Different Verbs, Different Agency: The Changing Vocabulary of the Security Council’s Self (1946–2018)

The form of the UN Security Council resolutions has not changed since the first one was issued in 1946. They are all split into a number of smaller paragraphs each beginning with a verb. The ‘performer’ of actions behind these verbs is the Security Council, referenced in the third person in the beginning of each resolution. The Security Council thus ‘decides’, ‘authorizes’, ‘is concerned’, ‘is deeply shocked’, etc. In fact, between 1946 and 2018, 147 different verbs have been used to describe the agency of the Security Council. Using automated text analysis (or natural language processing), this paper explores how the use of these verbs changed over time, as has thus the projected identity of the Security Council. The paper argues that inquiry into the self-personification of the Security Council yields insights into the process of its historical adaptation. It speaks about the scope of its possible and aspirational authority and responsibility, about its demand for legitimacy, and its possible and aspirational moral standing. The broader claim of the paper is that we can learn a lot about international organizations if we look at their ‘appearance’, and not just into their ‘reality’; i.e., into the power struggles among states or bureaucratic practices of norm-production.