The Art of Non-Decision-Making

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Substantively revised by Reframing the Art of Non-Decision-Making -- and the manipulation of global categories (2017)

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Introduction

 It has become strikingly evident that most major international conferences and summits have become exercises in non-decision-making. Indeed decision avoidance has become an art form in its own right.

The clearest examples of this in the first half of 1997 have been the 'Rio + 5' United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (New York), the Group of Seven - plus a half (Denver), and the major European Union conference on institutional reform (Amsterdam). There is little difficulty in citing equivalent examples from previous years - of which the responses to the crisis in Bosnia are possibly the most painful.

Much intellectual effort has gone into the process of 'decision-making'. There are libraries of books and documents on the matter. Little attention has however been devoted to non-decision-making processes -- the process of not deciding. As possibly the prime mode of response of the international community, it merits some attention.