| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
If it is correct to say that the UN's policy has been dominated by great powers, then it is also true that the academic debate on the UN's failures in general, and the Rwandan tragedy in particular, has been dominated by an emphasis on Realpolitik , which has limited and precluded analysis of other possible causes of the UN's malfunctions. Power politics alone cannot fully explain why the downfall of `grand strategies' for the UN envisaged in Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's An Agenda for Peace (1992), most notably conflict prevention, was almost as rapid as their emergence. By drawing upon new empirical evidence from interviews and by reflecting on theories of bureaucratization, this article explores one previously ignored mechanism underlying the failure of the Agenda in general and the Rwandan case in particular, namely bureaucratic rationalization.
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