International Sociology-2005-Drori-175-99

04 Drori R (bc-t) 27/4/05 3:58 pm Page 175
United Nations’ Dedications

A World Culture in the Making?
Gili S. Drori
Stanford University
abstract: World culture, while a core issue for comparative

sociology and an influential institution worldwide, is an
illusive notion: it is difficult to imagine what norms, values
and symbols unite us the world over. Still, some international
organizational sites offer a glimpse into world culture; one
such site is that of the United Nations’ dedication work. Since
1949, the United Nations has expressed commitment to some
125 issues by making formal dedications of decades, years,
weeks and days as celebrations, commemorations and focal
points for work on the promotion of certain issues; through
this work the UN declares these issues to be important for
us to promote, protect and cherish. This article (1) traces the
bureaucratic history of this UN work and (2) lists the issues
that are marked as worthy of international appreciation. In
so doing, the article (1) traces the institutionalization of this
international cultural site and (2) draws a picture of world
culture since 1949.
keywords: globalization ✦ institutionalization ✦

United Nations ✦ world culture
The General Assembly,

Solemnly proclaims 1986 to be the International Year of Peace and calls upon
all peoples to join with the United Nations in resolute efforts to safeguard peace
and the future of humanity. (UN General Assembly, Resolution 40/3 of 24
October 1985)
The General Assembly, . . .
Recognizing that microcredit programmes have successfully contributed to
lifting people out of poverty in many countries around the world, . . .
International Sociology ✦ June 2005 ✦ Vol 20(2): 175–199

SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
DOI: 10.1177/0268580905052368
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International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2
Bearing in mind that microcredit programmes have especially benefited

women and have resulted in the achievement of their empowerment, . . .
Proclaims the year 2005 as the International Year of Microcredit. (UN General
Assembly, Resolution 53/197 of 15 December 1998)
We stress the commitment of the United Nations to enhance its links with the
media and support of television programs. . . . Television is a decisive factor in
globalization. It supports cultural diversity and helps establish freedom of
information. (Jan Kavan, President of the UN General Assembly, on World
Television Day [proclaimed by UNGA resolution 51/205 of 17 December 1996])
World culture is a ‘big word’. And, in a world ravaged by conflicts and

debates, it is difficult to imagine what norms and values stand to unite
us and form a common, or a global, culture. Still, the international
community has repeatedly expressed its commitment to certain values,
marked their principles as universal and sanctified them in a formal
manner. The United Nations, as a principal agent of the international
community, routinely commits to issues and themes – from peace to
children’s rights to the abolition of human trafficking – and declares them
to be important for us to promote, protect and cherish. Since 1949, the UN
has expressed such commitment to some 125 issues by making formal
dedications of decades, years, weeks and days as celebrations, commem-
orations and focal points for work on the promotion of these issues. From
the first dedication in 1949 of 2 December as the Day for the Abolition of
Slavery to the dedication of the year 2004 as the International Year of Rice,
the UN has developed the procedure, as well as the habit, of declaring
some issues as core to global being; in doing so, the UN promotes some
issues and themes and takes a moral stand to revere them. Still, do these
formal dedications mark for us the contours of a global culture? Can one
identify the normative form of a global community by observing the
issues elevated by UN to the degree of international dedications? The goal
of this article is to discuss the possibility of an emerging global culture,
by specifically identifying the issues that are made sacred as global
cultural icons, based on an analysis of UN dedications since 1949. The
point of the article is to explore what issues and themes are given this
sacred appreciation from the international community and which other
issues and themes do not get this recognition (and why). To understand
these processes, I also comment on the development of the bureaucratic
process of UN dedication work and how the process influences the choice
of issues to be sanctified. Overall, I argue that indeed UN dedications
offer a map of world culture: through this formal procedure, the UN stores
the core cultural values and the common moral, or expressive, themes for
the international community. I find that such common values pay little
attention to instrumental matters of the international community (the
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Drori United Nations’ Dedications
issues of peace, security and sovereignty, which are the core work of the
UN), but rather overwhelmingly address the matters of (1) development
and of (2) rights and protection. Based on this finding, I argue that this
overriding emphasis on the moral themes (rather than on the instrumental
tasks) draws from the western, now global, cultural ontology of progress
and justice.
What is a UN Dedication?
UN dedications, also called anniversaries or observances, are the formal
pledge of a day, a week, a year or a decade to a specific issue. Proclaimed
by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) or increasingly so by the UN
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and anchored in their resolu-
tions, the UN decrees an issue as worthy of promotion by UN agencies
and worthy of commitment by UN member states. The goals of such a
formal commitment to an issue are commemorative, promotional and
mobilization for action. And, indeed, activities organized around the anni-
versary have these three goals as their motivation and increasingly as their
organizing principles.
Since 1949, this form of UN activity has dramatically intensified (see
Figures 1 and 2): while during the first decade of such activity (1949–59)
the UN made only four decisions of dedication, in the year 2002 alone
120
Number of dedications
100
80
60
40
20
0
49
54
59
64
69
74
79
84
89
94
99
02
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
Year
Figure 1 Cumulative Number of UN Dedications

Notes:
‘Year’ indicates year of decision on dedication (rather than year[s] of enactment or of the
dedication taking effect).
Only 119 dedications are included in this chart; the remaining five dedications are missing
dates of decision in my dataset.
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10
Number of dedications
0
1949
1953
1957
1961
1965
1969
1973
1977
1981
1985
1989
1993
1997
2001
2002
Year
Figure 2 Number of UN Dedications by Year

