The UN’s Knowledge Economy

Abstract

This chapter spells out the various ways that the world organization’s intergovernmental machinery requires outside inputs as part of making UN policy sausages. A cottage industry of outside experts—think tankers, consultants, and university faculty members—greases the gears of the UN’s messy process with substantive inputs. The ways that ideas matter, and how they influence state decision-making, are essential. Among the cases are the International Peace Institute (IPI), the International Crisis Group (ICG), the DC-based Stimson Center, the Security Council Report, UN University, the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF) at the US-based Social Science Research Council, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and the Small Arms Survey. These intellectual entry points—primarily based in the global North but increasingly with wider participation from individuals and institutions worldwide—have helped shape the UN’s framing of international peace and security, human rights and humanitarian action, and sustainable development