The Gray Area of Institutional Change: How the Security Council Transforms Its Practices on the Fly

Abstract

Abstract In world politics, institutional development often takes place in a gray area that combines elements of rational design and organic change in practice. Faced with impracticable secondary rules, diplomats evolve semi-formal practices that allow them to make collectively binding decisions even in the absence of a procedure to do so, effectively building the plane while flying it. Changing practices at the United Nations Security Council offer a particularly significant and fertile case here. The ways in which the body conducts its business have significantly evolved in the post–Cold War era, though in the absence of formal changes to the Charter or the Council's Rules of Procedure. How is such a casual institutional transformation possible in the most politicized global governance body? Building on practitioners’ accounts, the article maps out the four spaces of semi-formality and the attendant practices by which the Council transforms itself. First, Council diplomats value flexibility and allow each other to innovate. Second, they attempt to codify evolving ways of conducting Council business. Third, a set of training practices allows for socialization in ways of doing things. Fourth and finally, diplomats on the Council have limited opportunities to collectively discuss their changing practices. Overall, the article suggests that gray zones are far more pervasive than currently acknowledged in world politics, calling for more scholarly interest in this hybrid mode of institutional change in which design emerges organically and is collectively owned.