widened and, for a certain time, overstrained the role of the UN Secu-
rity Council leading to a problem of overload. This has been often accompanied
by a sheer lack of interest or disagreement on the part of the Council's five per-
manent members (P-5) on what action should be taken. The UN and its member
states have been constantly facing hard choices regarding which conflicts to address.
In addition to problems of overload and reluctance by the P-5 to become engaged,
the structural conditions of the Council constitute a serious constraint in the devel-
opment of consistent policies and standards, as the following section elaborates.
Why did informal groups of states proliferate in the post-Cold War era? In this
section, I develop the argument that ad hoc arrangements constitute policy alter-
natives that emerged in response to systemic change. Although informal groups
are not a unique feature of the postbipolar international system,26 they proliferated
in this period responding to a set of external and internal factors that had led to a
crisis in Council decision making, effectiveness, and representativeness. Seen from
the perspective of principal-agent theory, UN member states redelegated tasks to
informal arrangements to escape from structural deficiencies of the UN conflict
resolution machinery. Agency theory helps one to understand the causal mecha-
nisms that contributed to the greater recourse to informal arrangements. Multiple
strategic constraints inhibit the efficient running of the Council's conflict resolu-
tion machinery. Such problems include the varying capacity and resources of UN
member states to contribute to the Council's work program, the biannual rotation
of elected members of the Security Council, lack of political will to address con-
flicts, lack of support from permanent and elected members to implement resolu-
24. For a useful review of the "state of the art" of institutional theory, see Simmons and Martin
2002.
25. This was especially because of the increased cooperation of the P5 on important security issues
from 1987 onwards. Although such cooperation would be established practice by 1990, it stayed selec-
tive on a case-by-case basis; see Hume 1994.
26. Table 1 illustrates this point further.
tions that have been adapted by themselves, and the Security Council working
methods and practices. I proceed on two levels of analysis. First, I shed light on
external factors such as crisis settings the Security Council has been increasingly
confronted with in the postbipolar era. Second, I examine internal factors that pre-
vent the institution from formulating an effective crisis response.
The Complexity of Crisis Settings
The pattern of UN involvement in the postbipolar era is characterized by conflict

settings on an intrastate rather than an interstate level. One can observe a shift
away from border conflicts between states to conditions of internal violence that
often spill over into neighboring countries in the region.27 Conflict scenarios
involve a different mix of actors, ranging from regular armies over militias to
armed civilians. These scenarios may include the failure or collapse of state author-
ity, with an absence of governance, accompanied by the breakdown of law and
order. Furthermore, civil strife affects the economies of neighboring countries,
with economic growth rates shrinking and diseases such as Malaria and HIV/
AIDS spreading.28
Complex crisis settings require differentiated responses from the international
community, a varying mix of policies and flexible sequencing of different kinds of
interventions such as peace enforcement with aid and reform.29 Negotiated settle-
ments that end conflicts are usually not only military arrangements to cease armed
violence; they also include a variety of other tasks. These address both military
and civilian issues, such as the supervision of cease-fires, (regional) disarmament,
demobilization of armed forces, integration of former combatants into civilian life,
humanitarian relief, establishment and training of police forces, reform of institu-
tions, and the organization and supervision of elections. The repair of the causes
and consequences of state failure has to be a long-term commitment.30 UN oper-
ations increasingly have had to combine peacekeeping with peace building func-
tions, reflecting the complex arrangements that ended the armed conflict.
The increasing demands of the changing security environment affected both the
Security Council and the Office of the Secretary-General. The Security Council
responded by extending the scope of Article 39, adopting far-reaching mandates
to deal with the complexity of crisis situations.31 The secretary-general was pushed
into a position where "the management aspects ... have become more demanding
and more politically charged." 32 He had to oversee multifunctional operations
involving the complete spectrum of preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, peace
27. Wallensteen 2002, 203-30.

28. Collier et al. 2003, 33-39.
29. Ibid., 185.
30. Rotberg 2004.
31. FreudenschuB 1993.
32. Sutterlin 1995, 116.
enforcement, peace building, including humanitarian aid, refugee assistance and

electoral campaigns, which he increasingly entrusted to special representatives act-
ing on his behalf. While the UN had established only thirteen peacekeeping oper-
ations in the thirty years between 1948 and 1978, the fading bipolar international
system created the permissive political context to establish twenty-six operations
in the short, seven-year period between 1988 and 1995.33 The quality and quantity
of crisis settings fostered the trend toward the redelegation of tasks to flexible
mechanisms that would allow for dealing with these complex and sensitive oper-
ations in a decentralized way.
Structural Constraints of the UN Security Council
The UN presents, as Doyle has rightly observed, "an almost textbook case of mul-
tiple strategic incapacities produced by both institutional incapacity and lack of
support from its member countries." 34 Looking through the prism of the UN Secu-
rity Council, the body lacks an external federator that may serve as the uniting
moment to develop a "commonality of interests." 35 It is first and foremost a polit-
ical body, with its resolutions and statements reflecting the bargaining and trade-
off of the various interests involved in the decision-making process. Another factor
that has to be taken into account is the lack of a "cultural consensus" 36 that con-
stitutes an impediment to the application of consistent policies toward crisis situ-
ations. Any thorough analysis of the potential and limits of the Council should
move beyond the focus on external structural conditions and also include a deeper
examination of its internal constraints. The following subsection concentrates, there-
fore, on three crucial factors: first, the varying capacity of UN member states to
contribute to the Council's work; second, the biannual rotation of elected mem-
bers as an impediment to formulate long-term policies; and third, structural con-
straints of the Security Council, resulting from adaptations to systemic changes.
These constraints are likely to endure independent from any formal adaptation of
the Council's membership.
As far as the capacities of UN member states are concerned, only few delega-
tions serving on the Council have the necessary (human) resources-taking into
account, for example, the size of their permanent missions-to deal in depth with
the plethora of conflicts placed on its daily agenda. Table 3 shows the number of
professionals on staff of member states serving on the UN Security Council in the
period from 2000 to 2004. The size of permanent missions such as Bangladesh,
Jamaica, Mauritius, or Mali ranged, for example, in the year 2001 between six to
eight professionals. Those numbers may illustrate the extremely limited resources
of some UN member states to bear the additional burden of a two-year term on
33. UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations 2004.