Notes:
‘Year’ indicates year of decision on dedication (rather than year[s] of enactment or of the
dedication taking effect).
Only 119 dedications are included in this chart; the remaining five dedications are missing
dates of decision in my dataset.
seven dedication decisions were made; 1993 was the most ‘productive’
year, with a total of eight dedications decided upon during this year.1 As
Figure 1 shows, the rates of dedication-making by the UN increased in
rate in two time points: in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s.
Overall, then, it seems the UN had adopted this activity of dedication-
making as a routine matter and embraced it as a form of expressing a
commitment to an issue of social concern.
Still, UN dedications vary by type: some are for a decade-long set of
activities, whereas others are for an annual commemorative day. Dedica-
tions for a decade and a year are one-time events; if the theme is deemed
deserving of ongoing attention, as is for example the case regarding
development and disarmament, UNGA rededicates a period to the subject
upon conclusion of the earlier dedication period. The condemnation of
racism is one of those issues that are granted repeated dedications: it was
granted dedications of a day,2 a week,3 a year,4 and two consecutive
decades.5,6 Some dedications are repeating events by definition: all UN
dedications of a day and of a week are intended to serve as annual and
recurring events. With all day and week dedications and all rededications
counting as repeated raising of issues, this category of recurring events is
by far the largest, compared with single-period dedications. This period
specification is not a negligible matter; rather, it sets the scope of pledge
of resources and of activities. So, while all UN dedications signal a
symbolic allegiance to the issue, the type of period of the dedication
signals the UN’s pledge of financial and organizational resources.
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In total, the UN has made 124 dedications of various periods; see Table
1 for the breakdown of UN dedications by type of period. Most of the
dedications are of a day (then repeated annually; 53 dedications, or 42.7
percent of total dedications) and of a year (a non-repeating dedication; 43
dedications, or 34.7 percent of total dedications). Dedications of a decade
and of a week are rarer: there have been 23 dedications of decades (or
18.5 percent of total dedications) and only five dedications of a week (only
4 percent of total dedications; again, repeated annually). How does the
UN decide which sort of dedication to commit to? How do UN bodies
commit a day, rather than a decade, to an issue and is there a ‘hierarchy’
of issue importance by such period types? I get back to these issues in a
later section, when considering the specific issues being made sacred
through UN dedications and the related process of decision-making.
This intensification of activity has direct impact on UN operations. By
adopting such a dedication, UNGA also commits to financial sponsor-
ship, educational and promotional activities, and nowadays also commits
one of the UN agencies to be the overseeing body to review national activi-
ties and to manage international events. For example, the dedication of
the year 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism (anchored in UNGA
resolution 53/200 of 10 November 1998) is coordinated and supervised by
the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Environ-
mental Programme (UNEP). Such responsible organizations are to initiate
activities toward the event among international organizations and within
UN member states, to budget resources for such activities and to report to
UNGA on the execution of the activities.7 In this sense, UN dedications
are not mere words; rather, they are consequential for initiating and
implementing public policy. These UN ‘symbolic gestures’ also have
‘teeth’ by spurring action: conferences, treaties, sponsorship of national
action, reports, etc. And, a part of UNGA dedication resolution is now
focused on these operational details: naming monitoring bodies, setting
agenda for national and international action plans, specifying budgets,
etc. These activities surrounding UN dedications signal the formalization
and bureaucratization of virtue, a matter I elaborate on in later discussion.
Table 1 UN Dedications, by Type

Dedication period Frequency Percentage Year of first event
Day 53 42.7% 1949
Week 5 4.0% 1972
Year 43 34.7% 1959
Decade 23 18.5% 1970
Total 124 100%
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Supporting this process of bureaucratization of virtue is the insti-

tutionalization, or routinization, of the dedication process. While a part
of this intensifying dedication work is accounted for by the expansion, or
structuration, of UN operations in general, there is still a marked process
of expansion and routinization of UN dedication work in particular.8 First,
over time UN agencies have developed a procedure for committing to a
UN dedication in particular. While in the early days all proposals for UN
dedications were discussed in UNGA and brought to a vote before the
forum (and such vote counts are reported in the UN annual reports and
summary volumes), nowadays most decisions are adopted by UNGA
without a vote, and prior discussion, if any, occurs in the forum of
ECOSOC. Also, for UN dedications to be enacted, a UNGA resolution has
to be adopted; in some cases, more than a single resolution is required
for a dedication to take effect.9 Usually, a draft resolution is brought to
the floor by a delegation (a country representative or a UN agency
representative); the draft is issued an official document and later adopted
in the UNGA forum. In most cases, the resolution is adopted without a
vote; rather, the president of UNGA calls the matter before the forum,
asks if there are any objections, and then declares the resolution as
adopted. The process of delegating any discussion on a dedication from
UNGA to ECOSOC and then the elimination of any voting process imply
a routinization of UN dedication work and a designation of UNGA as a
consensus-based locus of international activity. Most importantly, the UN
did not formalize this procedure for making UN dedications until well
deep into the habit: meaning, while UN dedication resolutions have been
made since 1949, only in 1980 did UNGA commit to a procedure for
dedication-making in its resolution 35/424.10 In this sense, the behavior
was well established and often repeated in advance of any formal
procedure being set and formalized.
In addition, UNGA resolutions regarding dedications became increas-
ingly more formatted over time. First, the resolution become a lot longer
and more specific: whereas the 1950 dedication of 10 December as Human
Rights Day sets only two items for action (and these items are very broad
and imprecise in terms of charting action to follow),11 UNGA resolution
49/184 of 23 December 1994 proclaiming the Decade of Human Rights
Education includes 14 items. Second, over time dedication resolutions
become more specific in charting a path, if not a plan, for action on the
issue; nowadays, such UNGA resolutions frequently name the monitoring
bodies, the proposed activities and the international and national report-
ing mechanisms. Overall, then, today’s UNGA dedication resolutions are
dramatically more elaborated and precise than earlier ones.
Two issues, both relating to the support basis for each UN dedication
and for the institution of UN dedications as a whole, are most important.
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First, the process of enacting a UN dedication is based on consensus. In

the early days such consensus was achieved through majority vote in
UNGA; lately, the consensus spirit is delegated through a process of
elimination (if not censorship) of issues during discussions in UN member
organizations. This new format bypasses the need for public vote in
UNGA forum and thus UN dedications are enacted only on the basis of
a wide but not formal support among UN member states. Second, propos-
als for UN dedications can be raised by anyone from within the UN family,
either a member organization or a member state; Tunisia, for example,
put the issue of the global digital divide onto the agenda of ITU, which
then raised it before UNGA. This institutionalization and formalization
of the process expanded the number of players in the field: no longer are
UN member states operating vis-à-vis UNGA, but increasingly also UN
bodies (as proposing agenda, supervising operations) and international
non-governmental organizations (INGOs) (as mobilizing to set agenda)
are intervening in the UN’s dedication process. Much as in other inter-
national arenas, global corporatism sets cultural work as a negotiated
activity among multiple global actors.
Worthy of Reverence: Which Issues are Made

Sacred in UN Dedications?
The importance of the institution of UN dedications goes beyond the
concrete issues of budget and public policy; it also explicitly names the
issues that are core social concerns to UN, as a delegate of world society.
ECOSOC’s constitutive proclamation of such UN dedications explicitly
calls for such events to be safeguarded for only ‘the most important
occasions’, thus reserving a dedication for only the most meaningful of the
issues on the international agenda. Because of this commitment to draw
attention to the principal issues only, the institution of UN dedications
maps the contours of global culture: by drawing attention to the overall
list of issues to which UN is paying homage and devoting resources for
their promotion, we can identify the items that are internationally accepted
as intrinsically worthy. Which issues are, then, marked as concerns for
world society? Table 2 lists the 127 specific subjects of UN dedications
made during the period 1949–2002; it also groups these subjects into four
general thematic, or subject, categories (security, development, rights and
protection, culture; and a fifth group of otherwise unclassified issues);
and, it numerates the count of dedications per category.
UN dedication work clearly concentrates on some issues more than on
others. The general issues relating to development, to rights and protec-
tion are remarkably receiving more attention in UN dedication activity
181
Table 2 UN Dedications, by Issue

