Towards a Theory of the MUN Crisis

                                                           by: John D. Giorgis

INTRODUCTION

At Model U.N. Conferences, it is commonplace for the Security Council simulation to be asked to react to a mock developing  international situation of the Conference Staff's creation.    This situation is commonly known as the "crisis", and has long been the cornerstone of Security Council simulations in Model U.N.

Over the past several years, however, it seems that the role of the crisis has grown exponentially in importance to the Model U.N.    More and more often, we see Conference's running exclusively crisis-based Security Councils as opposed to having the crisis constitute a small portion of the Council's Agenda. Indeed, several entire Conferences have become exclusively crisis-based.

Additionally, we also seem to be witnessing a relatively new phenomenon with the rise of the opposing "National Security Councils" Committee(s), where delegates play the part of an executive in a National Government - setting policy rather than being a diplomat to an International Organization.

This essay will attempt to take the first steps towards developing a theory of the successful MUN Crisis.   Before I get to that, however, it is useful to examine why it is that MUN's run a crisis in the first place.

WHY DO CRISIS?

Before I attempt to answer this question, I would like to briefly discuss why we do Model U.N. first.   In my view, there is something of a "MUN Triangle" that forms the essence of a the MUN experience.    The sides of this triangle are "fun, education and competition."     College MUN's thrive on the basis of these three factors. 

Students join Model U.N. fundamentally because it is fun.   After all, why else would you do anything which you are not required or obliged to do?  If Model U.N. were to cease being fun, it would almost surely lose the interest of its participants, and thus the educational benefits would be lost to the participants.   Thus, "fun" is in a real sense the "carrot" of the MUN equation- it brings in the participants and encourages them to stick with the process, and subsequently gain MUN's deeper benefits.

Once these students join, they very often then coalesce into teams because of the thrill of competition.   It is a fact of human nature that most of us can be driven by the competitive spirit to achieve higher levels of excellence.    For example, consider the case of a basketball player.    It is possible for anyone to walk down the street and enjoy a pick-up game of basketball, and have a lot of fun doing it.   Yet, that person will never achieve his or her full potential unless he or she joins a competitive team, and puts in long hours of practice and preparation.   By the same
token, anyone can just "show up" at a Model U.N. Conference and have a lot of fun.   But as we all know, a delegate does not achieve his or her full potential without devoting hours to research and preparation beforehand.

Likewise, research and preparation for MUN's bear an ominous similarity to homework.   Most students, however, are unlikely to find "extra homework" to be fun.   Yet, this research is essentially to enhancement of the educational experience of the MUN.   Experience shows, however, that one of the best ways to encourage hard work is to tap into the natural human
desire for healthy and fair competition.    When delegates to MUN's compete, they will have more fun doing their research, and will ultimately enhance their own, and other delegates' educational experience.

Finally, our educational institutions in turn support these competitive teams because MUN has real educational value.   Conferences, quite simply, are not cheap.   Especially at the university level, but also at the lower levels, there are often extensive travel and lodging costs, as well as cost for the facilities and supplies.   As students are often not in a position to support these costs themselves, Model U.N.'s have a long-standing tradition of being supported by educational institutions, particularly schools, colleges, and universities.   These educational institutions support MUN for the benefits that it imparts to its participants.

These benefits are wide ranging.  Most obviously, MUN's open up a student's perspective to global issues, international relations, and other cultures.   A participant in a MUN almost inevitably has a greater understanding of his or her place in the world, and in the greater human
civilization.   Moreover, MUN develops a lot of invaluable skills, including researching, public speaking, and the art of compromising.   All of these certainly are very applicable to almost any path a participant chooses later in life.   Thus, it is arguable that MUN is one of the most effective opportunities for self-development we present to our students today. 

Therefore, these three aspects of fun, competition, and education are crucial to the success of the Model U.N. movement.   All three of these aspects exist because of the other, and MUN's would likely break down if one of these aspects disappeared.    By extension, for the crisis to exist in MUN, it must support one or more sides of this triangle.

