open Democracy News Analysis - Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit, Saskia Sassen - Comments

pduttonuk on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

pduttonuk — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:38:50 +0100

Do i really have to say any more? I don't believe Brown. I'm not convinced. Of course that announcement came out afterthe article was published amongst not insignifican list of others that parliament will not be able to debate as i understand it.

Gerry_5 on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

Gerry_5 — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:13:51 +0100

Saskia Sassen seems to think that the liberal state is an uncontestable concept and carries no responsibility for the evolution of the dynamics she [amongst others] labels 'globalisation'. The liberal state has always carried a 'democratic deficit'; it was not conceived to be other than an elitist political model. On the other hand it was also a progessive model in that it replaced less open and more brutal power systems. The guaging out of the liberal state may in fact be a withering away of the state which is a desirable aspect in a possible transition towards a more 'democratic' end game. So the guaging process may not be so bad; it is what it leads to that is full of interest. 'Recovering' the demoractic deficit as Brown suggest rings true with me and many but it is also clear he means within the liberal state, which is not progress in any strategic sense. I fear this debate is couched in the language of the liberal state and is meaningless if seen as other than bourgeois analysis. Unless Brown rolls all of the state back he is left deciding where and how to balance centralised power with local. This is a dynamic and the tension between the centralised state and the local institutions of power cannot exist in stasis. Yes Sassen is right the state is being guaged, so what? this is what happens within this model; the centre decides what is to be devolved and what is to be executive power. To believe otherwise implies the liberal state 'contains an intention' to dissolve itself one day in recognition of totally shared power. The liberal state envisages 'devolved' power which by definition is a corrupt concept as it places the state above the people.

Roger Manser on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

Roger Manser — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:19:08 +0100

I write - slight tongue in cheek - from Shanghai, the heartland of globalisation. Sassen is right, parliaments in the world are now an afterthought for mopping up the mess ("externalities") caused by global economic growth. And it was probably the same in the early 19 century, when Britain was the workshop of the world. Today's FI drivers are the executive branches in Beijing, Brussels, Washington and maybe Tokyo. China has come to dominate the world's economic agenda by its government's desire to provide jobs for its population. The National Peoples' Congress is there to remind Beijing of the social and environmental costs of breakneck growth, and such, it will no doubt gain in influence in due course. Parliament in London will also retake power, once our MPs realise the importance of social justice in a globalising world. The markets here are free and competitive and unregulated compared to the UK and Europe, and as such they are spurring the domestic Chinese and world economies. I admit that to be successful, they need some guidance - signposts - and these are provided by the executive branches, often working together internationally. This is what is meant by "trade negotiations." Indeed, at the behest of world growth (making "poverty history"), the economic sphere (consisting of the market, capital flows, world trade etc) has replaced the political, social and environmental spheres. The latter need to be reclaimed, urgently.

paul.carline on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

paul.carline — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:17:21 +0100

No doubt Saskia Sassen is correct in her view that the significantly increased centralisation of executive power and the resulting widened democratic deficit have more to do with globalisation than with fallout from the so-called 'war on terror', in that the former preceded the latter. To imply, however, that these are separate factors which have no intrinsic connection, is a surprisingly naive position. The 'war on terror' is a deliberately engineered creation primarily of the two countries which are most deeply interested in the 'unrestricted flow' of goods and services - especially of global finance. The founding myth of the 'war on terror' (a war essentially on Islam) is 9/11 - a classic piece of state-sponsored false-flag terrorism, engineered precisely for the twin aims of geo-strategic and economic imperialism abroad and the loss of civil liberties at home. The necessity of keeping the myth fresh in the public mind and extending its geographic range is the explanation of the subsequent 'terrorist' events in London, Madrid, Bali and elsewhere. The manufacture of 'terror' and the spurious 'war' on what is very much 'home-grown' terror (of the sort carried out by the right-wing paramilitary groups set up by the CIA and MI6 throughout Europe during the Cold War with the specific aim of creating the myth of a real threat from a supposedly aggressive Communism - now from a supposedly aggressively fundamentalist Islam: the new 'enemy' at the gates) are intimately connected with the promotion and defence of an essentially immoral form of globalisation which allows, for example, 1% of the population in the USA to own somewhere between 40% and 50% of the total wealth of the country - more than the entire wealth owned by the bottom 95% of the population. To root out this canker within governments and their agencies we need strong democracy with real powers, not just for parliaments (which are nowhere representative, but merely the playground for the cartel of political parties), but - even more importantly - for the electorate. We need much more 'DIRECT' democracy (i.e. real democracy) with constitutionally guaranteed powers to challenge legislation and recall representatives. Of course, this would have to be an informed electorate - and for that we need independent, principled and courageous media - not the supine purveyors of disinformation and protectors of the status quo we now have.