General Sub-issue
General issue category count Sub-issue categories count
Security 9 War, disarmament 5
Peace 4
Development 49 Health, medicine, illness 5
Education, literacy 7
Development information 1
Environment, nature 11
Population 2
Tourism 2
Food 2
Industrial development 3
Communication, media 4
Volunteers, public service 3
Science, space 3
Microcredit 1
Poverty 3
Transportation 2
Rights and protection 51 Slavery 3
Racial discrimination/anti-apartheid 9
Colonialism 5
Human rights 4
Indigenous peoples 4
Refugees 2
Children, youth 6
Women 4
Families 2
Older people 2
Disabled people 4
Habitat 2
Migrants 1
Diversity 1
Victims (Second World War, torture) 2
Culture 6 Heritage 1
Mother language 1
Tolerance 3
Thanksgiving 1
Other 12 UN 3
Drug abuse 3
International law 1
Cooperation 2
Post 1
Sports 1
Press 1
Total: 127
Note: Three UN dedications were counted toward two issue categories, each: the dedication of a day to
preventing the exploitation of the environment in war and armed conflict (2001) was categorized as both
environmental protection and security/war; similarly, the dedication of a decade to the culture of peace
and non-violence for the children of the world (1998) was categorized as both children’s rights and
security/peace; last, the 1993 dedication of a decade to human rights education was categorized as both
education and human rights.
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(with 49 dedications made to development-related issues and 51 dedica-

tions made for rights and protection-related issues). These two general
issues serve as a prism for a specific and more varied set of subissues:
health, education, population and food are represented through the
language of their dedications as matters relating to development, whereas
specific social groups (such as the disabled and women) and general
emancipatory notions (like anti-colonialism and anti-slavery) are set
within the framework of rights and protection. This classification is,
indeed, not a matter inherent to the issues per se; rather, the subjects can
be reframed and reinterpreted by either prism.12 Still, the language of the
dedications makes it rather clear what is the underlying tone of the dedi-
cation and thus supports this classification. These two central issues of
UN dedications work – development and rights and protection – are the
central prisms of UN dedication by no coincidence; rather, these two
issues are indeed the core pillars of western, now global, world culture.
As Meyer et al. (1987) argue, social claims ‘and organizational entities that
are tied into the theories of justice and progress gain special standing
above all others’ (Meyer et al., 1987: 32).
The remaining general subject categories of UN dedication work are
receiving considerably less attention. Security (grouping attention given
to war, disarmament and peace) is the next category, by rank of the number
of dedications made to its related issues: a total of nine dedications.
Culture, the next category ranked by number of dedications made to its
related subjects (total of six dedications), groups a rather diverse set of
issues: heritage, mother language, tolerance, diversity and thanksgiving.
Arguably, some of the issues classified in the default category of ‘other’,
specifically sports and cooperation, could have been classified as ‘culture’;
still, the issues in the ‘culture’ category made explicit references to their
role as sociocultural traits, whereas the language used in the dedications
to cooperation and to sports lacks such nuanced framing. And, last, dedi-
cations were made to UN operations (three in total) and to the problem
of drugs (their abuse and illegal trade).
This classification of the issues addressed in UN dedications highlights
the core matters that the UN collectively commits to uphold. Through
their formal marking as deserving of special attention by UN member
agencies and states, these issues are given special appreciation by the
international community; and, indeed, most of the UN’s work has
centered around the issues of development and rights and protection. Still,
in spite of the variation in work invested in their promotion, all subjects
of UN dedications are, by this formal act of acknowledgment, elevated to
the status of worthy of both honorary tribute and promotion work, much
like the appreciation given to social values. And, since the UN procedures
are based on consensus-building, the issues given this distinction seem to
183
be the product of general consent, or agreement, among UN stakeholders;

the consistent decline of ‘no’ votes to the ceasing of all public votes in the
UNGA forum confirms the consensual nature of the dedication-making
process.
But, still, this list of internationally valued issues also highlights the
issues that are not named, or not the subject of public UN tribute through
dedication work. Clearly, some issues that are commonly at the core of
international attention are obviously and glaringly absent from the list of
UN dedications. These are:
• Nation-states: whereas nation-statehood is the principal organizing

feature of the UN and national sovereignty is a core principle of the
UN’s duties, there is no mention of concrete countries in UN dedica-
tions. Two cases are exceptions to this rule: Palestine (UNGA resolu-
tion 32/40 B, of 2 December 1977, dedicating the day of 29 November
as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People13)
and South Africa (UNGA resolution 36/172 B, of 17 December 1981,
dedicating the year 1982 as the International Year of Mobilization for
Sanctions against South Africa). Still, both these political entities are
mentioned in relation to broader principles, rather than directly cele-
brating these political entities: condemnation of aggression toward the
Palestinian people and of the Apartheid regime in pre-1989 South
Africa. In this sense, the Palestinian people and the South African
regime are mentioned to reinforce a general principle (namely, self-
determination and anti-racism, respectively), rather than for their own
sake. Overall, then, in spite of the mentions of these two nations, the
principle of UN dedication not directly addressing nation-statehood is
maintained consistently.
• Luminary figures, celebrities or VIPs: whereas the international community
celebrates individuals and routinely names ‘world heroes’ through
awards and tributes, no individuals are given such tribute in UN dedi-
cations. So, whereas people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and
Mother Theresa are uncontentiously reputed as advancing causes of
concern to the general public and thus setting exemplary dedication to
public issues and while in their unrelenting quest for self-determination,
anti-racism and care for the poor they came to be iconic representations
of these global norms, none such individuals are named in UN dedi-
cations.
• Formative events: whereas nations routinely invoke historic events (such
as wars and revolutions) and tell of their formative role in the consti-
tution of the collective, and whereas some world events (most clearly
the two world wars) can be marked as having such a formative effect
184
on the UN community, no historic events are made the subject of UN

dedications. Here, again, there is a single exception to this rule, but again
the general principle is not violated: the Second World War is specifically
mentioned in the dedication of 1995 as the year of commemoration of
the victims of this war (UNGA resolution 19/25), but the focal matter of
this dedication is the victims of wars rather than this specific world war.
By not including these three categories of issues within the realm of UN