Based on sheer popularity, I think that crises have enhancement of the "fun" side of the triangle down cold.   Indeed, I strongly suspect that most current MUN participants would likely list the crisis as their favorite part of the Conference.   Therefore, in extending my analogy of the MUN triangle, the rest of this essay will examine how a properly run crisis might enhance the other two sides of the triangle.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD M.U.N. CRISIS?

What follows here are a set of criteria for a good M.U.N. crisis.   This set is by no means intended to be exhaustive, and is arranged in list format for convenience.   For simplicity, I am going to put these roughly in order from the most intuitive to the most original.

1) A Crisis Must Be Believable
It is imperative that the crisis director devote adequate research to his or her proposed crisis to make it "believable."   If something seems patently absurd, say having a border conflict erupt between the USA and Canada, then the delegates will not take the crisis seriously, and the whole simulation will break down.    Once the delegates cease attempting to create the aura of realism around their simulation, they begin to take it less seriously, and very often, the learning process slows down considerably.   In order to maximize the experience for delegates, they must remain continually engaged.  An excellent rule of thumb proposed by a former MUN teammate is that "the MUN crisis should be a logical extension of an already existing international matter."   It is much easier to take something that is currently out there, than to attempt to invent a situation out of whole cloth.

2) A Crisis Must Be Limited in Scope
There is almost an unspoken contest among Crisis Directors to create a "bigger and badder" crisis then the other guy.   In many cases there is also the temptation to try and produce a complex crisis that brings in disparate elements from around the world.    Both of these trends, however, are counterproductive to a successful crisis.

It is the nature of U.N. debate that it is slow.   Indeed, it is intentionally that way to ensure that well-reasoned actions are taken, accounting for all of the disparate opinions, quite literally, in the
world.    Thus, after any major crisis update, it is only fair that the delegates be given several hours to an entire day to discuss the issue.  

Since most Conferences are only a few days at most, it stands to reason then, that the central issue of a crisis should be laid out fairly early on.   After that, further crisis updates should be used to provide as much detail into an event as possible to further the debate.   There simply is not enough time in the average crisis to have multiple reshaping of the crisis and still permit adequate consideration by your delegates.

After all, consider the amount of saturation news coverage given to a major event.    This almost certainly pales in comparison to the reams of information that would pour into any government, embassy, or U.N. office during such an event.   Yet, so many crisis directors expect delegates to
function with terse one and two-line crisis updates from disparate corners of the globe.    The ideal MUN crisis will present a full-color panorama of the event in question, and that is only possible with a crisis that is limited in its scope- ideally to a single, well-defined event.

It is through this kind of detail that the crisis staff can best fulfill their educational role, in providing new insights to delegates of a certain part of the world, and also providing an accurate simulation of a potential real-world problem.    Moreover, the broader the crisis is in scope, the greater the chance there is for the staff to overlook a grievous error in their simulation design.    Once that error is exposed, there is little to be done but declare, "it is, because we say so."   At that point, your crisis has instantly lost a lot of its luster, and will inherently be less effective.  As was noted above, your crisis must remain, above all things, believable.   A wide-ranging crisis simply increases the odds that the aura of believability will break down.

3) A Crisis Must Be "Solvable"
This point is concomitant with the above point on keeping a crisis "limited in scope," and you will notice some overlap between the two points.   The difference, however, is that "scope" refers to the beginning of the crisis, whereas this point relates to the end of the crisis.

The good crisis must present an array of options to a delegate from which to pick a course (or courses) of action to the Committee.   This is not to say that a solution must be acted upon in a resolution (after all, it may be to some member states' advantage to avoid a "solution") but the option of action must be there.    If the delegates do not think that there is anything that can be done about a crisis, they will quickly lose interest, and the educational and competitive processes will cease.

