Which region? The politics of the UN Security Council P5 in international security crises

• Applicant: Dr. Nadine Godehardt
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282959679

This project aims to theorise and empirically investigate how the five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) - China, France, Russia, UK and US - politically constitute regions, regional actors and regional organisations during international security crises. We primarily ask what impact does their understanding of the role of the regional have on international efforts at governing crises. Due to the central role the regional level continues to play in international efforts to manage security crises, we take the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as the key international forum and actor for representing, debating and responding to international security crisis. While, owing to the strong and institutionally enshrined influence that the Permanent Five (P5) have on determining the UNSC position and the terms of its debate, we also consider its as key foreign-policy actors shaping the international discourse on security crisis. We thus base our analysis on: one, the articulations and response of the P5 states as foreign-policy actors; and, two, the debate and negotiation within the UNSC on its representation and (lack of) response. In this way, we will analyse the perspectives of key international actors, but also the similarities, dissimilarities and contestation between them. To analyse the P5 members' political constitution of the region/regional during international security crisis, we focus on three recent case studies: Afghanistan (2011), Syria/Iraq/ISIS (2011-); Ukraine/Crimea (2014-) crises. In all of these crises, the designation of the region and the role for the regional was contested, and thus they represent test-cases for investigating the nature and the impact of agreement/disagreement on the region/regional in contemporary international security governance. In so doing, the project will address three primary research objectives: 1. To assess how the greater emphasis on and legitimacy attributed to the region/regional in international politics effects the governance of international security crises? 2. To investigate how key international actors (the P5, UNSC) are representing the region/regional in international security crises, and what effect is this having on their perspective on the crises? 3. To evaluate the degree to which perspectives on the region/regional, and its role in efforts at governing international security, are contested among key international actors (the P5, UNSC)?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Juliet Fall; Professor Dr. Andreas Wenger