The role of the UN in the new world order

The subject of this study is the "new world order" as a key concept reflecting the nature of contemporary international relations, as well as ways of representing this category in the postmodernist historical narrative at the turn of the 21st century. The author points to various interpretations of the "new world order" concept, caused by the difference in the socio-cultural, civilizational and geopolitical researchers' optics. The multi-semantic nature of Postmodernity as a special stage in the world system development is aggravated not only with the ideological depth of this concept, but also with the heterogeneity and confrontation of theoretical and methodological orientations of the authors and their discursive practices. The substantial core of the debate about the contemporary international system nature was formed by the "democratic peace", "cooperative security" and multiculturalism concepts. The main author's objective was to study the United Nations evolution as the new world order institutional and regulatory basis. In its overview, the author specified the features of different approaches to the assessment of the UN and its role in the new world order, determined both by the objective changes in the international security agenda and by the nature of researchers' political discourse within the postmodern paradigm. The author's methodology involves the integration of historical, political and legal approaches to the study of the new world order configuration and the UN's place in it. As a result, the author made the following conclusions. The concept of the "new world order" entered the lexicon of the international relations history at the turn of the 21st century to refer to the transitional stage of the world community development - from the Cold War confrontation to constructive interaction for the sake of peace, progress and global security. The main load-bearing structure in the architecture of the new "post-bipolar" world became multilateral diplomacy institutions and, above all, the United Nations as the only universal international organization capable to serve as not only a global security guarantor, but also the organ of global governance and the main new world designer. Evolution of the Organization powers, structures, agenda and functions for more than the 70-year period of its history made the UN a transitional type organization. Inclusion in its structure of sovereign and non-sovereign actors of the new world order (represented by nongovernmental international organizations, multinational and regional communities, civil society institutions) allows the Organization to involve in the changing world politics agenda and to perform effectively its traditional and new functions.

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