34. Doyle 2001, 539.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
TABLE 3. Size of permanent missions: Number of

professionals on staff, 2000-04
2004 2003 2002 2001 2000
Permanent five
China 65 61 70 59 67
France 29 28 28 30 30
Russia 83 83 78 75 81
United Kingdom 38 42 40 36 34
USA 128 124 123 112 115
Elected members 2004-05
Algeria 16
Benin 10
Brazil 34
Philippines 24
Romania 17

Angola 17 18
Chile 18 17
Germany 63 62
Pakistan 15 15
Spain 21 20
Bulgaria 12 11
Cameroon 18 17
Guinea 12 11
Mexico 25 23
Syria 15 17
Colombia 16 14
Ireland 21 20
Mauritius 7 6
Norway 18 19
Singapore 13 13
Bangladesh 8 8
Jamaica 7 10
Mali 6 5
Tunisia 13 12
Ukraine 18 13
Source: Global Policy
the Council. At th
nent members t
action.37 Althoug
indicator among o
37. Caron 1993, 564.
the chain of Security Council action, it is nevertheless an obvious one. The ques-
tion of resources becomes especially relevant at times when the number of con-
flicts on the Council's agenda and the frequency of its meetings tend to be high.
However, a certain degree of accumulated expertise and experience, based on spe-
cial skills or knowledge, or privileged access to information, may compensate to
some extent for the sheer lack of resources. The size and effectiveness of foreign
ministries to back up permanent missions with information or the degree of cen-
tralization in the foreign policy apparatus is another point of consideration.38
Second, the biannual rotation of nonpermanent members constitutes another struc-
tural constraint, which prevents the formulation of comprehensive approaches to
crisis settings. Consequently, much of the crisis response occurs ad hoc and in a
rather incremental way. The very concept of nonpermanent membership is an imped-
iment to any long-term commitment toward a conflict, especially a civil war. Given
the fact that the average civil conflict goes on for about seven years, with a need
for continued commitment lasting well into the decade of postconflict peace, the
development and pursuance of long-term policy goals within the framework of
the Security Council remains a difficult task.39 At the same time, these structural
conditions add to the preponderance of the P-5 on the Council, in addition to their
prerogative to cast a veto on Council action.
The third internal constraint relates to adaptations in the Council's working meth-
ods and procedures in response to systemic changes. In essence, the breakdown of
the bipolar system exacerbated structural limitations of the UN Security Council
that had originated much earlier when the UN had to adapt to change resulting
from decolonization, which constituted "the most important single process in inter-
national relations since the Second World War."'40 Between 1945 and 1965, UN
membership rose from 51 to 117 member states, with the proportion of Asian,
African, and Caribbean states increasing from 25 percent to roughly 50 percent.41
The Nonaligned movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (G-77), created in 1961
and 1964, respectively, became an important hub of coordination between the
so-called Third World countries. The balance of power in the Western dominated
General Assembly gradually shifted in favor of the postcolonial states.
In consequence, pressure increased to adapt the composition of the Security
Council in order to achieve a more balanced geographical representation of coun-
tries on that body. The enlargement of the Security Council, coming into effect on
31 August 1965, had wide-ranging implications for its inner-institutional balance
of power and diplomacy, with the dominance of Western countries waning.42 In
effect, the ideological battles taking place between North and South in the Gen-
38. This is especially prevalent in the case of France.

39. Collier et al. 2003, 3, 7.
40. Roberts 2003, 57.
41. For the growth in UN membership, see Figure 1.
42. Hiscocks 1973, 99.
200- 191
185
180-
159
~ 160- 154
144
S1120
14012
120- 117
99,/9
S100-
80- 7
60
60- 51
40 1945
1 1950
1 1955
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 "
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1988 1995 2002
Year
Source: http://www.un.org/Overview/growth.htm. Accessed 10 March 2005.
FIGURE 1. Growth in UN membership, 1945-2002
eral Assembly were transferred into the Security Council.43 The frequent recourse
to Article 31 of the Charter that allowed UN member states, not being members
of the Council, to participate in the formal meetings of the body reinforced the
development of the Council toward a mini-Assembly.44 Related requests increased
from the 1960s onwards.45 As a direct result, Council members sought retreat to
the so-called informal consultations of the whole. Neither the UN Charter nor the
Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council refer to such a possibility.
Figure 2 shows the sharp increase of informal consultations between 1972 and
43. In fact, the formation of the Western Contact Group on Namibia in 1977 occurred in direct
response to those structural deficiencies, as I will elaborate further below.
44. Article 31 of the UN Charter reads as follows: "Any Member of the United Nations which is
not a member of the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in the discussion of any ques-
tion brought before the Security Council whenever the latter considers that the interests of that Mem-
ber are specially affected." United Nations Department of Public Information 1997.
45. Bailey and Daws 1998, 155. At peak times, especially when the Security Council discussed
matters related to decolonization and Apartheid, as much as 50 percent of the total UN membership
participated in its formal meetings. For example, on 1 June 1983, a total number of sixty-four delega-
tions, not being members on the Council, participated in this meeting; see UN Document S/PV.2451,
1 June 1983.
200-
175- 163
150 138
150- Inform
- - Formal meetings 123
125- 113 108
S100- 113 89
77 77 77
60 75- 60 7 73 7 7
z\52 5 52 '6
50 38
25 - 1
6 3
1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982
Year
Source: United Nations 1973-83; and Feuerle 1985, 288.
FIGURE 2. Formal meetings and informal consultations of the Security Council,

1972-82
1982.46 Nonmembers of the Council do not have access to those meetings. Ho

ever, the retreat to informal consultations has not been able to overcome the s
tural constraints of the Council. Various diplomats of permanent mission
officials of the UN Secretariat pointed already in the early 1980s to the down
of these informal consultations that had been inherent in the process, that is, "
erate stalling, inaction, watered-down resolutions, secrecy, over-formalizatio
an informal process, and lack of outside input." 47 Consequently, the institut
and procedural adaptations in response to changes resulting from decolonizati
negatively affected Security Council governance.48
46. Figure 2. The year 1978 appears as watershed, with the number of informal consultation
pling from 38 meetings in 1977 to 113 the following year. This increase occurred because of th
pletion of a separate room in 1978 built for the sole purpose of holding informal consultation
de-facto formalization contributed to a significant increase of the informal consultations of the w
47. Cited in Feuerle 1985, 294.
48. The Western Contact Group on Namibia, established in 1978, constitutes the precedent
where a group of UN member states chose the exit option to escape those structural deficiencie
became frequent practice in the 1990s.
In the post-Cold War era, this negative trend worsened, with the UN Security
Council operating in a permissive political context that allowed for dealing with
more and more complex conflict settings than ever before in the history of the
UN. In effect, the situation challenged the capacity of the Council to fulfill its
role as the primary instrument for the maintenance of international peace and
security, generating an Article 24 crisis with essentially three dimensions.49 First,
the crisis of representativeness pertains to the perception that the composition
of the Security Council is neither geographically balanced nor does it reflect the
current distribution of relative power among UN member states. Second, the
crisis of effectiveness relates to the growing mismatch in the Security Council
between the willingness to take decisions and the allocation of resources for
their implementation. Those problems had been most prominent in the cases of
Srebrenica and Rwanda. Third, the crisis of decision making refers to the selec-
tivity of the Security Council in addressing some conflicts while ignoring others.
Especially after the failed intervention in Somalia, Council members had become
more reluctant to engage in conflict settings on the African continent. Although
this trend has reversed somewhat recently, the overall problem of selectivity
remains.
In conclusion, informal groups of states emerged early in the history of UN

