The paradox of our times can be stated simply: the collective issues we must grapple with are of growing extensity and intensity, yet the means for addressing these are weak and incomplete. Three pressing global issues highlight the urgency of finding a way forward.
David Held's article is based on a lecture to be delivered in Paris, at a meeting convened by the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, on 19 January 2008First, insufficient progress has been made in creating a sustainable framework for the management of climate change, illustrating the serious problems facing the multilateral order.
Second, progress towards achieving the millennium development goals has been slow and in many places lamentably so. Underlying this fact, is, of course, the material vulnerability of over half the world's population. Each year, some 18 million die prematurely from poverty-related causes. This is one third of all human deaths - 50,000 every day, including 29,000 children under the age of 5. And, yet, the gap between rich and poor countries continues to rise and there is evidence that the bottom 10% of the world's population has become even poorer since the beginning of the 1990s.
Third, the threat of nuclear catastrophe may seem to have diminished, as a result of the end of the cold war, but it is only in abeyance. Huge nuclear stockpiles remain, nuclear proliferation among states is continuing, new generations of tactical and nuclear weapons are being built and nuclear terrorism is a serious threat.
openDemocracy writers seek to make sense of long-term
shifts in global politics, economics and the environment:
Avinash D Persaud, "The dollar standard: (only the)
beginning of the end" (5
December 2007)
Tom Burke, "The world and climate change:
all together now" (7
December 2007)
Ann Pettifor, "Globalisation: sleepwalking to
disaster" (11
December 2007)
openDemocracy, "The world in 2008: a year and an
era" (21
December 2007) - reflections from twenty authors, including Rajeev Bhargava,
Mary Kaldor, Ivan Krastev, and Michel Thieren
Paul Rogers, "A century on the edge: 1945-2045" (29 December 2007)
David Hayes, "A world in contraflow" (3 January 2008)
Saskia Sassen, "The world's third spaces" (8 January 2008)
Simon Zadek, "Accountability's global thread" (14 January 2008) These global challenges are indicative of
three core sets of problems we face - those concerned with sharing our planet (global warming, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, water
deficits); sustaining our life-chances (poverty, conflict prevention, global
infectious diseases); and managing our rulebooks (nuclear proliferation, toxic
waste disposal, intellectual property rights, genetic research rules, trade
rules, finance and tax rules) (cf. Jean-Francois Rischard, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, Basic Books, 2002). In our increasingly
interconnected world, these global problems cannot be solved by any one
nation-state. They call for collective and collaborative action - something
that the nations of the world have not been good at, and which they need to be
better at if these pressing issues are to be adequately tackled.
The roots of dysfunction
While complex global processes, from the financial to the ecological, connect the fate of communities to each other across the world, global governance capacity is under pressure. Significant governance innovations have been made in recent decades, but the global-governance system remains too often weak and/or fragmented. Moreover, there has been a complex "unbundling" of sovereignty, territoriality and political forces. This unbundling involves a plurality of actors, a variety of political processes, and diverse levels of co-ordination and operation. Specifically, it includes:
▪ Different forms of intergovernmental arrangements embodying various levels of legalisation, types of instruments utilised and responsiveness to stakeholders
▪ An increasing number of public agencies - e.g . central bankers - maintaining links with similar agencies in other countries and, thus, forming transgovernmental networks for the management of various global issues
▪ Diverse business actors - i.e. firms, their associations and organisations such as international chambers of commerce - establishing their own transnational regulatory mechanisms to manage issues of common concern.
▪ Non-governmental organisations and transnational advocacy networks - i.e. leading actors in global civil society - playing a role in various domains of global governance and at various stages of the global public policy-making process
▪ Public bodies, business actors and NGOs collaborating in many areas in order to provide novel approaches to social problems through multi-stakeholder networks.
There is evidence that the politicisation, bureaucratisation and capacity limits of multilateral institutions have been important factors in driving the expansion of new forms of global governance, since powerful governments have sought to avoid either expanding the remit of existing multilateral agencies or creating new ones. Another factor that has been significant has been the socio-political shift towards "self-regulation", as the private sector has sought to pre-empt or prevent international public regulation while governments have sought to share the regulatory burden with non-state actors.
