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Managing the world: the United Nations, decolonization, and the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2018

Eva-Maria Muschik
Eva-Maria Muschik*
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Global History, Koserstr. 20, 14195 Berlin, Germany E-mail: eva-maria.muschik@fu-berlin.de
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Abstract

This article examines a 1956 United Nations effort to respond to decolonization, by supplying newly independent governments with international administrators to help build sovereign nation-states out of the disintegrating European empires and anchor them firmly within the capitalist world. The article reveals the UN as a significant historical actor during the Cold War beyond the organization’s function of providing a forum for intergovernmental debates and lobbying. While the initiative never resulted in a large-scale response to decolonization, it ultimately effected a substantial shift in the practice of development assistance: from advisory services to a more paternalist approach that focused on ‘getting the work done’ on behalf of aid recipients. Recovering this history helps account for the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the second half of the twentieth century: its global proliferation at a time when international actors became increasingly active in the management of the public affairs of developing countries.

Keywords

decolonizationdevelopmentglobal cold warpublic administrationUnited Nations Secretariat
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 121 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the following for their feedback on earlier versions of this article: Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young, Frederick Cooper, Alexandra Steinlight, Sarah Griswold, and Rachel Kantrowitz, as well as the participants of the Tenth International Seminar on Decolonization at the National History Center in Washington, DC, of the International Security Studies Brady-Johnson Colloquium in Grand Strategy and International History at Yale University, and of the Porter Fortune Symposium ‘Cold War development and developmentalism in global perspective’, her fellow historians in the 2016–17 Max Weber programme at the EUI, and, finally, the anonymous reviewers.

References

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3 Urquhart, Brian, Hammarskjold, New York: Knopf, 1972, p. 387 Google Scholar.

4 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

5 Ibid.

6 Greg Mann asks a similar question in his most recent book: how and why did NGOs begin to assume functions of sovereignty at a time when it was so highly valued? Gregory Mann, From empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: the road to nongovernmentality, African Studies Series 129, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015; Mark Mazower uses the phrase ‘strange triumph’ to describe a strengthening of the principle of state sovereignty with the new human rights regime underwritten by the UN in 1945. Mazower, Mark, ‘The strange triumph of human rights, 1933–1950’, Historical Journal, 47, 2, 2004, pp. 379–398 Google Scholar.

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18 Daniel Speich Chassé, ‘Decolonization and global governance: approaches to the history of the UN-system’, lecture for the History of International Organizations Network, Geneva, 2013.

19 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, p. 15.

20 Kennedy, Parliament of man, p. 61.

21 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 22, 369.

22 Orford, Anne, ‘Hammarskjöld, economic thinking and the United Nations’, in Carsten Stahn and Henning Melber, eds., Peace diplomacy, global justice and international agency: rethinking human security and ethics in the spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 157 Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., p. 163.

24 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 370–1, 375.

25 Ibid., p. 374.

26 Ibid., pp. 370, 376.

27 UN General Assembly (henceforth UNGA) Resolution A/RES/200(III), ‘Technical assistance for economic development’, 4 December 1948.

28 Stokke, Olav, The UN and development: from aid to cooperation, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009, p. 48 Google Scholar.

29 For Truman’s speech on 20 January 1949, see e.g. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/50yr_archive/inagural20jan1949.htm (consulted 17 February 2017).

30 Ekbladh, David, The great American mission: modernization and the construction of an American world order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010 Google Scholar.

31 Stokke, UN and development, p. 22.

32 Glick, Philip M., The administration of technical assistance, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957, pp. 60–61 Google Scholar. As early as 1943, an ILO report similarly noted that a joint Bolivian–American Labor Commission had raised expectations that the US might offer support to Bolivia that would go beyond an inspection and a report, since everybody already knew that conditions were deplorable. International Labour Organization Archives, Joint-Bolivian-American Labor Commission 1943, File no. Z 3/8/1, Dossier Connexes, Req. file MI 1/8, Magruder to Hull, 22 March 1943.

33 Glick, Administration, p. 61.

34 Zanasi, Margherita, ‘Exporting development: the League of Nations and republican China’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49, 1, 2007, pp. 143–169 Google Scholar; Clavin, Patricia, Securing the world economy: the reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920–1946, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 26 ff CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marcus, Nathan Google Scholar, ‘Credibility, confidence and capital: Austrian reconstruction and the collapse of global finance, 1921–1931’, PhD thesis, New York University, 2010.

35 Muhammad, Faqir Google Scholar, ‘United Nations technical assistance in public administration with special reference to the provision of operational and executive personnel’, PhD thesis, Syracuse University, 1960, pp. 107–8, my emphasis.

36 Ibid.

37 UNGA, A/C.5/SR.165, Fifth Committee, Summary record of the 165th meeting, ‘Continuation of the consideration of international facilities for the promotion of training in public administration’, 23 November 1948, p. 742.

38 Ibid., p. 740.

39 Ibid., p. 729.

40 Ibid., p. 744.

41 Ibid., p. 745.

42 Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, David Owen papers (henceforth CU, RBML, DOP), Box 6, ‘Eric Biddle, Dag Hammarskjold, miscellaneous’, Folder ‘Dag Hammarskjold correspondence 1953–61 (2)’, F. Tickner, ‘The improvement of public administration’.

