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The Political Role of The United Nations: Some British Views

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Geoffrey L. Goodwin
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Extract

Charting the course of attitudes in Britain toward the United Nations is mainly a matter of defining small gradations within a fairly limited range, a range varying from sympathetic concern—and ritualistic commendation—at one end of the spectrum to barely dis uised indifference at the other. Among a small section of radical public opinion the Organization can still (August 1961) arouse fervent support, while the right-wing Beaverbrook press and its sympathizers lose few opportunities of pointing out its deficiencies. Nevertheless, during most of its fifteen years' existence, so far as public interest in Britain in its political activities is concerned, the limited impact the United Nations has had on most of the major issues of peace and war has discouraged “popular opinion” from waxing very enthusiastic-or bitter-about it; indeed, although a generally accepted part of international life, it has for long periods languished relatively unnoticed in a diplomatic backwater. Only at such moments of crisis as Korea, Suez, or the Congo, when the Organization has been forced into the mainstream of international politics has this rather tepid reaction been punctuated by heightened tension—and acrimony.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , Fall 1961 , pp. 581 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1961

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References

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3 “Informed opinion” is treated in this article as a fairly small group (to be numbered in tens of thousands only) consisting mainly of those in politics, journalism, and the academic world with particular interest in world affairs, and members of such bodies as the royal institute of international affairs (chatham house), the institute for strategic studies, and to a lesser extent, the united nations association.

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