peacemaking out of the structural deficiencies the UN Security Council has been
facing at various levels. They proliferated out of the demands the UN have been
confronted with after the breakdown of the bipolar system. The permissive polit-
ical context that allowed for the greater engagement of the UN in combination
with the complexity of crisis settings and the multiple structural constraints of the
Security Council, fostered the development toward an Article 24 crisis, affecting
Council decision making, effectiveness, and representativeness. UN member states
redelegated tasks away from the UN to informal arrangements. Governance in the
Council changed significantly, as much of the work was done within the decen-
tralized setting of those informal frameworks, with minimal involvement of other
Council members. Figure 3 illustrates the causal relationship between systemic
change, problems of the UN Security Council to adapt accordingly, the resulting
Article 24 crisis, including the recourse to informal groups of states as a mecha-
nism that allows for exit from structural constraints and voice for stakeholders in
a conflict.
In the following section, I apply the analytical framework of exit, voice, and
loyalty to specific conflict settings to illustrate my argument. The conflict settings
of Namibia (exit) and El Salvador (voice) constitute precedent cases that illustrate
the contextual and situational parameters contributing to the establishment of the
Western Contact Group and the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General respec-
tively. Both informal devices served as models that would be applied in sub-
49. Prantl forthcoming.
Systemic change
UN Security Council
"primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security" (Article 24.1)
Multiple structural constraints Complex crisis settings
Article 24 crisis
Decision making Effectiveness Representativeness
Informal groups of states
Exit option Voice option
FIGURE 3. Proliferation of informal groups in the po
sequent crisis settings.50 The Kosovo case (exit vers

changing role of the Security Council at the end of th
of diplomatic problem solving and collective legitimati
one another. I demonstrate how recourse to informal gr
ally keep states engaged in an organizational setting
temic change.
The Cases of Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo
Exit and voice are distinctive policy options accommod

decision to opt for either exit or voice is informed by t
50. While the Western Contact Group served as a model for the C
via, formed in 1994, the group of friends mechanism was subseque
tings such as Haiti (1992), Western Sahara (1993), or Guatemala (19
This section demonstrates the explanatory leverage of exit, voice, and loyalty as
analytical framework by applying it to the cases of Namibia, El Salvador, and
Kosovo.51
Exit: The Western Contact Group on Namibia
The process leading toward the independence of Namibia in 1990 illustrates the
problems of the UN to adapt to systemic change well before the breakdown of the
bipolar system. As mentioned earlier, the process of decolonization resulted in a
significant increase of membership that shifted the balance of power in the Gen-
eral Assembly and the Security Council. In addition, with the admission of post-
colonial states, decolonization turned into an ideological issue that contributed to
a situation where direct UN involvement had proven ineffective. These structural
conditions complicated the process toward the further dismantling of the colonial
system and generated a push toward exit, as epitomized in the establishment of
the Western Contact Group in 1977.52
The emergence of the informal group coincided with the nonpermanent Coun-
cil membership of Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1977-78. At
this time, several General Assembly resolutions had been adopted under massive
pressure of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), criticizing the attitude of
Western countries toward Apartheid in general, and their stance toward the situ-
ation in Namibia and Rhodesia in particular. Furthermore, growing recourse to
Article 31 of the UN Charter that granted nonmembers the possibility of partici-
pation in formal meetings of the Council effectively transformed the body into a
mini-General Assembly, with negative repercussions for dealing effectively with
the conflict.53 From this perspective, the decision to opt for exit occurred in
response to these external and internal factors. The specific setting of the conflict
informed the choice of the five Western Council members to escape those struc-
tural deficiencies and to work outside the UN framework. The Contact Group
provided a platform for informal cooperation beyond the East-West and North-
South antagonism within the General Assembly and the Security Council. It locked
the parties to the conflict into a process orchestrated by Contact Group members
and frontline states.54
The Contact Group operated without an explicit mandate of the Security Coun-
cil and negotiated a settlement proposal for Namibia's independence outside the
51. These cases are fully elaborated in Prantl forthcoming.

52. The Western Contact Group comprised Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and United
States. For a good overview on the workings of the Western Contact Group, see Brenke 1989; Jabri
1990; Karns 1987; and Vergau 2002.
53. Prantl forthcoming.
54. The frontline states were Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia.
UN framework, though within the objectives of the organization.55 The coopera-

tion between the Western Contact Group and the UN turned out to be crucial
because the organization provided the seal of legitimacy to the Western initiative.
The Western Contact Group and, later, after the adoption of the linkage approach,
the United States alone sought to legitimize the substance of negotiations via the
process of Council decision making.56 At the same time, the UN assumed respon-
sibility for implementing and monitoring the settlement plan. At the end of 1988,
the process enjoyed the broad cooperation of Contact Group members, frontline
states, Cuba, the Soviet Union, South Africa, and the OAU. In effect, such strat-
egy was key to gaining wider acceptance of the implementation process by UN
member states.
Voice: The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador
Contrary to the process leading toward Namibian independence, the formation of

