The UN
Secretary-General and Moral Authority: Ethics and Religion in
International Leadership
Overview
The office of the Secretary-General has been described as a needed
voice in an international arena where moral principles are often
subservient to concerns over power and interest. In fact, since the
Secretary-Generalship is a relatively constrained position lacking in
traditional forms of power, the moral authority of an office-holder is
interpreted by those analyzing the position as vital to the operation
of the office. Such moral authority is often viewed as relying on the
personal qualities of the individual office-holders. Writing on the
Secretaries-General indicates the relevance of an office-holder’s
religious and moral values, but there remains a clear lack of
comparative analysis on such dimensions. In addition, some of the
Secretaries-General have been studied more in depth along these lines
than others and, even when they have been examined, only some aspects
of religious or moral values have been tackled for certain
office-holders.
This volume explores whether religious and moral values affect the
handling of the office by employing a broader term--ethical
framework--that encompasses the range of values. Thus, all of the
case studies encompassed in the volume are built around the same
central question: does the ethical framework of an individual
office-holder impact the role played by a Secretary-General of the
United Nations? Although there exists an assumption that the United
Nations and the Secretary-General are a positive force in the
international system, it is equally clear that office-holders and the
Organization have been placed in compromising positions in
international affairs in a manner that calls this assumption into
question. This indicates a need to more closely investigate the
personal values that may inform the actions of office-holders and how
these operate alongside the institutional norms and political
constraints that define the operations of the Secretary-General. In
order to explore such issues, an in-depth, comprehensive, and
comparative analysis is required, so the volume encompasses studies of
the seven Secretaries-General from Trygve Lie to Kofi Annan.
This volume also builds upon and contributes to the increasing
recognition of the significance of religion and ethics in international
relations. Although there is a longstanding acknowledgement of the
importance of religion in global affairs and the expanding literature
in this area, the understanding of the impact of spiritual views on the
actions of leaders on the international stage remains limited.
Similarly, work on ethics in international affairs has undergone a
resurgence and is continuing to grow as an important avenue of inquiry.
The study extends knowledge regarding international ethical leadership
and the corresponding interest in an ethical connection to diplomacy
and international institutions.
Book
Available at Georgetown
University Press, December 2007
Contents and Contributors
Introduction
Chapter 1 "Moral Authority and the UN Secretary-General's Ethical
Framework" (Kent J.
Kille)
Chapter 2 "Seeking Balance: The Secretary-General as a Normative
Negotiator" (Dorothy
V. Jones)
Chapter 3 Trygve Lie (James
P. Muldoon)
Chapter 4 Dag Hammarskjold (Alynna
J. Lyon)
Chapter 5 U Thant (A.
Walter Dorn)
Chapter 6 Kurt Waldheim (Michael
T. Kuchinsky)
Chapter 7 Javier Perez de Cuellar (Barbara Ann
Rieffer-Flanagan and
David
P. Forsythe)
Chapter 8 Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Anthony F.
Lang, Jr.)
Chapter 9 Kofi Annan (Courtney
B. Smith)
Chapter 10 Conclusion (Kent J. Kille)
Back to Kent Kille's Curriculum Vitae
To Kent Kille's home
page