Margaret Karns

• Professor at University of Massachusetts Boston

Gender equality has long been a goal within the UN system, particularly for women’s representation among the professional staff. Yet it was more an aspiration than the target of serious action, let alone with leadership from the UN Secretary-General. It could not be addressed, however, without adequate data revealing women’s absences. Building a da...

Following the unsuccessful attempt to get a woman appointed as UN secretary-general in 2016 and the drop in women in senior posts in 2015, it appeared that gender equality at the UN was as distant as ever. Yet, gender equality within the Secretariat and UN system has been on the organization's agenda since 1970, with goals and target dates set for...

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations in 1945 invites us to look back at the achievement of creating this new organization even before the guns had fallen silent in World War II. It also prompts us to ask: Where is the organization today? How well has it fulfilled and is it still fulfilling the high ideals of its Chart...

The United Nations in the 21st Century provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the United Nations, exploring the historical, institutional, and theoretical foundations of the UN. This popular text for courses on international organizations and international relations also discusses the political complexities facing the organization...

Global Health Governance. By Youde Jeremy . Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012. 240p. $69.96 cloth, $24.95 paper. - Volume 12 Issue 1 - Margaret P. Karns

MICHAEL RICHTER. Ireland and Her Neighbours in the Seventh Century. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. 256. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín

With the wide variety of threats to international peace and security that followed the Cold War's end, the United Nations undertook more peacekeeping operations than at any time in the previous 45 years. As these increasingly taxed the UN's capacity, regional and subregional organizations (IGOs) initiated peacekeeping and efforts began to look at t...

The next U.S. president will face a world in which multilateral institutions and diplomacy matter far more than at any time in the past. This importance arises from the nature of many contemporary issues, the proliferation in number and importance of nonstate actors, and the evolution of international diplomatic practice with the growth of multilat...

Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. By Sandra Whitworth. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004. 225p. $49.95. The rapid expansion in United Nations peacekeeping operations in the 1990s has inevitably led to official and scholarly scrutiny of their efficacy and shortcomings. Sandra Whitworth offers a critical eye and questions of g...

Glossary Chapter One The US and Multilateral Institutions: A Framework for Analysis Margaret Karns and Karen Mingst Chapter Two US Military Security Policies: The Role and Influence of IGOs Harold Jacobson Chapter Three Dominance without Hegemony: US Relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency Benjamin Schiff Chapter Four The US and the I...

In April 1977 the United States and four other major Western governments embarked on a unique diplomatic exercise in the hope of negotiating an agreement for the independence of the territory of Namibia, or South West Africa. The “Contact Group” as it became known (or Western Five), consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canad...

There are more than 6,000 international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) addressing issues such as human rights, the environment, education, health care, development and other issues around the globe. Although accountability in government is synonymous with "red tape" for some; for others, it is synonymous with democratic practices and transpa...

DISSERTATION (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Dissertation Abstracts International,