the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador57 has to be explained
in the context of the shifting balance of power between the UN Secretariat and the
Security Council during the transformation of the bipolar system. The actual and
perceived predominance of the P-5, especially of the United States, bore the dan-
ger of compromising the impartiality of the UN secretary-general especially in
those conflict settings where his good offices had been required. In contrast to the
first case study, where the Western Contact Group led the negotiation process out-
side the UN framework, in the case of El Salvador, the UN Secretariat took over
the leading role as intermediary to reach a negotiated political solution to the con-
flict in El Salvador.58 Established in December 1989, the Group of Friends served
as a means at the disposal of the secretary-general and his representatives to sup-
port the UN's efforts to mediate an agreement between the conflicting parties, that
is, the government of El Salvador and the rebel forces, the Frente Farabundo Marti
para la Liberaci6n Nacional (FMLN).59 The Group of Friends primarily accom-
55. The Western Contact Group explicitly based its initiative on Resolution 385, adopted in January
1976, which had already provided a framework of objectives for a negotiated settlement. The settle-
ment proposal became later endorsed by Resolution 435, adopted in September 1978.
56. The Reagan administration adopted the linkage approach in 1981 and made progress in the
question of Namibian independence dependent on a prior withdrawal of Cuban troops from the neigh-
boring country of Angola. Then the preservation of Resolution 435 as the legitimate basis for the set-
tlement of conflict became the primary concern for Contact Group members and the UN secretary-
general. Preventing the complete exit of the superpower was achieved by tacitly acknowledging the
U.S. policy of linkage without publicly approving it. See Crocker 1999; and Prantl forthcoming.
57. The group consisted of Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela, later joined by the United
States. At that stage the Friends became known as the "4+1."
58. See de Soto 1999; Johnstone 1995; Juhn 1998; and Whitfield 1999.
59. This case, therefore, sheds light on the role of IOs as active agents. It also illustrates the ten-
sions between what IOs want and what states want, which has been a serious shortcoming in the work
of international relations scholars thus far; see Barnett and Finnemore 2004. At the same time, the case
shows that the constructivist and principal-agent analysis are mutually enforcing rather than exclusive;
see Prantl forthcoming.
modated the interest of the FMLN, which aimed at preventing potential microman-
agement of the Council. Choosing the voice option, as epitomized in the formation
of the Group of Friends, amplified the leverage of the UN intermediary in the
negotiations with the parties to the conflict. The Group of Friends mechanism on
El Salvador allowed the Secretariat to exclude the Security Council from the peace
process to the greatest possible extent.
Seen from the perspective of U.S. foreign policy, the case of El Salvador also
demonstrates that "support for multilateral negotiations can be more effective and
less costly than the unilateral use of force." 60 Despite the primary rationale of the
Group of Friends to balance U.S. preponderance inside and outside the UN Secu-
rity Council, the United States adopted a pragmatic approach by extending the
Friends mechanism to an informal "four-plus-one" formula. Informal participa-
tion in the Group of Friends secured control over the peace process without becom-
ing the protagonist. Choosing multilateral means with the assistance of an informal
setting constituted the preferred strategy of the U.S. administration for achieving
its policy end of graceful exit from El Salvador. The joint efforts taken by the UN
Secretariat, Group of Friends, and U.S. administration reflected a productive mutual
dependency that produced the momentum for an agreement that generated the per-
ception of having achieved a "peace without losers."
Exit versus Loyalty: Quint, G-8, and Troika during the

Kosovo War61
The Kosovo conflict is a textbook case that amply illustrates the Article 24 crisis
of the UN Security Council at the end of the 1990s. The military and political
management of the crisis was being conducted outside the UN framework without
explicit authorization of the Security Council. The Western Alliance chose the exit
option by employing NATO because the Security Council was or appeared to be
deadlocked.62 After the failure of Contact Group efforts from late 1997 to spring
1999 to negotiate a political settlement of the ongoing crisis in Kosovo, Group of
Eight (G-8) and Troika started to define the diplomatic response to the ongoing
crisis while NATO sustained the military pressure on the regime of Serbian Pres-
ident Slobodan Milosevic. While the Quint provided a bridge between the politi-
cal and military tracks of conflict management, the trilateral diplomacy of the Troika
aimed at closing the various gaps that existed between efforts taken by the Euro-
pean Union, the G-8, NATO, and the UN.
60. Karl 1992, 164.

61. The Quint is composed of the five key allies within NATO, that is, France, Germany, Italy, UK,
and the United States. During the Kosovo crisis, they coordinated positions on NATO's air campaign
and cooperated to maintain the coherence of the Atlantic Alliance. The Group of Eight (G-8) consists
of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, United States, and Russia. The Troika was composed
of then President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari as EU Envoy, Russian Envoy Victor Chernomyrdin, and
then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott; on the workings of these informal settings, see
Albright 2003; Joetze 2001; and Talbott 2002.
62. See Roberts 1999; and Daalder and O'Hanlon 2000.
NATO intervention in Kosovo without authorization of the Security Council

pushed the exit option to its extreme, while generating a maximum pull on the
key actors to seek post hoc legitimation for their action taken. Despite the mar-
ginalization of the Security Council in the management of the crisis, loyalty mat-
tered. The prospect of reinvolving the UN constituted an important precondition
for the resolution of conflict. In addition, G-8 and Troika were instrumental in
providing a platform for the reinvolvement of the UN. Exiting the UN frame-
work allowed to employ military force, which the Western Alliance considered
to be necessary to achieve political outcomes. Informal settings such as Quint,
G-8, and Troika were instrumental in merging the military and political track of
conflict management.
The Kosovo case illustrates the decoupling of the processes of diplomatic prob-
lem solving and its collective post hoc legitimation. It underlines the importance
and persistence of the "symbolic life"163 of the UN Security Council. While the
decoupling of the substance of conflict management from the process of its legit-
imation significantly increased the political costs of intervention, the prospect of
reengaging the UN via the adoption of Council Resolution 1244 helped to create
broader acceptance and the perception of legitimacy. Consequently, loyalty con-
tained the negative repercussions of exit. Quint, G-8, and Troika delivered sub-
stantial outcomes, with the UN Security Council producing legitimacy through its
formal decisions. The adoption of Council Resolution 1244 merged process and
substance of conflict settlement. In conclusion, the dynamics between Quint, G-8,
and Troika on the one side and the UN Security Council on the other side were
mutually reinforcing. If exit resulted in a deprivation of legitimacy, loyalty con-
tributed to its restoration.
Informal Groups of States: Effects
The previous section has analyzed the dynamics between informal groups of states
and the UN Security Council by applying the analytical framework of exit, voice,
and loyalty to the conflict settings of Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo. These
examples illustrated the causes behind the emergence of informal groups of states
and their proliferation in the post-Cold War era. I have also identified patterns of
interaction with the Security Council. In this section, I address the question of
what one can learn from the cases of Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo. What are
the effects of informal groups of states?
In the following, I organize my arguments around three broad themes that are
key concepts in the theory of international relations: (1) power, (2) legitimacy,
and (3) change. I argue that, despite the various constraints to amend IOs in response
to systemic change, informal groups of states have initiated an informal adapta-
63. Hurd 2002.
TABLE 4. Informal groups of states: Effects
Power * Amplifying the relative influence and power of stakeholders in a conflict