David Held's analyses have appeared in openDemocracy since 2001:
"Violence and justice in a global age" (13 September 2001)
"New war, new justice" (27 September 2001) - with Mary Kaldor"9/11: What should we do now?" (10 October 2001) - with Scilla Elworthy,
Tim Garden, Mary Kaldor and S Sayyid
"Globalisation: the argument of our time" (21 January 2002) - a major debate with
Paul Hirst
"Davos: a view from the summit" (13 February 2002)"Return to the state of nature" (20 March 2003)
"Globalisation: the dangers and
the answers" (26 May
2004)
"What are the dangers and the
answers? Clashes over globalisation" (10 October 2004)
"Building bridges: a reply to
Anne-Marie Slaughter & Thomas N Hale" (23 December 2005)
"Gordon Brown's foreign-policy
challenges" (10
August 2007) - with David MephaProblem-solving capacities at the global and
regional level are weak because of a number of structural difficulties, which
compound the problems of generating and implementing urgent policy with respect
to global goods and bads. These difficulties are rooted in the post-war
settlement and the subsequent development of the multilateral order itself.
Four deep-rooted problems need mentioning.
A first set of problems emerges as a result of the development of globalisation itself, which generates public policy problems which span the "domestic" and the "foreign", and the interstate order with its clear political boundaries and lines of responsibility. These policy problems are often insufficiently understood or acted upon. There is a fundamental lack of ownership of many of them at the global level.
A second set of difficulties relates to the inertia found in the system of international agencies, or the inability of these agencies to mount collective problem-solving solutions faced with uncertainty about lines of responsibility and frequent disagreement over objectives, means and costs. This often leads to the situation where the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of taking action.
A third set of problems arises because there is no clear division of labour among the myriad of international governmental agencies; functions often overlap, mandates frequently conflict, and aims and objectives too often get blurred.
A fourth set of difficulties relates to an accountability deficit, itself linked to two interrelated problems: the power imbalances among states and those between state and non-state actors in the shaping and making of global public policy. Multilateral bodies need to be fully representative of the states involved in them, and they rarely are.
Underlying these four difficulties is the breakdown of symmetry and congruence between decision-makers and decision-takers. The point has been well articulated recently by Inge Kaul and her associates in their work on global public goods. They speak about the "forgotten equivalence principle" (see Inge Kaul, et al., Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, Oxford University Press, 2003). At its simplest, the principle suggests that those who are significantly affected by a global good or bad should have a say in its provision or regulation, i.e ., the span of a good's benefits and costs should be matched with the span of the jurisdiction in which decisions are taken about that good. Yet, all too often, there is a breakdown of "equivalence" between decision-makers and decision-takers, between decision-makers and stakeholders, and between the inputs and outputs of the decision-making process. Among pressing examples are climate change, the impact of trade subsidies, HIV/Aids management and the question of intellectual property rights.
The ingredients of change
Thus, the challenge is to find ways to align the circles of those to be involved in decision-making with the spillover range of the good under negotiation, i.e. to address the issue of accountability gaps; to create new organisational mechanisms for policy innovation across borders; and to find new ways of financing urgent global public goods. Legitimate political authority at the global level cannot be entrenched adequately without addressing the representative, organisational and financial gaps in governance arrangements.
Surprisingly perhaps, it is an opportune moment to rethink the nature and form of global governance and the dominant policies of the last decade or so. The policy packages that have largely set the global agenda - in economics and security - are failing. The so-called Washington consensus and Washington security doctrines (otherwise market fundamentalism and unilateralism) have dug their own graves. The most successful developing countries in the world (China, India, Vietnam, Uganda, among them) are successful because they have not followed the Washington consensus agenda, and the conflicts that have most successfully been defused (the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Liberia, among others) are ones that have benefited from concentrated multilateral support and a human-security agenda. Here are clear clues as to how to proceed in the future. We need to follow these clues and learn from the mistakes of the past if the rule of law, accountability and the effectiveness of the multilateral order are to be advanced.
David Held is professor in the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics, and one of the most prolific and innovative thinkers in the study of globalisation. Among his books are Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus (Polity, 2004) and Models of Democracy (Polity, third edition, 2006) In addition, the political tectonic plates appear to be shifting. With the faltering of unilateralism in United States foreign policy, uncertainty over the role of the European Union in global affairs, the crisis of global trade talks, the emergence of powerful authoritarian capitalist states (Russia, China), the growing confidence of leading emerging countries in world economic forums (China, India and Brazil), and the unsettled relations between elements of Islam and the west, business as usual seems unlikely at the global level in the decades ahead. It is highly improbable that the multilateral order can survive for very much longer in its current form.