dedications, world society is remarkably different than national societies.
The cultural work of nation-states revolves particularly around these three
categories of issues, celebrating heroes, formative events and nationhood
in general.
Also absent from the list of issues of UN dedications are: (1) religion
(of any kind and also as a general principle social institution) and spiri-
tuality; (2) fine art (of any sort such as music, drawing, sculpture; modern
art or native arts) and expressive articulation of aesthetics; and (3) democ-
racy, in spite of the obvious trend of more and more political regimes
claiming to be democratic.14
Why have these issues not been the subjects of UN dedication work?
The causes of these subjects’ absence from the list of UN dedications may
be (1) that they are contentious, or a matter of debate among UN stake-
holders, and therefore they were suppressed at some stage of the consen-
sus-focused dedication procedure and remain invisible in the sphere of
UN dedication work, or (2) that these issues are already widely accepted,
to the point of being taken-for-granted or obvious issues of appreciation,
that their explicit naming seems unwarranted. I suspect that the first
group of issues absent from UN dedications (nation-states, luminary
figures and formative events) is taken-for-granted and as such this set of
issues is routinely recognized by UN activities, even if not explicitly.
Nation-statehood is reinforced every time that a UN vote is taken; it is
recognized with the acceptance of only national entities as members of
the organizations. Similarly, references to formative events are a part of
the UN’s constitutive texts: on the first line of its Preamble, the UN Charter
mentions the two world wars as its first cause for organizing harmo-
niously. And, last, prominent people are recognized by the UN in ways
parallel to UN dedications through awards and tributes; for example,
anchored in UNGA resolution 36/201 of 17 December 1981 and based on
the Plan for Action of the 1974 World Population Conference, the UN
grants the UN Population Award annually to those who work ‘to promote
the solution to population questions through encouraging the efforts of
people in population-related activities and increasing the awareness to
population questions’.15 With that, the recognition of specific individuals
is ‘off the screen’ of UN dedications work.
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The second set of issues absent from UN dedications – namely religion,

art and democracy – is highly contentious. These issues are matters hinged
on subjective judgment; as such, they are particularly slanted to be
appreciated by some and not by others. A vote on these issues may be
seen as oppressive because the tastes of the majority do not rule out the
importance of these issues for the minority, especially in a community
whose core principle is rights and protection, as it is for UN. These
subjects are hardly open to international discussions (or rather debates).
Being contentious matters, they are screened off the consensus-based
process of UN dedication work and thus absent from the list of UN dedi-
cations to date; the recognition of people is set as a parallel and separate
track of cultural work.
Overall, then, it seems that a subject that is either a taken-for-granted
or that is highly contested is unlikely to be recognized in the form of a
UN dedication. Two related questions may help decipher the nuances of
subjects that are highlighted by UN dedication work (and of those
subjects that are not). First, why are some issues given repeated appreci-
ation through UN dedications, whereas others receive only a single-
period tribute? Second, could the designation of period of dedication set
a hierarchy, of some sort, among the issues? Whereas all issues high-
lighted by UN dedications are obviously deemed worthy of international
attention (through commemoration, promotion or mobilization of action),
some issues are both important (as general principles of conduct) and
urgent (as a practical matter). Such urgent issues, specifically those on
which work is not completed within the set period of the dedication, are
receiving an additional, or repeated, dedication. Such is the case of the
dedication of decades to the issue of development; development decades
are repeated now for the fourth such decade in a row since 1961, as the
issue of development is continuously demanding the attention of the
international community, in both action and devotion. Still, there is not
an obvious hierarchy among these dedications, in the form of an issue
emerging over time as demanding additional attention and thus dedica-
tions for a year rededicated as a decade or as a recurring annual event
of a day. The issues that had dedication of several types of periods to
their commemoration, promotion or mobilization of action (such as
the alleviation of poverty16 and human rights17) have not obviously
progressed from a short- and single-period toward either a long-period
dedication or toward a repeated dedication. On the face of it, it seems,
judgment about the period of UN dedications and about the repetition
of dedications is based upon the urgency and the persistence of the
problem.
Overall, UN dedication work clearly targets some issues as matters of
social concern, while leaving other contentious or taken-for-granted issues
186
outside such public commitment to their commemoration, promotion or

mobilization of action. In paying tribute to these issues, and by concen-
trating organizational work on their promotion, the issues that are the
objects of UN dedications are set as internationally accepted and intrin-
sically worthy; they are given, then, the status of sacred values, enshrined
in this public ritualized recognition. The question at the core of this work
is still warranted: could the designation of these issues through UN dedi-
cation work mark the contours of an emerging world culture?
The Institutionalization of Culture

The description of UN dedication work – its themes and its emerging
procedure – is a tale of the institutionalization of a global cultural practice:
the public recognition of a globally shared value or valued issue, as well
as the routinization of the ritualized affirmation of this valued norm. The
concept of institutionalization and the notion of the institutionalization
of culture require unpacking.
What is institutionalization? Ron Jepperson defines institutionalization
as the process by which a social order, or pattern of activity, is attaining
a state of acceptance and reproducibility of its procedures, without a need
for collective action to remobilize resources toward its attainment (Jepper-
son, 1991: 145); in the language of Meyer et al.: ‘institutionalization . . . is
the process by which a given set of units and a pattern of activities come
to be normatively and cognitively held in place, and partially taken for
granted as lawful (whether as a matter of formal law, custom, or knowl-
edge)’ (Meyer et al., 1987: 13). Institutionalization is, then, the attainment
of a state of routine reproductive procedures, sustaining a repeated
pattern of action, regardless of the interests of stakeholders, deployment
of resources or external shocks to the system. Two principles are at the
core of this definition of institutionalization, namely (1) the acceptance of
the procedure without contestation and (2) the routinization of related
activities. Both these principles of streamlining an activity are apparent
in regard to the procedure of UN dedications.
First, over time the UN decides that this activity – namely, UN dedi-
cation work – is the acceptable way of posting world values and proclaim-
ing global virtue. Two trends confirm this principle: over time the UN
makes more dedication decisions and also confirms this process as totally
accepted by delegating it as based on an absolute consensus among stake-
holders. Second, over time the UN identifies a particular set of procedures
as constituting the process of making a dedication and proceeds with this
set of procedures as a matter of routine. Through both these actions, the
UN establishes legitimacy for the dedication process and sets an organiz-
ational routine of the process.
187
What does the institutionalization of culture mean? It is an insti-