setting.
* Balancing P-5 preponderance in the Security Council.
* Disguising U.S. hegemony.
Legitimacy * Decoupling the processes of diplomatic problem solving and collective
legitimation.
* Strengthening Security Council procedural and output legitimacy.
Incremental change * Ameliorating the Article 24 crisis of the Security Council.
* Complementing Security Council governance.
tion process by taking on certain problem-solving functions in the resolution of

conflicts. Table 4 summarizes how informal groups of states impact on the rela-
tive power between UN member states and on processes of legitimation.
Power
Informal groups of states affect the balance of power between UN member states
In this context, I follow Dahl's definition that "A has power over B to the extent
that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do."'64 Conse-
quently, I treat power as a dependent variable. The distribution of relative influ-
ence changes with different issue areas and with different periods of time, as the
three case studies on Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo have illustrated. Depend-
ing on the specific case, informal groups of states affect power relationships at
the UN in the following ways: (1) they amplify the relative influence of stake-
holders, which are not being member of the Security Council; (2) informal set-
tings balance the preponderance of the five permanent members on the Council;
(3) ancillary to the previous point, they also have the potential to disguise U.S
hegemony.65
1. Amplifying the influence of stakeholders.

Informal groups of states are instrumental in positioning stakeholders that
do not have a seat on the Security Council. Their influence ranges from con-
sultations with Council members to a much stronger involvement, which
comes close to a kind of "informal membership."'66 Working through those
diplomatic devices, UN member states can signal their level of commitment
to contribute to the solution of conflict. Participation in those diplomatic
64. Dahl 1957, 203.

65. This specific proposition may also apply more generally to China and Russia.
66. Hurd has offered a useful starting point to elaborate on the concept of informal membership.
However, the terminology is quite problematic because it suggests a "quasi-membership" on the Coun-
cil, which covers only one end of the spectrum where influence on Security Council decision making
is particularly strong. Empirical evidence shows a much more diverse picture; see Hurd 1997.
devices also translates into a greater share of informal voting power on the
Council. Informal groups may prenegotiate and draft Council resolutions and
statements in such a precise manner that substantial change is almost impos-
sible in subsequent stages when the matter comes under official consider-
ation in the Council.
Seen from the perspective of a stakeholder participating in such diplo-
matic device, the probability of making a difference increases because deci-
sions taken are usually based on consensus within the group. It is important
to understand that working through informal groups of states not only has a
strong payoff for those states not being represented on the Council, but also
for its elected members. In a recent article on "Power and Satisfaction in the
Security Council," O'Neill has illustrated that their influence in terms of vot-
ing power is just tiny.67 Following his observations, I claim that, seen from
the perspective of elected members of the Security Council, engagement in
informal groups of states bears a considerably higher potential for determin-
ing outcomes than formal participation in the workings of the Security Coun-
cil. In addition, informal settings provide a flexible format that is often
preferable to the formalized procedures of the Security Council.
2. Balancing P-5 preponderance.

The transformation of the bipolar system generated the permissive political
context for the greater engagement of the UN in conflict settings. The for-
mation of the Group of Friends on El Salvador occurred in response to the
shifting balance of power between UN Secretariat and Security Council dur-
ing this transformation period. The conflict setting almost excluded any deep
involvement of the UN Security Council, given the strong resistance of the
FMLN. The case of El Salvador is indicative of how group of friends are
able to recalibrate the strategic balance between stakeholders, Secretariat and
Security Council. Decentralization of problem solving through informal groups
of states prevents any micromanagement of the conflict by the Council. In
effect, it balances the preponderance of the P-5.
At the same time, the formation of such diplomatic devices signals a pre-
existing level of commitment by a group of UN member states to contribute
to the solution of conflict. By setting the agenda, informal groups of states
may reduce dependency on the P-5 and other members of the Council to
address conflicts. Engagement of informal groups decreases the probability
of a widening gap between declaratory and operational policy of the Secu-
rity Council. The preexisting level of commitment by a group of member
states suggests that political will for the solution of conflict exists, compli-
ance with resolutions adopted by the Security Council will be secured, and
67. O'Neill 1997.
the necessary means for implementation be provided. Ultimately, informal

settings tend to increase "the likelihood and robustness of cooperation." 68
3. Disguising U.S. hegemony.

Choosing multilateral means by employing multilateral gatherings with small
numbers is a promising strategy for achieving policy ends at relatively low
costs.69 Ikenberry has observed that, for a leading state, institutional agree-
ments are attractive as "they potentially lock other States into stable and pre-
dictable policy orientations thereby reducing the need to use coercion to secure
the dominant State's foreign policy aims."70 Extending Ikenberry's argu-
ment to the narrower context of informal groups of states, this observation
becomes even more true. In addition, informal settings are instrumental in
making U.S. foreign policy more predictable. The "minilateral" solution offers
a trade-off between inclusiveness and efficiency." Although it is evident that
"the price that the leading State must pay for this institutionalized coopera-
tion is a reduction in its own policy autonomy and unfettered ability to exer-
cise power," 72 minilateral settings potentially reduce the political cost of action
even further, since the number of players is restricted to key actors. The cases
of Namibia and El Salvador illustrate a pattern of U.S. foreign policy to seek,
on the one hand, maximum flexibility and unrestricted freedom in the con-
duct of crisis resolution while, on the other hand, securing an aura of legiti-
macy, lent by the UN secretary general and/or the Security Council. Such
approach reflects the desire "to have the best of both worlds." 73 Looked at
from the perspective of weaker states, the redelegation of tasks to informal
arrangements operating within the objectives of a resolution or mandate of
the Council but outside its formal structures may help to capture the joint
gains of the institution while keeping the powerful both engaged and con-
strained. Such redelegation may help to manage the relationship between hege-
mon, international institution, and weaker states.74 At the same time, and
this is particularly prevalent in the Namibian case, weaker states may expose
a high degree of acquiescence to the policies of the hegemon to avoid its
defection.
In conclusion, U.S. exceptionalism is a factor that has to be taken into
account and cannot be ignored in the resolution of conflicts with U.S. involve-
ment. Informal groups of states have the effect of disguising U.S. preponder-
68. Oye 1986, 21.

