The United Nations (UN) must either remain a "decision frozen in time" or develop an agenda to be relevant to 21st-century global governance. This study examines UN change processes, assessing learning strategies that would allow the UN to maintain relevance amidst evolving global governance.

At the dawn of the new millennium, the United Nations (UN) is at a critical juncture. It is faced with two distinct choices: to remain a "decision frozen in time" or to develop a long-term adaptation agenda (and strategy) that would allow it to be a relevant institution of global governance for the 21st century. Reform and reflexive institutional adjustments have failed to address underlying problems facing this organization. After 55 years of existence it is still considered an inefficient and ineffective world body. Worse yet, its relevance is being questioned. This study offers a critique of existing UN change processes and then shifts focus to considerations of institutional learning strategies that would allow the UN to maintain relevance amidst the evolution of global governance arrangements.

Dedication - List of Tables and Figures - Foreword - Preface - Acknowledgements - List of Acronyms - Introduction - Rationalist and Reflectivist Approaches to Multilateralism and Governance - Multilateral Evolution and UN Change Processes - Developing Institutional Foundations: Learning in the UN - The UN's Global Agenda and the Reflexive Adaptation Process - The Managed Change Process at the UN - Post-Cold War Multilateralism and the New UN Reform Agenda - Subsidiarity and Global Governance - Conclusions - Appendices - Notes - Bibliography - Indexes