When it comes to world politics, there is this question raised on whether the United Nations is an important factor to the rest of the world. This paper will argue that the United Nations has a significant role in world politics, and anything it does can affect the world either negatively or positively in many different ways. The paradigms Liberalism and Constructivism, which are global studies theories that help make sense of world politics, show the importance that the United Nations has on foreign policy is that Liberalism promotes the use of international institutions – the UN – and being that Constructivism believes that norms are what drive foreign policy and the UN is very much involved in creating those norms, a Constructivist will find the UN to be extremely important to world politics.
Within Liberalism, there are three sub-groups: Liberal Institutionalism, Liberal Commercialism, and Liberal Internationalism, each with their own reason’s to advocate for the importance of the UN in foreign policy. Firstly, Liberal Institutionalism suggests that having Intergovernmental Organizations reduces the risk of war between states by creating a forum for states to balance their differences, rather than going to war. Basically saying that having Intergovernmental Institutions like the United Nations is extremely important because there is a group of people to figure out whatever the issue is and talk it out, rather than just starting a war.
In the article by Robert O. Keohane titled, International Institutions: Can Interdependence work? 1 Keohane goes on to discuss the importance that superpowers must have general rules because they are the ones that cause events around the world. Ultimately, even superpowers that have zero competition like the United States, for example, would not be able to reach their goals without a set of general rules. Keohane also says that International institutions are becoming more and more important, b...