UN Paper & Evaluations of Quality of Simulation Participation
General Information: Your UN grade is based on two components: (1) the quality of your participation in the simulation and (2) a paper you write about the simulation. If you do not, you will write a long-hand version in class. Please do NOT send them by email attachment; please present hard copies.
Evaluating Quality of UN Participation: If you have not done so already, at a minimum, you need to grade the quality of your own participation in the simulation and that of your teammates (if more than one person represented a country). I would request that you also grade as many other people in the simulation as you can remember (if you do not recall their names, you can identify them by country). You should assign grades on the following criteria; (1) attendance at both the actual simulation and during research leading up to the simulation, (2) how much they knew about our crisis, (3) how well the understood their own country and the interests of their country, (4) how much they seemed to understand the operation of the UN Security Council, (5) how hard they worked (e.g. through side agreements) to further the interests of their country. In brief, you are grading them based on how seriously they took the simulation. You should send your grade (either in letter or numerical form) to jphiliprogers@yahoo.com Label topic title as UN Evaluation.
UN Paper: There is no fixed length to the paper. But a rough rule of thumb would be five double-spaced pages, not including appendices. The paper may be written in standard essay form OR as a "detailed outline." Each participant should write their own paper - you may not submit a paper with a team member. The paper should address the following things:
Describe five key things that Americans should know about your country to properly understand that country (if you represented the US in the simulation, identify five key things that Americans should know about the UN). Imagine that you could only convey five things about your country to a friend. What five things are most important to convey so that your friend will best understand your country? (I am, of course, forcing you to display your knowledge of your countries not with a simply recitation of any five facts selected at random but with some thought about what facts about your country are most important). The five things that you identity can relate to political culture, political institutions and political developments, demographics, economics, geography, natural resources - what ever aspects of that country that you deem to be most important to understand that country. Please do not simply list these five things but expand on each of them.
Describe five key things that Americans should know to understand our crisis. The same logic applies here. I want you to identify what is most important to know to understand the situation. Once again do not simply list five facts but explain them in a little detail.
Describe the actual position that your country took on real life on this crisis: To the extent it is possible to identify the actual, real life position that your country has taken on this issue, I want you to do so. That may not be possible in all cases (if your country was not actually on the real UN Security Council when this crisis was considered in the real UN). If it is not possible, describe the general orientation of your country toward this country and issue
Describe the position your country took in our simulation and explain why you took this position: To the extent that you adopted a position on this crisis and explain your logic. If you had other objectives on other issues you will want to explain what these were and why you set such on how priority on these issues.
Describe how you attempted to accomplish your countries objectives in the simulation: Whatever your countries primary objectives were, whether they were directly germane to Darfur or you had ulterior motives, explain the political tactics you used to attempt to accomplish those objectives. This could be side-agreements you negotiated or efforts at persuasion and negotiation on the merits of the Darfur resolution.
Describe what you learned about this crisis, your country, and the operation of the UN from the simulation.
Append any copies of resolutions, formal amendments, side agreements and unilateral actions to the paper.