tutionalization process as it pertains to cultural activities. In other words,
the institutionalization of culture is the process that attains the routiniza-
tion and rationalization of the moral and the virtuous in a manner that
highlights values through a set of routine activities of appreciation. In
regard to UN dedication work, the UN sets a reproducible procedure for
paying homage to the core issues in a formalized and routinized way. In
this sense, the institutionalization of the UN practice of norm dedication
is a development of a (global) cultural ritual; specifically, this international
ritual is focused on paying tribute to core values.
Substantively, two issues are important to the development of this inter-
national cultural ritual. First, the institutionalization of this ritual signals
the imagining of the world as the social horizon: world community
becomes the ‘imagined community’ (à la Benedict Anderson). Talk of
world culture recognized the world as not merely an inter-state system,
but rather more broadly it recognizes the world as the relevant social
sphere of expectation. Does the global replace an alternative social
horizon? While the UN is the prime international organization and thus
its whole being reifies nation-statehood, it seems that in its dedication
work the setting of the global as the relevant social horizon is indeed set
to replace the national culture; this may be the reason why traditional
national symbols of nation-statehood affirmation – namely, celebration of
formative events and national heroes – are exactly the sort of issues that
are not confirmed through the UN’s dedication work. Here, it seems,
celebrations and confirmations of ‘the global’ must screen off national
uniqueness. Second, this process of the institutionalization of global
culture also signals the imagining of a moral common thread to this global
community: the global community is not based only on utilitarian
exchanges of interdependencies, but rather it is marked by a common
affinity toward a set of appreciated values or principles.
One confirmation that indeed the practice of dedication has become an
institutionalized form of cultural activity is to follow its acceptance as a
form of cultural praxis by other organizations. In other words, once an
activity becomes ritualized (or reproduced consistently and accepted as
routine expression), it isomorphically diffuses to other agencies too.
Indeed, the ritual of making dedications has been mimicked by other UN
bodies; now several UN agencies are using a similar strategy to coalesce
attention to core issues within their domain. For example, the World
Health Organization (WHO; which is also the coordinating body for
World Health Day, celebrated since 1950 annually on 7 April) started
naming WHO-specific day dedications: World Heart Day (28 September),
World No Tobacco Day (31 May), World AIDS Day (1 December) and
several others.18
188
Another expression of the reaches of the institutionalization of world

dedication activity is by the acceptance of this form by international
organizations outside the UN boundaries; even non-governmental
organizations that are protesting UN activities are using this form of dedi-
cation to make a statement. For example, 16 October is proclaimed by a
group of anti-globalization organizations as Worldwide Anti-McDonald’s
Day, to coincide with UN International Food Day. This dedication,
although aimed to contest mainstream global action, still takes a very
similar form to UN dedications.19 Broadly speaking, this very act of dedi-
cation of an annual event is employing the same strategy (or ritual
activity) as it wishes to contest. Overall, then, the dedication of days as
annual events of celebration, commemoration and mobilization of action
has become the institutional format for bringing issues to the forefront of
world agenda. This format is now accepted across a variety of trans-
national actors: by the UN and its related agencies, as well as by organiz-
ations whose aim is to contest the current hegemony. This confirms that
the format of UN dedications is indeed an arena for cultural praxis: it is
where both cultural production and cultural contestation are expressed.
But, still, the importance of this institutionalization of global virtue is
in its reach: it bears direct impact on national affirmation of such cultural
traits, or virtues. In this sense, the institution of UN dedications has both
a global and a local reach. UN dedication activity is a socializing and
civilizing project, aimed at defining, diffusing parameters for new global
righteousness. And, the UN’s unique stand as a ‘teacher of norms’
(Finnemore, 1996) makes this particular international organization into an
important site of world cultural activity. It makes such dedications public
and proclaims them as a collective characteristic, thus setting a canon of
common culture among the members of the international community. The
institution of UN dedications is a sociocultural praxis that sets global
expectations – of commonalities, of affinity (not to say solidarity), of
community.
Concluding Comments
An axiomatic claim of sociology is that norms and heritage play a pivotal
role in forming a society, or a community. UN dedications – their insti-
tutionalization as the accepted format for staking normative claims and
their substantive framing of global humanity as the relevant community
– mark the contours of the normative system for the imagined global
community. As such, the UN acts as a site for global cultural work.
In its work as a site of global or cultural production, the UN’s dedica-
tions project stakes social claims in the name of a global imagined
community. It also serves as a site for the bureaucratization of global social
189
virtue: through its criteria and organizational procedures, the UN sets

these norms as iconic and codifies them into a unitary global moral order.
This global moral order comprises multiple expressive celebrations of
virtue (reflecting conformity with the moral order) and virtuosity
(actualizing the dynamic dimensions) by many individuals and organiz-
ations (Boli, 2003). And, like all cultural scenes, such celebrations of virtue
and virtuosity (and also any contestation of the suggested moral order)
act through both ‘certification’ (which is the public declaration of the
proper and conforming, or the anointing of angels) and ‘criticism’ (which
is the public condemnation of the deviant, or the admonition of sinners;
Boli, 2003).
The issues sanctified through this cultural work (or whose violation is
condemned) are rather clear: they pertain more to the matters of develop-
ment and of rights and protection than to the matters of security, sover-
eignty and culture. In this sense, the map of global culture implied by UN
dedications clearly reflects the twin cultural values of western, now
global, society: progress and justice. These two ideals serve as prisms for
the organizing and action of world society since the 19th century; they
are the logic, or organizing principles, for the international community’s
work. This is clearly reflected in international programs of education
(Ramirez and Boli, 1987), aid (Chabbott, 1999), human or women’s rights
(Berkovitch, 1999; Tsutsui and Wotipka, 2004), science (Drori et al., 2003),
the environment (Frank et al., 1999), and other social concerns. And, it
seems, these logics not only permeate the work of the UN, but also
dominate its cultural institution of dedications and its map of world
culture in general.
Especially telling about world culture is what did not make it into the
list of virtues: specifically, western heritage and civilization, capitalism and
democracy. In their absence from the list of issues sanctified in UN dedi-
cations, all these matters that are associated with 19th-century European
(or western) hegemony are excluded from the list of UN enshrined values,
although some derivations of such issues (most clearly the themes of the
‘Washington consensus’ and democracy) were the dominant tones of
1990s. Also, the absence of these themes from the list of UN dedications
resolves the debate around ‘globalization = Americanization’: clearly,
these issues that are at the core of post-1945 American hegemony are not
prominently made sacred by the UN dedications’ cultural project.
Rather than directly reflect hegemony and power, the bureaucratization
of virtue in UN dedication work implies a strong sense of consensus: the
procedure by which proclamations are made affirms a sense of consensus.
Still, does the setup of the bureaucratic procedure within the UN also reflect
a growing global normative consensus? The simple answer to my opening
question of ‘is there a global culture is in the making?’ is ‘yes, but not
190
quite’. Essentially, I think of world culture as indeed binding the imagined

