The Future of UNESCO: A reflection on the history and future of a troubled organization

• In Event: Examining cross-cutting issues in education: A historical approach

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer a preliminary reflection on the future of UNESCO in light of its history. When UNESCO was founded in 1945, it symbolized the hope for a new path of international cooperation. “The most underrated organization in history” (Preston, Herman, & Schiller, 1989, p. 33) stands, so some would argue, at a crossroad in its history, given the severe financial crisis it is facing (Dumont, 2013, August 2; Hüfner, 2013). This paper will be based on interviews with 14 former high-level UNESCO staff and experts involved in UNESCO’s work, undertaken as part of my doctoral dissertation on UNESCO’s educational work. Drawing on the concepts of legitimacy and authority as employed by neo-institutional theorists (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004; Powell & DiMaggio, 1991) and Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital and symbolic power (Bourdieu & Nice, 1980; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), my argument is that since its inception UNESCO had to navigate fields of tensions, such as:
The tension between universality and diversity: UNESCO’s first Director-General Julian Huxley considered it of vital importance that the organization was driven by a “single unifying idea” (UNESCO, 1948, p. 6). UNESCO’s recommendations to their member states need to be “specific enough to be useful” (Jones, 1988, p. 63), but on the other hand it is necessary to bridge national interests and follow “aspirations for universality” (p. 63) in order to carry out work on a global scale.
The tension between the intellectual and the technical: While some stressed its intellectual role, others propagated a limited technical mandate for the organization (Pavone, 2007; Burnett, 2011). This unclarity partly derives from the ambiguity of UNESCO’s constitution (Laves, 1951; Laves & Thomson, 1957), but it has been exarcerbated by other factors such as the competitive “development regime” (Mundy, 1999; 2006).
The tension between the North and the South: Especially in the early years, there were many who feared that UNESCO was going to be “an agency of ‘American cultural imperialism’” (Asher, 1950). The power balance changed in the 1970s when the growing rate of newly independent states changed membership patterns in UNESCO and challenged the U.S. and their Western allies with their calls for a more just world order, sharpened by UNESCO’s “one country-one vote” system. The admission of Palestine as a full member in 2011 is only the latest incident in a series of political conflicts that run like a red thread through UNESCO’s history.
The tension between UNESCO’s humanistic tradition and the increasing hegemony of the economic under neoliberalism: UNESCO’s humanistic ontology is a tradition in the Gadamerian sense as “the authority of what has been handed down to us” that “has a justification that lies beyond rational grounding and in large measure determines our institutions and attitudes” (Gadamer, 1975/2013, p. 292). This tradition is increasingly losing its authority because it is being eroded by financial pressure on the organization as well as by isomorphic processes (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) introducing results-based management procedures to UNESCO which are at odds with its humanistic worldview and lead to a “de-skilling” of staff along with a highly ritualized and inward-looking organizational culture (Benavot, 2011).
The tension between the different “fields” in UNESCO: The governments, the secretariat, the field offices, as well as the “outside-insiders” (Hoggart, 1978) such as academics and experts, constitute relatively autonomous “microcosms” governed by often unspoken laws in which agents assume certain positions and interact with each other by following the “rules of the game”.
Finnemore (1993) understands institutions as “teachers of norms”, that are being recognized by states and other actors because of their perceived legitimacy. UNESCO is often being referred to as having a “symbolic” value (Sathyamurthy, 1964, p. 51; Laves & Thomson, 1957, p. 350) or as representing “the consciousness of the United Nations” (interview quote). But UNESCO’s symbolic power is waning. Is UNESCO in a crisis because of its internal inefficiencies, lack of economic capital or rather because its legitimacy and authority are built on ideas whose symbolic capital is in decline – or does UNESCO’s situation need to be interpreted in the context of the broader crisis of multilateral cooperation and the UN system (Weiss, 2009; 2012)? I will address some of these questions and offer some suggestions on the future of UNESCO, based on my interviewees’ statements.

Author

• Maren Elfert, University of British Columbia