The United Nations and Peace

This book concentrates on one of the major concerns of the United Nations: world peace. Aiming to trace the development of the concept of peace from the foundation of the UN until today, the book investigates on what conceptual understanding the UN was instituted in 1945 and what notion of peace has become apparent in subsequent UN policy as it is performed by the primary UN organs. Along the lines of this research program, the book seeks to reveal the changing underlying assumptions about how a peaceful world order looks and how it should be brought about. Beyond these aspects of semantic change, the book also explores the institutional dimension of this organizational concept by carving out how it is anchored in functional-normative structures of the world organization, its policy, and rhetoric. It builds on an interdisciplinary approach of institutional analysis and conceptual explanation that combines interpretive methods from international law scholarship, conceptual history and policy analysis.

Autorentext

Julia Harfensteller is co-chair of the UN Studies Association (UNSA). She has studied political science and international law at the University of Granada (Spain), and at the Free University of Berlin. Besides her international relations background she also holds a degree in philosophy of knowledge and science.

Inhalt

Contents: The United Nations concept of peace from a historical perspective The UN concept of peace in the light of UN practice Innovative, multiperspective approach to the UN, integrating a sociolinguistic, normative and functional view of the UN within an «institutional-pragmatic» approach Concepts as institutional frames Interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from international law scholarship, linguistic analysis, conceptual history and policy analysis.