community of world society ‘by rationalized systems of (imperfectly)
egalitarian justice and participatory representation, in the economy, polity,
culture, and social interaction’ (Meyer et al., 1997: 162), thus going beyond
the simple homogenizing trends of consumer culture (see Sklair, 1991;
Ritzer, 2004). By the extent of its impact and scope, world culture is, there-
fore, a pervasive and profound institution. Still, I also suspect that the
politics of the procedure of UN dedications favors some themes more
than others and therefore somewhat biases this map of world culture: the
‘one country, one vote’ rule in UNGA favors issues that are important,
symbolically as well as policy-wise, to major voting blocs within UNGA
rather than to the world as a whole. This ‘problem’, which plagues other
UN-related cultural projects such as the UNESCO World Heritage Sites,20
may explain why some issues are more dominant among UNGA dedica-
tions than others.
The global cultural setting is clearly a lot more complicated than this
‘map’ of UN dedications depicts. While UN dedications are only one
particular arena of cultural work marking the contours of the world
community, there are other global rituals and cultural arenas that imply
the boundaries and content of world culture. These display a complex set
of different activities (such as UN dedications, but also a variety of inter-
national awards, certifications and ratings, and competitions) by many
different social actors (individuals and organizations, states and corpor-
ations, cultural products and producers). Some of these parallel cultural
rituals are practiced by the UN and institutionalized in its procedures;
earlier I mentioned such activities as UN awards and designations that,
by the nature of their criteria, detail the appreciated: for example, on
several UN Human Rights Days, celebrated annually on 10 December,
awards are given to those individuals and organizations whose work on
promoting and protecting human rights is commendable.21 Another
cultural site that is enfolded within UN work is the proclamation of
civilizational sites, as these are defined and proclaimed by UNESCO’s
World Heritage Sites project (see Turtinen, 2000).22
The cultural site of UN dedications project is, clearly, unique, partly
because of the nature of the UN itself and of the world polity that lead
to its founding. The UN serves as an intergovernmental and secular global
node; it stands in remarkable distinction to, for example, the potential
alternative global location of the Church during previous eras, being both
transnational and religious in nature. It is this secular and international
nature of the UN that drives its association with the modern and secu-
larized ontology of progress and justice.
Much of the global cultural work is done outside the framework of the
UN and in these arenas we can see additional maps of global cultural
191
boundaries and content. Richard Wilks (1995) highlights the role of inter-
national beauty competitions as delineating global aesthetic standards.
John Boli and George Thomas, in their analysis of the social sectors that
are the targets for the work for INGOs, map the issues at the core of global
civil society action: most global civic action is organized around the matters
of industry and trade (17 percent of all INGO goals), medicine and health-
care (15 percent) and science (12 percent), while arts and humanities (4
percent) and political ideologies and parties (0.5 percent) receive far less
attention (Boli and Thomas, 1999: 41–4). This picture of the organization
of world culture reveals, again, that the rationalized and universalistic
issues (such as science and trade) are more global than the particularistic
and expressive issues (arts and politics). And, John Boli (2003) both lists a
series of possible sites such cultural work and theorizes their nature. This
latest of Boli’s work, the most impressive of these reflections on the formal-
ization of global cultural expectations, regards various cultural activities
as celebrations of global virtuosity and virtue and argues that they differ
by their level of rationalization (which corresponds to the level of explic-
itness and formality of their criteria). Such global celebrations of virtuos-
ity and virtue extend from global awards, honorific memberships and
INGO reports (which are characterized by a low level of rationalization
because of their ambiguous criteria) to credit reports, ISO certifications,
world record registrations and sainthood (which are characterized by a
high level of rationalization because their criteria are formal).
Overall, then, there are several alternative maps of world culture,
relying on alternative arenas for global, or international, cultural work;
UN dedication work is clearly only one such global cultural arena. While
each such arena gives a particular slant on the content of world culture,
they each also offer a ritualistic affirmation of world cultural boundaries
and constitute a parallel gesture to global common norms, values and
heritage. Most importantly, all these various maps of world culture share
common features: the setting of the world as the relevant imagined
community, the explication of a global explicit moral code and the anchor-
ing of this cultural work within the scope of a single international organiz-
ation. In so doing, these various sites for global cultural activity establish
global criteria and expectations for social matters that were previously
considered national- and cultural-specific.
The availability of parallel sites of global culture raises concerns about
the accuracy of any particular mapping of appreciation of world virtue.
This concern is reflected, for example, in calls within both the UN and
UNESCO for organizing and calibration of their separate processes. So,
how representative of world culture is this list of UN dedications? There
is a clear danger that political considerations involved in the process
(namely the primacy of consensus logics) influence its outcome and will
192
drain the dedication procedure of any cultural value to global society as

