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Since 1975, the United Nations has undertaken major deliberations to consider institutional reform of the UN system. Such restructuring activities have sprung from widespread dissatisfaction with the United Nations' capacity to deal with problems of economic development and relations between industrialized and developing countries. UN reform efforts have focused on two broad areas: reshaping the deliberative and policy-making operations of central UN institutions in order to reach more coherent global policies on international economic and social affairs; and reorganizing the planning, coordination, and implementation of UN programs to achieve these policy goals more effectively. In 1977, the General Assembly adopted the report of an intergovernmental Ad Hoc Committee, which provided detailed guidelines for prospective UN restructuring, and assigned its recommendations to relevant units within the UN system for the purpose of implementing these reforms. Major themes emphasized in these guidelines include an increased centralization and integration of the UN system in dealing with international economic and social affairs and improved efficiency and coordination of UN operations and activities in these areas. Fundamental to the course of UN restructuring deliberations—and to the extent and significance of eventual institutional reforms—has been the linkage between UN reorganization and the disposition of substantive North-South issues, as the restructuring exercise remains tied to the pace and direction of negotiations concerning "a new international economic order."

Analysis of the United States' shift to support of trade preferences for developing countries in 1967 provides evidence for the value of a "bureaucratic politics" model that pays attention to the importance of transgovernmental relations in influencing national policy making. Between 1964 and 1967, international organizations affected, United States policy making on trade preferences, and officials within the US government who favored preferences used such organizations-particularly the OECD-to help change American policy. Intergovernmental, transgovernmental, and national levels of policy making were closely linked to one another. This case study suggests the need for a broadened conception of "bureaucratic politics"; but it also supports the view that the "bureaucratic politics" and "rational actor" approaches are fundamentally complementary rather than antithetical.