Diplomatic negotiation in an international organisation: an exploration of expert status and power
This paper will explore the status and characteristics of ‘expert’ membership within an international organisation and its influence on the development of ‘exosomatic resources’. Invoking the framework of the ‘Community of Practice’ (Wenger, 1998), it is argued that status and power are realised in the development and interpretation of policy and conventions within the organisation, through the ‘negotiation of meaning’ and through the ‘politics of participation and reification’. Negotiations and decisions may take place over a period of time but are also situated within plenary debates. As such it is argued that power and hierarchy are not fixed structures but are emergent and fluid discursively over time and space. The paper defines the characteristics of ‘expert’ membership encompassing a consideration of the command of participatory and interactional norms, as well as knowledge of the status and content of reified products. To illustrate these characteristics a critical analysis of the discourse of one delegate is provided. This exemplifies how expert knowledge is applied within a debate to influence and inform the development and interpretation of texts and subsequently to contribute to the (re)production of shared meaning and agreement on issues under debate. It is argued that in considering both the forms of asymmetry in organisations and the practice of decision-making, research should focus on: the type of knowledge that is required and valued in any context; how this knowledge is accessed, enacted and exploited; and which members are instrumental in its construction, representation and reproduction.
The role of metaphor in shaping the identity and agenda of the United Nations: The imagining of an international community and international threat
This article examines the representation of the United Nations in speeches delivered by its Secretary-General (SG). It focuses on the role of metaphor in constructing a common ‘imagining’ of international diplomacy and legitimizing an international organizational identity. The SG legitimizes the organization, in part, through the delegitimization of agents/actions/events constructed as threatening to the international community and to the well-being of mankind. It is a desire to combat the forces of menace or evil which are argued to motivate and determine the organizational agenda. This is predicated upon an international ideology of humanity in which difference is silenced and ‘working towards the common good’ is emphasized. This is exploited to rouse emotions and legitimize institutional power. Polarization and antithesis are achieved through the employment of metaphors designed to enhance positive and negative evaluations. The article further points to the constitutive, persuasive and edifying1 power of topic and situationally motivated metaphors in speech-making.
Kitchen Conversations: Democracy in Action at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Abstract This article describes the Lower East Side Tenement Museum9s ongoing public dialogue on immigration, the first in the United States. As she joins facilitators in reflecting on the importance of dialogue in a democracy, museum president Ruth J. Abram explains how and why the program was initiated, the obstacles that had to be overcome, and the public reaction to it. Kitchen Conversations represents the museum9s commitment to the proposition that historic sites must function as places of civic engagement, using the history they interpret as a starting place for dialogue on related contemporary issues.