The Politics of Peril: UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger

This article focuses on the ways that threatened heritage sites are caught up in complex deliberations of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee around inscription to the List of World Heritage in Danger. Through quantitative and qualitative analyses of Committee decision-making from 1979-2018, we observe geopolitical inequity and bureaucratic inefficacy characterizing the implementation of the List in Danger that prevent the realization of its envisioned purpose as a collaborative tool for garnering international investment in preservation. We argue that this situation stems from the development of diplomatic practices used by powerful States Parties to ensure their sites are only ever considered rather than inscribed on the List in Danger. The proliferation of consideration for the List in Danger effectively erases situations of danger rather than resolving threats in any real sense, subjecting endangered sites on the World Heritage List to further peril.