69. Kahler 1992.
70. See Ikenberry 2002, 122; and Ikenberry 2003, 51-54.
71. Kahler 1992.
72. Ikenberry 2002, 122.
73. Yale-UN Oral History Interview Transcripts, Chester Crocker, former U.S. Assistant Secretar
of State for African Affairs, 20 July 1998.
74. For an astute analysis of this relationship, see Hurrell 2005.
ance and avoiding the appearance of unilateral action. As a result, they may
create greater acceptance of U.S. foreign policy.
Legitimacy
This subsection examines the effects of informal groups of states on understand-

ing legitimacy.75 Why is the UN Security Council so important in this regard?
The Security Council carries a large degree of symbolic power that helps to create
a perception of legitimacy, as Hurd has observed." The most visible symbolic
recognition may be observed when analyzing the electoral campaigns of UN mem-
ber states to gaining a nonpermanent seat on the Council.77 The Council derives
its symbolic power from the high degree of legitimacy it carries.
What is legitimacy? Franck has defined legitimacy as "a property of a rule or
rule-making institution which itself exerts a pull toward compliance on those
addressed normatively because those addressed believe that the rule or institution
has come into being and operates in accordance with generally accepted princi-
ples of right process."78 Those principles guide the ways in which units of an
international system act or behave.79 As this definition illustrates, the notions of
loyalty and legitimacy are interconnected. Loyalty is part and parcel of legiti-
macy. However, it is important to keep in mind that the perception of legitimacy,
including the question of whether state action should be legitimized by a Security
Council mandate or not, may differ significantly from one country to another. Legit-
imacy will ultimately depend on who is gaining the monopoly of interpreting a
given action as just and procedurally fair.80
The exceptionalist role of the United States may serve as the most prominent
example to elaborate on those different perceptions. Luck has convincingly elab-
orated on the distinctive U.S. conception of political legitimacy, which is based
on both its domestic political culture and relative power position in the inter-
national system (in terms of military and economic power, including cultural attrac-
tion).81 Senior officials in the U.S. administration consider UN blessing desirable,
though not a sine qua non of state action.82 Still, "power and legitimacy are not
75. Clark provides an extensive treatment of the practice of legitimacy in international relations;
see Clark 2005.
76. He argues that "[t]he symbolic power of the Security Council is evident in the energy stat
expend on having the Council pay attention to issues of concern to them." Hurd 2002, 39.
77. Malone 2000.
78. Franck 1990, 24.
79. Ostrom 1990, 139.
80. Claude 1966, 369.
81. Luck 2002, 51.
82. Confidential interview by author with a senior official of the U.S. State Department, Was
ton, D.C., 21 November 2000. This view seems to be a consistent pattern throughout various ad
istrations. Differences between subsequent presidencies in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy
often much more to style rather than substance.
antithetical, but complementary," 83 as Claude has observed. It is for this reason

that "rulers seek legitimation not only to satisfy their consciences but also to but-
tress their positions." 84 Paradoxically, the higher the asymmetry of power between
the units of an international system the stronger the incentive for the hegemon to
seek what Clark has called, a "just disequilibrium."85 The just disequilibrium
reflects a bargain between the hegemon and those affected by its preponderance:
while the former agrees to stay within the constitutional boundaries of the inter-
national system, the latter acknowledge the leading role of the hegemon in main-
taining international peace and security.
Legitimacy equally requires, as Kissinger has argued, "the acceptance of the
framework of the international order by all major powers, at least to the extent
that no state is so dissatisfied that ... it expresses its dissatisfaction in a revolu-
tionary foreign policy." 86 While Franck's understanding of legitimacy helps to
understand the Security Council as a rule-making institution exerting a pull on the
foreign policies of states, Kissinger's definition opens the gate to grasp the rela-
tionship between legitimacy and institutional change. The legitimacy of the Coun-
cil, in terms of acceptance by major powers, may fade if the institution is not able
to adapt itself according to changes in the international system, especially, though
not exclusively, with regard to its representativeness.
Although this has been the standard argument in support of Security Council
reform over the last few years, I illustrate further below that the Article 24 crisis
will not be solved simply by enlarging the membership of the UN Security Coun-
cil. In the following, I elaborate on implications of my previous claim that the exit
option is contained by the loyalty of UN member states toward the Security Coun-
cil. I argue, first that the Council functions of diplomatic problem solving and
legitimation have become decoupled. Second, I claim that these functions are sep-
arable but not separate: decoupling may eventually strengthen the output legiti-
macy of the Council.
1. Decoupling the processes of diplomatic problem solving and collective

legitimation.
The structural conditions of the postbipolar era have fostered a devolution of
crisis management to ad hoc coalitions of able and willing countries or infor-
mal settings, whereas the UN Security Council still remains a pull factor by
granting the platform-at least in most cases-for the "right process," that
is, the procedural legitimation for state action.87 The Article 24 crisis of the
Security Council makes this international institution "ineffective but indis-
83. Claude 1966, 368.

84. Ibid.
85. Clark 2005, 239.
86. Kissinger 1957, 1.
87. On the supposed failure of the democratic process to produce substantive outcomes, see Dahl
1989, 163-75.
pensable." 88 Although the decoupling of crisis management from the pro-

cess of its legitimation is far from being new,89 it has been a significant pattern
from the mid-1990s onwards. This pattern was most visible when NATO mem-
ber states intervened in Kosovo without explicit authorization of the Secu-
rity Council. Similar lessons apply to the more recent U.S. intervention in
Iraq. Even if the exit option is pushed to its extreme, loyalty prevents the
long-term marginalization of the organization. The further states push for
exit, the greater the pull of loyalty.90 Procedural legitimation by the UN Secu-
rity Council may well be seen as the embodiment of a normative constitu-
tional bargain that enables the "international community," that is, the actors
of the international system, to tolerate policies without having necessarily
reached full agreement on the substance of the matter and without having
necessarily direct participation in the decision-making process. This pri-
macy of procedure helps to create the broadest possible acceptance and ulti-
mately contributes to the stability of international order.91 Ultimately, the
decoupling of the functions of diplomatic problem solving and legitimation
illustrates the changing role of the Security Council in the conduct of post-
Cold War international affairs. Seen from this perspective, the UN ulti-
mately becomes a prism through which to view a wider transformation of
the international system. In this context, informal diplomatic devices, inter-
acting with formal IOs, are instruments to steer the uneven process of sys-
temic change.
2. Strengthening procedural and output legitimacy of the UN Security Council.

This subsection further develops the argument that informal groups of states
may strengthen the procedural and output legitimacy of the Security Coun-
cil. While informal settings are able to produce substantial outcomes, it is
the Council that provides legitimacy through its formal decisions. The func-
tions of problem solving and legitimation are separable, though not separate.
In fact, they are mutually dependent and may be reinforcing.
At the same time, decentralization of the workings of the Security Coun-
cil enlarges the ownership of its decision-making process. Woods has suc-
cinctly pointed out that "the longer-term considerations of effectiveness require
a more active and participatory membership than the traditional hierarchical
88. Berdal 2003.