hari_1 on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

hari_1 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:01:15 +0100

Sassen is illiterate about global economics and what globalization means in terms of political economy today in a world of "have" and "have nots". What is globalization? Has anyone tried dispassionately and objectively to define how we got here? And why we're forced to ditch the Gatt Rounds and hitch on to WTO? Who imposed WTO on the world? If anyone can be pointed to be responsible for overiding objections, it was the Clinton admin under Treasury Sec/Rubin who masterminded what's called "Globalization" today. Liberalization of capital flows across sovereign national borders, profitable for Goldman & Sachs (Rubin was chairman of Goldman & Sachs before joining Clinton admin) and their likes, irrespective of concerns by member states of Gatt/WTO, resulted in Asean financial crisis followed by meltdown in Russia, etc. Globalization is another word for laissez faire international economics - without national financial ability to supervise/control global financial flows. The crisis in Asean markets was a consequent of capitalism a la Rubin gone mad! FDI in form of equity participation in authorised national investment projects takes time and lots of cost factors to realize the objective of the initial investment. However free flow of capital at the touch of a keyboard has rendered a very bad image of globalization in developing countries particularly emerging markets. Moreover, under Gatt Rounds, the focus of negotiations was tarrifs and trade liberalization. The OECD countries monopolized the Gatt institution from its inception, and not until 1980s did we get a chance to put our agenda items on the table for negotions. By then, Gatt Rounds were slow but rewarding when multilateral negotiations were finally concluded. Under WTO we've created a monster which is likley to undo all the good we achieved under Gatt Rounds. Why? Because Brazil, Argentina, India and China are finally coming to grasp exactly what OECD countries mean by globalization - free and unfettered (non-bureaucratic) access to developing countries emerging markets. This is why WTO round has come to a standstill now. Political economy of the wrold is at stake under current unrestricted (ie. jungle) rules of financial transactions which will inevitably put an end to globalization. In my personal view, all we need now is a serious global financial crisis to bring home the mess we created by agreeging on est. WTO and its incipient impact on liberalization of international economics ( subject which has become redundant as an academic subject now!). Remember in final analysis globalization is turning out to be a bouble edged sword which is likley to get us into a global crisis of confidence in financial flows, if sovereign states cannot manage their domestic law.

spamlet on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

spamlet — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:39:30 +0100

It is all very well for Brown to "speech-act" of devolving power to Parliament: where, clearly, it should have resided all along - we elect ALL MPs to represent us, not just the PM! But, when the MPs themselves are selected by a small minority of people who are daft enough to want to join their Party, and, moreover, even insane enough to want to wield power and or become PM; and when nobody else is allowed a look in but the same old hacks in these three self serving Parties; where exactly is the democracy in Parliament? And, if you are looking for any signs of democracy in Local Authorities: forget it! The pool of nutters prepared to serve their Parties (still not us, and no way to make them serve us) in the thankless task of local government is even smaller than that for Parliament. Before we can really have a democracy we have to: ban whipping; and, preferably, ban members of political parties from Parliament altogether. They are just minority interest groups - with much lower membership than many environmental groups for example - and they should be relegated to the lobby where they belong. We should be governed by a properly representative Parliament of MPs chosen by local people to represent the electors, not the Parties. Local people should be able to deselect their representative at any time. And the business of the day should be set by the Speaker's Office rather than any politically biased executive. Then perhaps the public might get a look in on decision making; wars like GW2 might not occur; and there might even be a slight chance of making the step changes in society and economics that are essential, if any democracy is going to survive this very uncertain-futured century. Oh gosh: there goes a flying pig!

rajdoctor on "Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit"

rajdoctor — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:21:54 +0100

There is no liberal democracy - it is just a hide up to some people being in power, some people putting some other people in power to maintain or get more wealtheir. With more laws, legislation, rules, treaties, constitutional amendments - if someone thinks and feels happy about achieving liberal democracy, the person is either ill-informed or is clouded with severe intellectual garbage. With boundaries and countries - talking of liberal democracy in one country is such a shallow and introvert thinking. Such things are not even going to better a small life. It is just going to perpetuate and isolate regions from one another. Stop thinking like small children playing with toys - mine and yours - and with tutors rubbish jargons! Raj Doctor

Globalisation, the state and the democratic deficit, Saskia Sassen

robert.cawston@opendemocracy.net — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:59:55 +0100

Gordon Brown, since he became British prime minister on 27 June 2007, has proposed a series of administrative changes that - if implemented - will alter the distribution of power between the executive and legislative branches of government. These have been broadly welcomed by most of the political and media class as a shift from both the over-centralisation and the personalisation of the decade of rule of Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair. What most commentators have overlooked, however, is that Brown's reforms, announced in the House of Commons on 3 July (and summarised in Table 1) take on added significance in the context of the democratic deficit engendered by globalisation.

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