Regional Organisations' Representation in the United Nations Security Council Influence on the Security Council's Agenda-setting

Sammanfattning

When violence against civilians is high in armed conflicts, it is predicted that the UNSC will pay close attention to those conflicts. However, it does not always happen to an equal degree. Based on recently collected data of UNSC agenda-setting behaviour by Susan H. Allen and Amy T. Yuen, this paper asks: why do some conflicts receive more UNSC attention than others, despite similar levels of violence against civilians? The thesis looks into the role of ROs in the UNSC agenda-setting. To account for the variation, the thesis argues that ROs are able to influence the UNSC agenda-setting in a way that leads some conflicts to have more recurrences of items on the agenda and others less. By applying a structured focused comparison on the conflict in Darfur between 2003 – 2007, and the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar between 2016-2022, I find a correlation between representation of ROs and recurrences of agenda-items. However, correlation is not causation, and I conclude that ROs had little influence in the UNSC decision-making and that it was the interests of the P5 and the institutional role of the UN Secretary-General that lead to the variation in the number of recurrences of items on the agenda.