89. For example, in 1977-78, the Western Contact Group on Namibia negotiated a settlement pr
posal for Namibia's independence outside the UN framework, which was later endorsed by the Se
rity Council; see the case study on Namibia above.
90. This argument is not to be understood as entirely sequential. The U.S. invasion in Iraq illus
trates that the pull for UN reinvolvement did not follow immediately but subsequently with the inv
sion forces facing growing resistance on the ground and the political (and financial) costs of the operat
rising. I have to thank Joseph Nye for raising this caveat.
91. Parsons 1977 underlines the importance of "procedural primacy" to explain the workings o
domestic institutions.
vision, and herein lies a powerful reason for applying lessons of good gov-
ernance to international institutions." 92 Applying the three core principles of
good governance, that is, participation, accountability, and fairness,93 to the
specific context of the UN Security Council, I suggest that enlarging the num-
ber of participants in Council governance helps to create the perception of
Council decision making being accountable and procedurally fair. It enhances
procedural legitimacy. In a sense, informal groups of states create a link
between the Security Council and the wider membership of the General
Assembly. These complementary functions of informal groups of states are
however contingent upon whether informal groups of states operate within
the objectives of the UN or whether they act on their own account.
In conclusion, the dynamics between informal groups of states and the
UN Security Council may produce double-edged legitimacy in terms of pro-
cedure and output. The remerging of the two functions helps to achieve legit-
imacy as the common good, which enjoys broad acceptance.94 It is the merger
of both that must pass the litmus test of achieving wider acceptance among
UN member states. Only then is legitimacy considered a common good.
Incremental Change
This subsection analyzes the effects of informal groups of states on institutional

change. Given the circumstance that the UN is a prism through which one also
may examine transformations of the international system, such analysis may also
allow to draw wider conclusions for adaptations in the power relationships between
states. In the following, I elaborate on the function of informal groups of states as
agents of incremental change, examining their impact on Security Council gover-
nance. I also address the question of the extent to which the engagement of infor-
mal groups of states may constitute a compensation for formal adaptation of the
institution. I argue, first, that informal settings may ameliorate the Council's Arti-
cle 24 crisis in the fields of decision making, effectiveness, and representative-
ness. Second, any formal adaptation in the membership of the Council will not
resolve the Article 24 crisis.
1. Ameliorating the Article 24 crisis of the UN Security Council.

Informal groups of states ameliorate the Article 24 crisis of the UN Security
Council, without formally changing its membership. In this context, exit and
voice are policy options that allow for an incremental adaptation of inter-
92. Woods 1999, 43.

93. Ibid.
94. "The common good," according to Dahl, "consists of the practices, arrangements, institutions,
and processes that ... promote the well-being of ourselves and others-not, to be sure, of 'everyone,'
but of enough persons to make the practices, arrangements, etc. acceptable and perhaps even cher-
ished." Dahl 1989, 307.
national institutions. They serve as flexible agents of incremental change.

Change is incremental because the Charter of the UN remains unaltered. Con-
sequently, those agents are able to alleviate tensions generated by systemic
change in combination with the inability of the Security Council to adapt. In
effect, they constitute a safety valve to divert the inner-institutional pressure
for Council reform. Informal groups of states are stabilizing elements for
international institutions in transition.
Within the specific context of the UN, informal groups take on four broad
functions.95 First, informal groups assist the UN secretary general in dis-
charging his complex mandates such as supervising multifunctional peace
support operations that involve the full spectrum of conflict transition. Sec-
ond, informal groups mobilize international support in crisis management
and the transition of conflicts from war to peace. Third, informal devices
coordinate and bundle peacemaking and peace-implementation efforts vis-h-
vis crisis settings and parties to a conflict. Fourth, informal groups of states
may take on functions in the strategic coordination of the implementation of
peace agreements.96
However, it seems to be the prevailing understanding in the UN Secre-
tariat that overconceptualizing informal settings would already restrain
their flexibility and limit their usefulness as agents of incremental change.97
This leads to the crucial question whether the engagement of key players
through informal devices may serve as a certain kind of compensation for
the lack of Security Council reform. Although informal groups of states
lend stability to a dynamic process, it is unlikely that the calls for substan-
tial reform of the UN Security Council will fade. Reform of the Council is
much more about form rather than substance. Enlarging the membership
will help to perceive the institution as geographically balanced and more
legitimate. In conclusion, it is important to understand that enlarging the
Security Council will not solve its problems of output legitimacy, i.e., effec-
tiveness and decision making. Formal adaptations of the Council are likely
to have the effect of rising, not decreasing, the significance of informal groups
of states.98
95. These functions are condensed from a thorough review of UN documents dealing with concepts
and instruments to adapt the Organization to the postbipolar security environment. They include An
Agenda for Peace (1992) as well as its Supplementary Paper (1995), An Agenda for Democratization
(1996), and subsequent reports by the UN secretary general on the causes of conflict and the promo-
tion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa (1998-2001); see UN documents A/47/
277-S/24111, 17 June 1992, paragraph 62; A/50/60-S/1995/1, 3 January 1995, paragraph 83; A/51/
761, 20 December 1996, paragraph 48; S/1998/318, 13 April 1998, paragraph 24; S/1999/1008, 25
September 1999, paragraphs 9-11; and A/56/371, 18 September 2001, paragraph 9.
96. See Jones 2001 and 2002; and Stedman 2001.
97. Author's confidential interview with a senior official of the UN Secretariat, 29 October 2002.
98. This view is confirmed by a high-ranking senior diplomat of a candidate country for a perma-
nent seat on the UN Security Council; confidential interview by author, 26 September 2000.
2. Complementing governance of the UN Security Council.