Additionally, there is a strong temptation among crisis directors, even among "limited scope crises" to keep putting out a flurry of crisis updates, constantly altering the crisis at every turn, throughout a Conference.   The net result of this, however, is that a crisis becomes unsolvable by failing to give the delegates adequate time to work on a solution.    Moreover, there is the additional danger of delegates expecting that whatever draft resolution they write up, or even whatever resolution they pass, will invariably be rendered moot by the next crisis update.  

Once this happens, the incentive for delegates to work productively and use their research diminishes exponentially.   Instead, the delegates start to feel that they are merely spectators to a show being run by the Crisis Director, and nothing that they do really matters to the final outcome.  At this point, you might as well start selling popcorn and charging tickets for admission.  

Thus, it is important that a crisis lay itself out early on, and then be left for the delegates to work on a solution.   It is through a delegate's work that they make best use of their research, and perform their best. Inherently, the crisis should be a catalyst for debate, not the sole source
of debate.
   
4) A Crisis Must Speak to a Delegate's Research
At a recent Conference I attended, the Crisis Director for the Security Council told the delegates that there would be an "open agenda."   Thus, delegates should be prepared to discuss items on the real Security Council's Agenda in New York (without specifying them) and be prepared for
a simulated crisis.    At the Conference, the Crisis Director spent most of his time trying to convince the delegates to discuss his simulation of a deterioration of the fragile peace in Tajikistan.    Now, it just happens that the Security Council had actually spent a lot of time talking about Tajikistan that year.    Nevertheless, because the delegates had not researched this area at all, they did not want to talk about it.   More importantly, even if they did talk about this crisis, the simulation would have been unproductive.    All of them were completely in the dark on this issue, and thus they would learn nothing from the debate, and nobody would be able to demonstrate their competence as delegates in a competitive sense.

Thus, when planning a Model U.N. crisis, the crisis must involve research that the delegates have already done before the Conference.  This means that a Crisis Director must "give away" certain details of the crisis, such as location, and parties involved, before the Conference.   It is important to be as specific as possible in directing delegates in their research.    Most students have very limited amounts of time to devote to voluntary research, and nobody appreciates doing lots of research on an issue which is never touched in the actual Committee.   As delegates perform more extensive research into the crisis area, the more productive and educational the debate on the crisis is likely to be.  

5) A Crisis Must Speak to Delegates as Diplomats
Finally, it is imperative to recognize that our delegates are "diplomats" and we should expect them to act as such. In practice this means recognizing that none of us, from delegates to the
most experienced Conference staff, are generally capable of talking intelligently about military equipment and maneuvers.   For example, a friend once asked me,  "Do you know how large a division of infantry is?"  Not having military experience, I had to admit that I had no idea.   Apparently, he looked up the Department of Defense's official web site, which lists a division as "larger than a regiment/brigade and smaller than a corps."  As he put it, "and that's a simple question."   It nevertheless, speaks volumes about the inability of most people involved in the MUN movement to accurate characterize the military dimension of international crises.   Suffice to say, we are simply not qualified to run or participate in a realistic "war games" simulation.   More important, however, is the simple point that even if we can't, we simply shouldn't.   After all, we are acting in the sphere of diplomacy.   If delegates want to play war games, then we should pull out a board of Axis and Allies.  

In any international crisis, the real diplomats are working well beyond full time.   The successful crisis will permit delegates to develop their full potential as diplomatic actors in the crisis.  An excellent way to do this is to avoid "win-lose" scenarios.   For example, a "win-lose" scenario might be some kind of terrorist threat that is either defused (likely by military operations) or blows up in the delegates' faces.   A much better solution than this would be a scenario that involves nebulous or complex issues that permits your delegates to effectively demonstrate their skills in diplomacy and the breadth of their research.

SUMMARY

With crises becoming more important in MUN, it is necessary to develop a theory of a crisis to delineate how a crisis can fulfill the educational and competitive aspects of the "MUN triangle" as well as the "fun" aspect.    Five important qualities are believability, a limited scope, solvability, response to delegate research, and response to the delegates as diplomats.