Author Archive

Farsan Ghassim (University of Oxford)

Dr. Farsan Ghassim is starting a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen's College, Oxford, and previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the universities of Maastricht and Lund. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, an MA in Global Affairs from Yale University, and a BSc in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). A former management consultant at Bain & Company, he also worked at the German Foreign Ministry, for the President of the European Parliament, and at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Photo credit: David Ausserhofer / MPC GmbH

This week, political leaders from countries all over the world are gathering for their annual meeting at the United Nations (UN) in New York. Since its creation and to this day, there have been discussions about reforming the UN. Soon after the UN was founded in 1945, public figures like Albert Einstein called for a much more powerful and democratic UN. Today, leaders such as Ukrainian President Zelensky urge fundamental reforms to strengthen the UN, while NGOs like Democracy Without Borders campaign for making the UN more democratic and representative of citizens. In an international survey in six countries worldwide (Argentina, China, India, Russia, Spain, and the United States), Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (London School of Economics and Political Science), Luis Cabrera …