a whole. Since the issue is raised by UN-related bodies and then depends
on consensus-building to reach a decision on a UN dedication, the power
of political coalitions or voting blocs with UN member states is of prime
consideration. And, such dependence on coalition-building pollutes
the original, or formal, purpose of the project of dedication-making: is the
overarching purpose to offer equal opportunities to member states in the
international community or a recognition of a shared global value?
Further research should clearly address the concern that this UN
cultural activity is a mechanism for weak states to get noticed: through
their proposals and through their combined vote, marginal members of
the UN community get to influence world affairs beyond what their
economic, military or other status would allow.23 It is clearly possible,
even if laborious, to compile the necessary information naming the
country or UN body to raise an issue as deserving of a UN dedication
and then to contemplate the intervention of UN voting blocs in the process
of UN dedication-making. Second, future research should also compare
the various maps of world culture, by various activities and various
organizations, in an attempt to mark the general contours. In this, it
should also consider the influence of transnational players, such as INGOs
and MNCs (after all, Coca Cola’s logo is the most recognized emblem in
the world). Last, future research should also investigate whether the
existence of a strong field prohibits UN dedication-making: for example,
does the fact that the ILO is a dominant and old site for work on labor
issues help the issue of labor be raised as a global social concern (because
the ILO acts to raise the issue of labor to global consciousness and coalesce
action on it) or does it concentrate all labor-related action within its folds
thus allowing it less exposure in alternative global cultural sites. While
the research tools on this matter are unclear to me, to date, I think that it
may be a fruitful and important research direction to illustrate the vari-
ation in saliency of various issues.
Globalization, often referred to as primarily a flow of commodities and
political influences, is currently recognized as also a major flow of
symbols, knowledge, standards and models of behavior. This mixture of
the commodified and the cultural is crystallized in the work of inter-
national organizations, of various types and scopes. And, the ever denser
web of such international organizations, which provides the backbone of
world society, also institutionalizes, formalizes and perpetuates world
culture. It is, then, through the day-to-day operational details of inter-
national organizations that we are to learn about the cultural work
involved in the institutionalization of world culture.
193
Appendix
List of Recurring Issues in UN Dedications
Day Week Year Decade
Africa industrialization Industrial development
(1989) of Africa (1983) (1993)
Children (1954) Children (1979) Peace and non-violence
for children (1998)a
Disabled people (1992) Disabled people (1981) Disabled people (1983)
Disarmament Disarmament (1970)
(1978) (1980) (1990)
Drug abuse and illicit Drug abuse (1990
trafficking (1987)
Eradication of poverty Eradication of poverty Eradication of poverty
(1992) (1996) (1995)
Families (1993) Families (1989)
Healthb Health and medical
research (1961)
Human rights (1950) Human rights (1968) Human rights
education (1993)
Indigenous people Indigenous people Indigenous people
(1994) (1990) (1993) (1993)
Literacyb Literacy (1990) Literacy and education
for all (2001)
Natural disaster Natural disaster
reduction (1990) reduction (1990)
Older people (1990) Older people (1999)
Peace (1981) Peace (1986) Peace and non-violence
for children (1998)a
Population (1989) Population (1974)
Racial discrimination Racial Racial discrimination Racial discrimination
(1966) discrimination (1969) (1998) (1973) (1983) (1993)
(1979)
Refugees (2000) Refugees (1959)
Slaveryb Slavery and its
abolition (2002)
Tolerance (1996) Tolerance (1995)
UN (1971) UN (1985)
Volunteers for Volunteers (1997)
economic and social
development (1985)
Women (1977) Women (1975)
Youth (1999) Youth (1985)
a Cross-classified.
b Dedication is missing date of decision in my dataset.
194
Notes
I thank Sabrina Lee for her dedicated work on compiling the data and gathering
the information for this article. I also thank John Meyer, John Boli, Marc Ventresca,
Francisco Ramirez and the members of Stanford University’s Comparative
Workshop for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article.
1. Year is recorded as the year of the UN dedication being proclaimed (rather than
the year of activation of the dedication). The reasoning is to keep consistent
the year in which the dedication and its core issue played a prominent role
on the UN’s agenda (and by implication on global cultural consciousness).
This decision is also a necessity, of sorts, for those events that are recurring
(such as proclamations of days and weeks, to be repeated annually).
2. UNGA resolution 423/V of 4 December 1950 dedicated 10 December to Inter-
national Human Rights Day.
3. UNGA resolution S-10/2 of 30 June 1978 dedicated the week of 24–30 October
to disarmament.
4. The year 2002 was dedicated as the International Year of Mountains by the
power of UNGA resolution 53/24 of 10 November 1998.
5. The decade 1997–2006 was dedicated as Decade for the Eradication of Poverty
by the power of UNGA resolution 50/107 II of 20 December 1995.
6. See Appendix for a listing of repeated issues in UN dedications.
7. For example, WTO and UNEP’s report on the activities for the International
Year of Ecotourism is available at: www.world-tourism.org/sustainable/IYE/
IYE-Rep-UN-GA.htm (accessed 23 July 2003). It lists activities, based on
reports submitted to WTO–UNEP’s monitoring body, from 93 countries; the
reports are then organized around the progress on the themes of: national
policy, activities and publications, stakeholders’ participation and support,
awareness, regulation and cooperation.
8. Indeed, the UN has increased its activities on all issues and on all dimensions
dramatically since its constitution in 1945. And such increase in the volume
of activities (tasks, budget and agenda items) also means more dense struc-
turation (numbers of member states, of UN bodies and agencies and of
affiliated organizations). Some such changes are shown below (Wall Street
Journal Europe, 2003):
UN in 1945 UN in 2002
Number of member states 55 191
Budget 21.5 million ($US) 1.49 billion ($US)
Items on UNGA agenda 53 173
Security Council resolutions passed 15 64
The point I wish to stress is that in addition to these increases in volume and
activities, the increase in UN dedication work reflects the cultural dimension
of such structuration trends.
195
9. For example, UNGA resolution 37/16 (16 November 1982) adopts ECOSOC
recommendation for dedicating 1986 as the International Year of Peace, but
still calls for member states and affiliate organizations to propose activities for
such a commemoration. Later, UNGA resolution 40/3 (25 October 1985) sets
more specifically the parameters for this international commemoration.
10. UNGA resolution 35/424, of 5 December 1980, constitutes the process of dedi-
cation of ‘international years and anniversaries’; it recalls ECOSOC resolution
1980/67 of 25 July 1980. Following this formalization of the process, a series
of additional formulations follow: for example, UNGA resolution 50/227 (24
May 1996; primarily requiring reviews and reports of event’s activities) and
ECOSOC resolution 1998/1 (6 February 1998; primarily addressing the
procedure of bringing proposals before UNGA).
11. UNGA resolution 423/V of 4 December 1950 reads:
1. Invites all States and interested organizations to observe 1 December of each
year as Human Rights Day, to observe this day to celebrate the proclama-
tion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly
on 10 December 1948, and to exert increasing efforts in this field of human
progress.
2. Invites all States to report annually through the Secretary-General concern-
ing the observance of Human Rights Day.
This declaration is dramatically succinct and non-specific compared with any
current dedication proclamation.
12. Health, for example, is one of those social concerns that has gone through such
conceptual reframing. Whereas during the 1950s and on health issues were
considered as relating to development (focusing primarily on health conditions
as affecting the longevity, productivity and potential of humans and thus as
impacting development prospects), since the rise of the human rights language
in the 1990s international health matters are reframed as a human right matter
(focusing on access to health services as a basic human entitlement and claim);
see Inoue and Drori (2003).
13. The choice of 29 November is no coincidence; rather, on 29 November 1947
UNGA decided on the partition Plan of Palestine between a Jewish state and
a Palestinian state (UNGA resolution 181/1947).
14. Democracy is, however, recognized as one of four themes of the International
Decade for a Culture of Peace, 2001–10.
15. See www.un.org/documents/ga/res/36/a36r201.htm (accessed 5 January
2004).
16. The issue of the alleviation of poverty was the object of dedication of 17
October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (UNGA reso-
lution 47/196 of 22 December 1992) and of the proclamation of the UN Decade
for the Eradication of Poverty 1997–2006 (UNGA resolution 51/178 of 16
December 1996).
17. The issue of human rights was the object of dedication of 10 December as the
Day of Human Rights (UNGA resolution 423[V], 1950) and of 1993–2003 as the
Decade of Human Rights Education (UNGA resolution 53/153 of 9 December
1998).
196
18. The WHO started this WHO-specific dedication work by first amending the
already proclaimed dedication of World Health Day. Since 1995 WHO has
used World Health Day to draw attention to a specific global health issue by
proclaiming a theme for the year’s activities: WHD 1995 was dedicated to
global polio eradication; WHD 1998, to safe motherhood; and WHD 2003, to
the theme of ‘shape the future of life’ (at: www.who.int/world-health-day/
2003/archives/en/). Only since 2003 is the WHO making WHO-specific day
dedications, as listed earlier.
19. In the case of World Anti-McDonald’s Day, even the format of the dedication
is worded in a similar fashion to UN dedications. The anti-McDonald’s
movement is dedicating this annual event to ‘a protest against the promotion
of junk food, the unethical targeting of children, exploitation of workers,
animal cruelty, damage to the environment and the global domination of
corporations over our lives’ (at: www.mcspotlight.org/).
20. UNESCO’s dedication of world heritage sites has named so many more such
sites within the developed world, compared with the number of sites in
developing countries, that this has become a major concern of decision-makers
within UNESCO’s committee. Currently, drafts are circulating to amend the
selection criteria so to encourage submissions and then dedication of sites from
outside the developing nations.
21. A list of the recipients of the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights can
be viewed at: www.unhchr.ch/html/50th/hrprize.htm#awards (accessed 5
January 2004). The prize was instituted in UNGA resolution 2217/XXI of 19
December 1966.
22. The project names and then sponsors civilizational and natural sites of
‘outstanding universal value’. Proclaimed in 1972, the list of World Heritage
Sites currently includes 754 sites worldwide: 582 cultural sites, 149 natural and
23 mixed properties in 129 countries, with 24 new sites inscribed in UNESCO’s
July 2003 seat. UNESCO decisions formulate criteria for the selection of World
Heritage. For more information on, and list of, UNESCO’s World Heritage
Sites, see whc.unesco.org/nwhc/pages/home/pages/homepage.htm (accessed
9 January 2004).
23. For example, Tunisia was the power behind the convening of the UN Summit
on Information Society. Tunisia put the proposal for the UN to consider the
issues pertaining to the global digital divide on the table of the ITU, pushed
to have the ITU set this issue as a UN agenda item and is to host the 2005
round of the Summit.
References
Berkovitch, Nitza (1999) ‘The Emergence and Transformation of the International
Women’s Movement’, in John Boli and George Thomas (eds) World Polity in
Formation: A Century of International Non-Governmental Organization, pp. 100–26.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Boli, John (2003) ‘The Rationalization of Virtue and Virtuosity in World Society’,
paper presented at the workshop on the Multiplicity of Regulatory Actors in
the Transnational Space, Uppsala University, May.
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Boli, John and Thomas, George (1999) ‘INGOs and the Organization of World
Culture’, in John Boli and George Thomas (eds) World Polity in Formation: A
Century of International Non-Governmental Organization, pp. 13–49. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Chabbott, Colette (1999) ‘Development INGOs’, in John Boli and George Thomas
(eds) World Polity in Formation: A Century of International Non-Governmental
Organization, pp. 222–48. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Drori, Gili S., Meyer, John W., Ramirez, Francisco O. and Schofer, Evan (2003)
Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Finnemore, Martha (1996) National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Frank, David, Hironaka, Ann, Meyer, John, Schofer, Evan and Tuma, Nancy (1999)
‘The Rationalization and Organization of Nature in World Culture’, in John
Boli and George Thomas (eds) World Polity in Formation: A Century of Inter-
national Non-Governmental Organization, pp. 81–99. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Inoue, Keiko and Drori, Gili (2003) ‘From Charity to Right: Global and National
Level Analyses of the Institutionalization of Health’, paper presented at the
workshop on Transnational Risks and Civil Society, Berlin, Germany, January.
Jepperson, Ronald L. (1991) ‘Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutional-
ism’, in Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds) The New Institutionalism
in Organizational Analysis, pp. 143–63. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Meyer, John W., Boli, John and Thomas, George M. (1987) ‘Ontology and Rationaliz-
ation in Western Cultural Account’, in George Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco
O. Ramirez and John Boli (eds) Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society,
and the Individual, pp. 12–37. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Meyer, John W., Boli, John, Thomas, George M. and Ramirez, Francisco O. (1997)
‘World Society and the Nation-State’, American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 144–81.
Ramirez, Francisco O. and Boli, John (1987) ‘The Political Construction of Mass
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Sklair, Leslie (1991) Sociology of the Global System. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
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International Human Rights Movement: Citizen Participation in Human Rights
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198
Biographical Note: Gili Drori is a lecturer in the International Relations and Inter-
national Policy Studies programs in Stanford University. Her research interests
are the comparative study of science and technology, social development and
rationalization, globalization and governance. She is the co-author of a book on
the globalization of science (Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionaliz-
ation and Globalization, with John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and Evan
Schofer; Stanford University Press, 2003). Currently, she is finishing a book on
the global digital divide (Global E-litism: Digital Technology, Social Inequality, and
Transnationality, Worth Publishers, forthcoming 2005) and co-editing a book on
global organizing (World Society and the Expansion of Formal Organization, with
John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang; Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2006).
Address: International Relations Program, 212 Encina Hall West, Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305–6045, USA. [email: drori@stanford.edu]
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04 Drori R (bc-t) 27/4/05 3:58 pm Page 175

