Niels Smeets

Losing control: a principal-agent analysis of Russia in the United Nations Security Council's decision-making towards the Libya crisis

Russia’s behaviour in the United Nations Security Council remains poorly understood. Applying principal-agent insights, this article analyses the Russian abstention towards Resolution 1973, which authorised intervention during the 2011 Libya crisis. Introducing a triangle of delegation, it shows that preferences diverged regarding the means and aims of the intervention. The article also investigates the information asymmetries which characterised the decision-making and indicates that this affected the Russian capacity to control the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which implemented Resolution 1973. It argues that Russia can only effectively control such a UN-authorised intervention by using, or threatening to use, its veto power.

Book Review: International Relations: The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and RussiaThe Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia by AgniaGrigas. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 206 pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 4653 8

politics of oil (Chapter 4), environmental governance and democracy (Chapter 5) and the private interests that are increasingly pushing to commodify the water supply (Chapter 6). In each case the colonisation of the public sphere by neoliberal rationality is identified as being the main obstacle to a more progressive political settlement. The concluding sections, true to the critical intent of the work, seek to think through what an alternative paradigm of global governance might look like and which political strategy should be adopted in order to get there (Chapter 12). Ultimately, Gill’s recommendation is that the Left should develop what he terms the ‘post-modern Prince’ (Chapter 13): an anti-vanguardist association of civic institutions, social movements and political groups, which could pursue an alternative model of democratic leadership at the global level. The specific programme he offers, however, is as vague as it is utopian. Nevertheless, while the collection’s strength lies in its critique of an increasingly disciplinarian international political economy, the path taken out of the ‘global organic crisis’ may well depend on whether the Left can turn Gill’s utopia of collective selfdetermination into a reality.

Book Review: International Relations: The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia

politics of oil (Chapter 4), environmental governance and democracy (Chapter 5) and the private interests that are increasingly pushing to commodify the water supply (Chapter 6). In each case the colonisation of the public sphere by neoliberal rationality is identified as being the main obstacle to a more progressive political settlement. The concluding sections, true to the critical intent of the work, seek to think through what an alternative paradigm of global governance might look like and which political strategy should be adopted in order to get there (Chapter 12). Ultimately, Gill’s recommendation is that the Left should develop what he terms the ‘post-modern Prince’ (Chapter 13): an anti-vanguardist association of civic institutions, social movements and political groups, which could pursue an alternative model of democratic leadership at the global level. The specific programme he offers, however, is as vague as it is utopian. Nevertheless, while the collection’s strength lies in its critique of an increasingly disciplinarian international political economy, the path taken out of the ‘global organic crisis’ may well depend on whether the Left can turn Gill’s utopia of collective selfdetermination into a reality.

The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic States and Russia by Agnia Grigas. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 206pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 4653 8

politics of oil (Chapter 4), environmental governance and democracy (Chapter 5) and the private interests that are increasingly pushing to commodify the water supply (Chapter 6). In each case the colonisation of the public sphere by neoliberal rationality is identified as being the main obstacle to a more progressive political settlement. The concluding sections, true to the critical intent of the work, seek to think through what an alternative paradigm of global governance might look like and which political strategy should be adopted in order to get there (Chapter 12). Ultimately, Gill’s recommendation is that the Left should develop what he terms the ‘post-modern Prince’ (Chapter 13): an anti-vanguardist association of civic institutions, social movements and political groups, which could pursue an alternative model of democratic leadership at the global level. The specific programme he offers, however, is as vague as it is utopian. Nevertheless, while the collection’s strength lies in its critique of an increasingly disciplinarian international political economy, the path taken out of the ‘global organic crisis’ may well depend on whether the Left can turn Gill’s utopia of collective selfdetermination into a reality.