Whose Agent？UN Bureaucrats and Their Domestic Network

The relation between the international organizations (hereinafter IOs) and their member states has often been taken up in the framework of the principal-agent theory. Taking a close look at the IOs, however, their staff can be attributed to specific countries of origin, and states generally aim at higher rates of staff with their nationality. In addition to pushing for specific political goals, such human resources serve as channels that convey the specific tips for survival in the IO in favor of their country. In other words, the rise of practice theory questions whether IO staff are genuinely the “agents” of a unified international entity; “nodes” in social network theory seem to depict the situation with better resolution. This paper proposes a theoretical framework to re-envision the dichotomous structure assumed with regards to IOs and their state members. It dissects IOs into a constellation of staff with respective domestic networks with several case studies. As a first-cut analysis into the topic, this paper takes up the sheer connection and affiliation networks of the United Nations (hereinafter UN) staff from the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter China) during China’s formative years at the UN. To be more precise, a compiled book of interviews that were conducted with Chinese UN staff of all levels between 1945 and 2003 (in Chinese) will be analyzed, and this paper will categorize their career path and affiliation networks with regards to domestic entities. With careful attention to the fact that the book itself was complied by the government, and also that it is actually the staff from the People’s Republic of China (Taiwan) that had taken up the “Chinese” seat in the General Assembly until 1971, this research will further the understanding of how IO staff have instilled the basic understanding of the UN into the government of what they construe as their nationality.