United Nations’ Dedications

abstract: World culture, while a core issue for comparative

keywords: globalization ✦ institutionalization ✦

The General Assembly,

International Sociology ✦ June 2005 ✦ Vol 20(2): 175–199

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Bearing in mind that microcredit programmes have especially benefited

World culture is a ‘big word’. And, in a world ravaged by conflicts and

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

Figure 1 Cumulative Number of UN Dedications

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Figure 2 Number of UN Dedications by Year

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

Table 1 UN Dedications, by Type

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Supporting this process of bureaucratization of virtue is the insti-

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

First, the process of enacting a UN dedication is based on consensus. In

Worthy of Reverence: Which Issues are Made

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Table 2 UN Dedications, by Issue

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

(with 49 dedications made to development-related issues and 51 dedica-

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

be the product of general consent, or agreement, among UN stakeholders;

• Nation-states: whereas nation-statehood is the principal organizing

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

on the UN community, no historic events are made the subject of UN

By not including these three categories of issues within the realm of UN

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

The second set of issues absent from UN dedications – namely religion,

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

outside such public commitment to their commemoration, promotion or

The Institutionalization of Culture

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

What does the institutionalization of culture mean? It is an insti-

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

Another expression of the reaches of the institutionalization of world

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

virtue: through its criteria and organizational procedures, the UN sets

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

quite’. Essentially, I think of world culture as indeed binding the imagined

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

drain the dedication procedure of any cultural value to global society as

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

International Sociology Vol. 20 No. 2

Drori United Nations’ Dedications

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