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The formal rules governing the UN Security Council offer little insight into how negotiations are conducted on a day-to-day basis. While it is generally assumed that permanent members dominate negotiations, this article investigates avenues for influence for elected members and the UN Secretariat. Institutional power is used to show how permanent members adopt dominant positions in negotiations extending far beyond their Charter-given privileges. Dominance of permanent members is moderated, however, by the legitimacy that support from elected members brings to a resolution. Similarly, the UN Secretariat can use its legitimated authority to influence decisions. The article argues that informal practices are key in understanding how power and influence are allocated in the Council and it forms a building block for future analyses of Security Council practices. This argument also has implications for the perennial reform debates and the prospects for informal reform. Keywords Security Council--decision-making--influence--legitimacy--institutional power--practices, Decisions made by the UN Security Council impact the lives of millions of people around the world, yet the decision-making process is largely informal and shrouded in secrecy. (1) The [...]

In a 2017 speech to the United Nations, Theresa May referred to the United Kingdom's 'special responsibilities'. This article examines how the United Kingdom can properly discharge those responsibilities at the United Nations. We offer an innovative analytical framework that merges English School theory of international society with diplomatic practice theory, and find that there are limits to the claim that the United Kingdom compensates for its relative material decline through diplomatic activism. We identify the special responsibility of the permanent member in terms of a capacity to reconcile the 'concert' and 'governance' functions of the Council, and to contribute materially to the achievement of governance objectives in areas where consensus is possible. Drawing on extensive interview data, and illustrating with reference to current debates on peacekeeping, we find that a state's capacity to 'punch above its weight' diplomatically is linked to its material commitments and to a more inclusive approach in the Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practice theory provides important insights into the workings of the Security Council. The contribution is currently limited, however, by the conjecture that practice theory operates on ‘a different analytical plane’ to norm/normative theory. Building on existing critiques, we argue that analysing practices separately from normative positions risks misappropriating competence and reifying practice that is not fit for purpose. This risk is realized in Adler-Nissen and Pouliot’s practice-based account of the Libya crisis. By returning the normative context created by the Responsibility to Protect to the analytical foreground, and by drawing on a pragmatic conception of ‘ethical competence’, we find that pre-reflexive practices uncritically accepted as markers of competence — for example, ‘penholding’ — can contribute to the Council’s failure to act collectively in the face of mass atrocity. Drawing on extensive interview material, we offer an alternative account of the Libya intervention, finding that the practices of the permanent three (France, the UK and the US) did not cultivate the kind of collective consciousness that is required to implement the Responsibility to Protect. This is further illustrated by an account of the Security Council’s failure in Syria, where the permanent three’s insistence on regime change instrumentalized the Council at the expense of Responsibility to Protect-appropriate practice. This changed when elected members became ‘penholders’. Practice theory can facilitate learning processes that help the Council meet its responsibilities, but only through an approach that combines its insights with those of norm/normative theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]