43 UN Division for Public Administration and Development Management, The contribution of the United Nations to the improvement of public administration: a 60-year history, New York: United Nations, 2009 Google Scholar.

44 Guy Sinclair, ‘Government before governance: the United Nations, public administration, and the making of postcolonial states’, unpublished paper for ‘Technologies of stateness: international organizations and the making of states’ workshop, European University Institute, Florence, 15–16 September 2016; Sinclair, Guy, To reform the world: the legal powers of international organizations and the making of modern states, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 Google Scholar.

45 Muhammad, ‘UN technical assistance’, pp. 142–3, 145, 329.

46 Ibid., p. 146.

47 Ibid., p. 331.

48 See Muschik, Eva-Maria Google Scholar, ‘Building states through international development assistance: the United Nations between trusteeship and self-determination, 1945 to 1965’, PhD thesis, New York University, 2017, chs. 2 and 3.

49 CU, RBML, Carter Goodrich papers, Box 42, ‘Bolivia materials’, Folder ‘Bolivia since return’, MS#0501, letter from Dag Hammarskjöld to Carter Goodrich, 30 September 1953.

50 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 253, 255.

51 Ibid., pp. 259, 380. See also ‘Mr. Hammarksjold, we presume’, Economist, 2 January 1960.

52 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 256, 380.

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54 Hammarskjöld spoke of the ‘frustrations and disappointments which have inevitably attended a fundamental re-alignment of political power in the atomic age’. CU, RBML, DOP, Box 6, ‘Eric Biddle, Dag Hammarskjold, miscellaneous’, Folder ‘Dag Hammarskjold correspondence 1953–61 (2)’, David Owen, ‘Draft of McGill speech’, 18 May 1956.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

59 Owen, ‘Draft of McGill speech’.

60 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

61 CU, RBML, DOP, Box 6, ‘Eric Biddle, Dag Hammarskjold, miscellaneous’, Folder ‘Dag Hammarskjold correspondence 1953–61 (2)’, United Nations, ‘Note no. 1319, note to correspondents: transcript of the Secretary-General’s press conference held at ICAO headquarters, Montréal, 30 May 1956’, 8 June 1956.

62 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid.

65 United Nations, press release SG/908, ‘Statement by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold before the Economic and Social Council on International Cooperation on behalf of former trust territories which have become independent’, 14 April 1960.

66 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

67 Ibid.

68 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 384–5.

69 United Nations, ‘Note on ICAO press conference, Montréal, 30 May 1956’.

70 ‘Address by Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjold’.

71 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, pp. 384–5.

72 Unfortunately, Kirk-Greene, Anthony H. M., Britain’s imperial administrators, 1858–1966, New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000, p. 162 Google Scholar, does not mention when the services where created. See also Hayter, Teresa, French aid, London: Overseas Development Institute, 1966 Google Scholar. On the Africanization of French colonial state bureaucracies, see Michelle Pinto, ‘Employment, education, and the reconfiguration of empire: Africanization in postwar French Africa’, PhD thesis, New York University, 2013. On the absorption of a number of French colonial servants into the emerging European aid bureaucracy, see Dimier, Véronique, The invention of a European development aid bureaucracy: recycling empire, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014 Google Scholar.

73 ‘Secure jobs in overseas civil service guaranteed: central pool of officers to be set up – from our political correspondent’, Manchester Guardian, 18 May 1956.

74 Kirk-Greene, Britain’s imperial administrators, p. 264.

75 ‘Secure jobs’.

76 Kirk-Greene, Britain’s imperial administrators, p. 255.

77 Ibid., p. 254.

78 Kirk-Greene, Anthony, ‘Decolonization: the ultimate diaspora’, Journal of Contemporary History, 36, 1, 2001, p. 140 Google Scholar.

79 United Nations Archives and Records Management Section (henceforth UNARMS), S-0175-2295-0003, Wieschoff to Roberston, 20 June 1957.

80 UNARMS, S-0847-0002-0004, Secretary-General’s ‘private meetings’ with under-secretaries-general 1956, ‘Secretary General’s private meeting no. 100, 1 June 1956’; ‘A world civil service’, New York Times, 23 June 1957.

81 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0004, Memo for Hammarskjöld, 28 August 1957.

82 UNGA, A/C.2/SR.533, Thirteenth Session, Second Committee, Summary records of 533rd meeting, 24 October 1958; UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0001, Keenleyside to Lind, 12 May 1958; S-0175-2296-0001, Matsch to Secretariat, 9 May 1958.

83 UN Economic and Social Council (henceforth ECOSOC), Technical Assistance Committee (henceforth TAC), E/TAC/SR.146, Summary records of the 146th meeting on 19 July 1957, 18 September 1957, p. 13.

84 Gaiduk, Ilya, Divided together: the United States and the Soviet Union in the United Nations, 1945–1965, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013 Google Scholar.