Ultimately, informal groups of states may enhance governance in and of the
Security Council. Although informal groups of states bear the potential of
complementing governance of the UN Security Council, states do not have
entered the brave new world of good governance, yet. The complementary
functions of informal devices are far from being the Weberian ideal-type solu-
tion to meet longer-term considerations of effectiveness. Many of these group-
ings tend to be self-selected, with an exclusive participation and a virtually
absent degree of accountability. In positive terms, informal groups may com-
plement Council governance by narrowing the operational and participatory
gap growing out of the multiple strategic incapacities that prevents the Coun-
cil from formulating an effective response to crisis situations. The output
legitimacy of the Council is strengthened, while actions taken by informal
settings become more acceptable.
Any positive impact on Council governance is however dependent upon the
ability to strike a balance between competing demands of inclusiveness, effi-
ciency, informality, accountability, and transparency. In negative terms, infor-
mal groups of states will operate in competition with the UN Security Council.
Then, the legitimacy of the Council is weakened, while the political costs for
states acting through informal settings are increasing. The processes of dip-
lomatic problem solving and its collective legitimation become mutually
excluding.
Conclusions
This article has established the importance of informal groups of states as part
and parcel of Security Council governance. In order to understand the variables
that define the performance of the Security Council, I have extended my analy
to levels of informal cooperation. Informal groups have reshaped international dip
macy and altered the balance of power within the UN. Seen from the perspecti
of principal-agent theory, UN member states have redelegated tasks away from
the Security Council to informal arrangements that allow for the better manag
ment of multiple policy externalities. In this article, I have moved further with t
question of why states act through formal IOs.99 Abbot's and Snidal's analysis o
the costs and benefits of IOs is rather static and has not taken into account the
effects of systemic change. One needs to qualify the claim that the functions of
centralization and independence enhance efficiency. This pattern may alter when
IOs are challenged to adapt to systemic change. The synergistic framework of analy-
sis that I have chosen helps to explain why decentralization through informal groups
of states may enhance efficiency. Ad hoc arrangements are instrumental to escape
99. Abbott and Snidal 1998.
from the structural constraints of IOs. Decentralization results in a new and rather
peculiar structure of international diplomacy, in which the functions of diplomatic
problem solving and legitimation have become decoupled. The two functions are
separable but not separate. I have illustrated how the roles of informal groups of
states and the UN Security Council may be mutually reinforcing.
The dynamics between informal settings and the UN Security Council can best
be captured by applying the analytical framework of exit, voice, and loyalty, as I
have demonstrated in the cases of Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo. In doing so,
I have illustrated how conflict settings inform the choice for either exit or voice.
The comparative study of the interaction between informal groups and Security
Council appears to be particularly useful to understand observed variations in lev-
els of cooperation, which constitutes a key challenge to institutional theory. The
importance of the analytical framework chosen originates in the explanatory lever-
age it provides to draw inferences about the institutional effects of the UN Secu-
rity Council under conditions of systemic change. Informal groups of states are a
means of generating an (incremental) adaptation process in response to altered struc-
tural conditions. In this context, the growing recourse to informal arrangements
appears as the "cheaper option" than a complete overhaul of the organization's foun-
dations, that is, the revision of the UN Charter. The diplomatic devices are a "safety
valve" 100 both to divert and alleviate the pressure for substantial reform. By tak-
ing on several problem-solving functions, informal groups of states may enhance
Council governance and ameliorate Article 24 crises affecting decision making,
effectiveness, and representativeness of the Security Council.
In effect, the redelegation of tasks to informal groups of states may well be
seen as a stabilizing element for international institutions in transition.'0' This prop-
osition challenges the causal link established by certain scholars that the UN Secu-
rity Council is an unstable system because it has no mechanisms to adapt its
hierarchy of influence according to the shifts of relative power in the international
system.102 Working through informal groups of states reshapes the balance between
power and legitimacy, which may temper the pressure toward formal change.103
Empirical evidence suggests that those devices are changing the role of the UN
Security Council in the international system. As the UN is a prism through which
one may analyze international relations, one may conclude that (as a result of the
above) informal arrangements are also changing the international system itself.
The international system becomes more disaggregated.'04
100. Hirschman 1970, 124.

101. In order to test this proposition further one needs to broaden the research agenda by examining
in greater detail how informal arrangements affect governance in other international institutions such
as IMF, World Bank, WTO, European Union, or NATO.
102. See McCarthy 1997 and 1998; and Glennon 2003 argues in a similar vein.
103. Russett 1997, 18-21.
104. This proposition is supported by recent academic work on the role of government networks;
see Slaughter 2004.
Further study is needed to analyze the dynamics between informal arrange-

ments and formal IOs. Examining the anatomy of this relationship will enhance
one's understanding of power, legitimacy, and change in the theory of inter-
national relations.
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Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council

Cambridge University Press, International Organization Foundation are collaborating

International Organization 59, Summer 2005, pp. 559-592

TABLE 1. Emergence and proliferation of informal groups of states, 1956-2004

Period Conflict setting

1950s Sinai (1956); Lebanon (1958)

parcel of Council governance. Here, I concentrate on informal settings such as

Informal Groups of States and the Security Council:

8. Prantl and Krasno 2004, 312-15.

19. Abbott and Snidal 1998, 8.

TABLE 2. Exit, voice, and loyalty

constitutes a key challenge to institutional theory.24 It helps to qualify arguments

Informal Groups of States: Causes

The Complexity of Crisis Settings

The pattern of UN involvement in the postbipolar era is characterized by conflict

27. Wallensteen 2002, 203-30.

enforcement, peace building, including humanitarian aid, refugee assistance and

Structural Constraints of the UN Security Council

33. UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations 2004.

TABLE 3. Size of permanent missions: Number of

2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

Elected members 2003-04

Source: Global Policy

37. Caron 1993, 564.

38. This is especially prevalent in the case of France.

Source: http://www.un.org/Overview/growth.htm. Accessed 10 March 2005.

FIGURE 1. Growth in UN membership, 1945-2002

Source: United Nations 1973-83; and Feuerle 1985, 288.

FIGURE 2. Formal meetings and informal consultations of the Security Council,

1982.46 Nonmembers of the Council do not have access to those meetings. Ho

In conclusion, informal groups of states emerged early in the history of UN

49. Prantl forthcoming.

Multiple structural constraints Complex crisis settings

Decision making Effectiveness Representativeness

Informal groups of states

Exit option Voice option

FIGURE 3. Proliferation of informal groups in the po

sequent crisis settings.50 The Kosovo case (exit vers

The Cases of Namibia, El Salvador, and Kosovo

Exit and voice are distinctive policy options accommod

Exit: The Western Contact Group on Namibia

51. These cases are fully elaborated in Prantl forthcoming.

UN framework, though within the objectives of the organization.55 The coopera-

Voice: The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador

Contrary to the process leading toward Namibian independence, the formation of

Exit versus Loyalty: Quint, G-8, and Troika during the

60. Karl 1992, 164.

NATO intervention in Kosovo without authorization of the Security Council

Informal Groups of States: Effects

63. Hurd 2002.

TABLE 4. Informal groups of states: Effects

Power * Amplifying the relative influence and power of stakeholders in a conflict

tion process by taking on certain problem-solving functions in the resolution of

1. Amplifying the influence of stakeholders.

64. Dahl 1957, 203.

2. Balancing P-5 preponderance.

67. O'Neill 1997.

the necessary means for implementation be provided. Ultimately, informal

3. Disguising U.S. hegemony.

68. Oye 1986, 21.

This subsection examines the effects of informal groups of states on understand-

antithetical, but complementary," 83 as Claude has observed. It is for this reason