The post-1945 multilateral order is in trouble. Clear, effective and accountable decision-making is needed across a range of urgent global challenges; and, yet, the collective capacity for addressing these matters is in doubt. The dominant policy packages of the last several years have not delivered the goods and a learning opportunity beckons. There are, of course, many ways that have been proposed to deepen the accountability and effectiveness of global governance mechanisms - from proposals for global issue networks, the expansion of key "G" clusters (G8, G22, and the like), coalitions of particular nation-states acting in clubs, to the reform of the United Nations and cosmopolitan democracy.
But rather than end by making the case for any one of these, I want to finish by stressing a methodological point. It can be misleading and dangerous to over-generalise about politics or policy from the present, or from a single time period, or from the point of view of one culture, country or region. Instead, the test of deliberative generalisability needs to be built into reflections on "ways forward" in order to help ensure a focus on global solutions to global challenges - not just American, French, British, German, European Union, Chinese solutions. In other words, we require a multi-perspectival mode of forming, defending and defining political preferences - a mode that is in fact, other- and future-regarding.
paul.carline said:
Sun, 2008-01-20 16:55
David Held's analysis - in casting such a wide net of 'blame' for the manifest inadequacies and injustices of the global order (or, more accurately, 'disorder') - leaves one (at least it left me) floundering in a morass of what appear to be - or at least are presented as - largely institutional failures.
Part of the problem is the language - a kind of 'techno-babble' - in which the problems are cast, in which there is no 'good' and 'evil', only failures of organisation and communication. The simple truth is that the major decisions are being taken by members of a global political, commercial, military-industrial elite which cares little for human suffering. This elite has hijacked the political and economic decision-making processes for its own vested interests - which have little or nothing to do with peace, justice and the fair sharing of the world's wealth among all its inhabitants. Indeed, spokespersons for this elite seriously suggest that the real problem is over-population, and that it is necessary to reduce the world's population by 80%. There is evidence that they have already started to do so.
In order to maintain its hegemony, the elite uses propaganda, deception, double-think, physical force, and the now pervasive appeal to human beings' self-interest. One major deception is the lie of 'democracy' (there are, with the possible exception of Switzerland) no genuine democracies on the planet. Another is the lie of the intrinsic connection between democracy and free-market capitalism (very useful when you want to win new markets for capitalism). I recommend anyone who doubts this to acquire a copy of Adam Curtis' massively impressive "The Century of the Self" (originally broadcast by the BBC in four parts in 2002).
In order to cut through the spin, hyperbole and outright lies (I'm not referring to David Held here), we might use plainer language. Calling a spade a spade, we should rather refer to the aforementioned elite (they have, of course, vast numbers of acolytes more than ready to place self-interest above justice and peace) as 'robber barons', cut-throats and would-be dictators - who need to be named and shamed and divested of their power before anything approaching a just world order can be instituted. A 'sticking-plaster' approach simply will not work, and the elite is more than happy to see good folk picking up the tabs (through their charitable donations) for the mess the former continues to create.
The problem is that we, the public, have - out of laziness, or stupidity, or self-interest - colluded in the con, and have allowed governments and other elites to create virtually impregnable positions of power, effective 'Catch-22' situations in which citizens would need to own real decision-making power in order to change a corrupt system, but where the system has been so designed and/or progressively manipulated as to prevent them from ever gaining that power, and the propaganda - from both political parties and the ever-compliant mainstream media - has been so effective that the majority is not even aware that its birthright has been "sold for a mess of potage".
And that's at the level of 'ordinary' politics! On top of that has been the massive lies of the 'war on terror' and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, based on what have manifestly been acts of state-sponsored terror, but sold to a gullible public (including academics and professionals who ought to know better) as external attacks by a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism.
Until such time as the mainstream analysis of these events is based on the demonstrable facts, rather than on some preposterous myth, the global elite will continue to "get away with it" and we will be left ineffectively wringing our hands and hoping against hope for a miracle.
Sincerely
Paul Carline