85 UNGA, A/C.2./SR.545, 6 November 1958, p. 139.

86 UNGA, A/C.2./SR.544, 5 November 1958, p. 135.

87 ECOSOC, E/SR.942, Twenty-second Session, Summary records of 942nd meeting, 24 July 1956, p. 152, para. 22.

88 Lohrmann, Ullrich, Voices from Tanganyika: Great Britain, the United Nations and the decolonization of a trust territory, 1946–1961, Berlin: Dr. W Hopf, 2007, p. 249 Google Scholar.

89 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0004, memo for the Secretary-General by Keenleyside, 28 August 1957.

90 ECOSOC, TAC, E/TAC/SR.163, Summary record of 163rd meeting on 7 July 1958, 19 September 1958, pp. 10–11; UNGA, A/C.2/SR.595, 19 October 1959, p. 65, para. 22; UNGA, A/C.2/SR.708, 5 December 1960, pp. 383–4.

91 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0003, Hill to De Seynes, 6 May 1957.

92 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0004, Memo for the Secretary-General by Keenleyside, 28 August 1957; UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0001, Sen to Hammarskjöld, 19 February 1958, and Hammarskjöld to Sen, 10 March 1958; UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0001, Taylor to Keenleyside, 13 February 1958.

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95 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0003, ‘Statement by Dr. R.A. Asmaun to the 23rd session of ECOSOC’, 24 April 1957, p. 4.

96 UNGA, A/C.2/SR.530, 20 October 1958, p. 70, para. 26.

97 UNGA, A/C.2/SR.544, 5 November 1958, p. 135, paras. 4–5, and p. 137, para. 26; UNGA, A/C.2/L.379, ‘Programmes of technical assistance: establishment of an international administrative service’, Statement by the Secretary-General at the 539th meeting of the Second Committee of the General Assembly, 30 October 1958.

98 Stokke, UN and development, p. 73; Rubinstein, Alvin Z., The Soviets in international organizations: changing policy toward developing countries, 1953–1963, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964 Google Scholar.

99 Urquhart, Hammarskjold, p. 384.

100 Muhammad, ‘UN technical assistance’, p. 273.

101 Ibid.

102 UNGA, A/4212, ‘Technical assistance in public administration: provision of operational, executive and administrative personnel’ report by the Secretary General, 14 September 1959; UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0002, Review of OPEX for US State Department, 11 December 1963.

103 Yearbook of the United Nations 1959, New York: United Nations, 1960, part 1, section 2, ch. 3, p. 129.

104 UNGA, A/RES/1530(XV), ‘United Nations assistance in public administration: provision of operational, executive and administrative personnel’, 15 December 1960.

105 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, MacCabe to Gardiner, 19 October 1961.

106 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, Gardiner to Coates, 15 November 1961. In 1963, the Secretariat still struggled with the reputation of OPEX appointments as ‘second-class’: see UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0004, MacCabe to Luna, 18 March 1963.

107 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, Tickner to De Seynes, 7 March 1962.

108 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, Symonds to Owen, 26 January 1962.

109 UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0002, MacCabe to Hoo, 10 December 1963.

110 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, Interoffice memorandum, Luker to Malinowski, 23 January 1962, and Luker to Malinowski, 21 May 1962.

111 Luker to Malinowski, 23 January 1962.

112 UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0003, MacCabe to Mendez, 14 December 1964.

113 UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0001, Hill to Abbas, 8 November 1960.

114 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, MacDiarmid to Owen, 3 July 1962; UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0003, MacDiarmid to Huyser, 8 November 1962.

115 MacDiarmid to Owen, 3 July 1962.

116 UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0001, Note by Bapat on UNESCO proposal, 8 November 1960.

117 UNARMS, S-0175-2296-0004, Report on Commissioners’ Meeting on 18 January 1963, 21 January 1963; UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, MacCabe to Emmerich, 2 July 1962.

118 UNARMS, S-0175-2295-0005, Symonds to Owen, 26 January 1962.

119 UNDP, DP/TA/L.15, ‘Policy matters: operational assistance under the technical assistance component’, 1 December 1967, Report by the Administrator to the UNDP Governing Council, 5th session, 9–24 January 1968, p. 4.

120 Ibid.

121 CU, RBML, DOP, Box 20 ‘Miscellaneous reports’, FF-Nbi-36 11/10/65, Frank Sutton (Nairobi, Ford Foundation), ‘Technical assistance: an article prepared for the International encyclopedia of the social sciences’, 1965.

122 Ibid.

123 UNDP, DP/TA/L.15, ‘Policy matters’.

124 UNARMS, S-0175-2297-0003, Maccabe to Merghani, 3 August 1964.

125 UNDP, DP/TA/L.15, ‘Policy matters’, p. 7.

126 Browne, Stephen, The United Nations Development Programme and system, New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 15 Google Scholar.

127 Sayward, Amy L., The birth of development: how the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Health Organization changed the world, 1945–1965, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006 Google Scholar.

128 For a similar argument see Sinclair, Reform the world.

129 See e.g. Cooper, Frederick, Citizenship between empire and nation: remaking France and French Africa, 1945–1960, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014 Google Scholar; Wilder, Gary, Freedom time: negritude, decolonization, and the future of the world, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015 Google Scholar.