Laura Zanotti: Governing disorder
The end of the Cold War created an opportunity for the United Nations to reconceptualize the rationale and extent of its peacebuilding efforts, and in the 1990s, democracy and good governance became legitimizing concepts for an expansion of UN activities. In Governing Disorder, Zanotti combines her firsthand experience of UN peacebuilding operations with the insights of Michel Foucault to examine the genealogy of post–Cold War discourses promoting international security. Zanotti also maps the changes in legitimizing principles for intervention, explores the specific techniques of governance deployed in UN operations, and identifies the forms of resistance these operations encounter from local populations and the (often unintended) political consequences they produce.
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Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include critical political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict governance. She has published in Alternatives, International Peacekeeping, The Journal of International Relations and Development, Security Dialogue, and contributed chapters to several edited books. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Zanotti worked for more than ten years at the United Nations, where she served both in administration and as a political advisor for Peacekeeping Operations at the New York Headquarters and in several peacekeeping operations.
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