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Political Globalization: Democracy, International Organizations and Global Civil Society
Abstract
Globalization does not only reduce to the economic sector, is also not an predominantly or almost exclusively by private actors driven networking of the world. It rather requires—as already mentioned in the context of the liberalization of foreign trade and capital flows—the political enablement through elimination or reduction of national obstacles of cross-border interaction. In the positive sense, the participation in globalization requires the political creation of conditions, so that societies can successfully network globally, for example the creation, maintenance and administration of cross-border infrastructure, the conclusion of inter-state, regional or global cooperation agreements, the agreement of certain product, process and legal and financial standards in transnational exchange, certainly also the empowerment of national actors in order to be able to compete internationally or to cushion its consequences.
... And the democratic regime enables the implementation of policies that allow mitigating the losses from globalization, relatively evenly distributing its benefits, and preventing political pressure from interest groups that seek to shift the burden of global competition onto others, thereby undermining the social base of those interested in openness. (9) The post-third wave of democracy, which emerged in the second half of the 20th century, set itself the ambitious goal of creating societies where democratic values, human rights, and progress prevail. Within the European Union (EU), which is one of the world's largest integration organizations, several joint efforts are underway to support and strengthen democracy among its members. ...
Introduction: The development of democracy in the twenty-first century is a key factor determining global relations in the context of globalization. Socio-political transformations are of great importance, as their adequacy affects the duration and effectiveness of the development of societies and the preservation of national identity. Democratization, aimed at establishing a democratic system, has undergone significant changes in different historical periods, including the French Revolution. The purpose of this paper is to identify the legal challenges of the third wave of democracy in the European Union (EU) and ways to address them.Methods: To study the legal challenges of the post-third wave of democracy in the European Union, a comprehensive methodology was used that combines various research approaches and tools such as the comparative analysis, systems analysis, historical analysis, and philosophical analysis.Results: The article highlights the current aspects and challenges experienced by the European Union in the period after the third wave of democratic reforms. The authors analyze the development of political and legal systems of the EU countries. In particular, they examine the constitutional reform, the role of the rule of law and the state of civil society in the context of strengthening democracy. Special attention is paid to the role of international organizations in supporting democratic values and strengthening the legal system.Conclusions: This article presents a valuable contribution to understanding the current challenges and prospects for the democracy development in the European Union under conditions of globalization
Under what conditions do states withdraw from intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)? Recent events such as Brexit, the US withdrawal from UNESCO, and US threats to withdraw from NAFTA, NATO, and the World Trade Organization have triggered widespread concern because they appear to signify a backlash against international organizations. Some observers attribute this recent surge to increasing nationalism. But does this explanation hold up as a more general explanation for IGO withdrawals across time and space? Despite many studies of why states join IGOs, we know surprisingly little about when and why states exit IGOs. We use research on IGO accession to derive potential explanations for IGO withdrawal related to domestic politics, IGO characteristics, and geo-politics. We quantitatively test these potential explanations for withdrawal using an original dataset of 493 IGOs since 1945, documenting about 200 cases of withdrawal. We find that nationalism is not the key driver of IGO withdrawals in the past. Instead, we show that geo-political factors – such as preference divergence and contagion – are the main factors linked to IGO withdrawals, followed by democracy levels in the country and organization. These findings have important implications for research on the vitality of international organizations, compliance, and the liberal world order.
In this WZB Discussion Paper we develop an analytical framework for the research project ‘Contested World Orders’, a collaborative effort between researchers based at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), and the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). In this project, we analyse the interests in and demands for change in world order from the side of rising powers and transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) using a common analytical approach. As part of a broader empirical research project, this paper outlines the theoretical and conceptual framework, guiding research questions, and basic methodological propositions. First, we outline key reasons that global order is contested, namely the confluence of the rise of international authority combined with a shift in the distribution of international power. Second, we outline a conceptual approach for the analysis of the preferences and political strategies of rising powers and NGOs as two potential sources of contestation. Finally, we outline issues of case selection and guiding hypotheses.
The most important causes of globalization differ among the three major components of international market integration: trade, multinational production, and international finance. The information technology revolution has made it very difficult for governments to control cross-border capital movements, even if they have political incentives to do so. Governments can still restrict the multinationalization of production, but they have increasingly chosen to liberalize because of the macroeconomic benefits. Although the one-time Ricardian gains from freer trade are clear, whether trade is good for growth in the medium term is less certain. In the case of trade, the increasing interest of exporters in opening up domestic markets has had a powerful impact on the trend to liberalization. Cross-national variations in market integration still endure, but these are more the product of basic economic characteristics (such as country size and level of development) than political factors (such as regime type or the left-right balance of power).
Whereas state-based political action is held to reinforce frameworks and hierarchies of exclusion, new social movements, said to constitute a global civil society `from below', are seen to herald new forms of emancipatory political action that recognise and include diversity and build new forms of global `counter-hegemonic' politics. This paper seeks to examine and challenge these claims. It suggests that, rather than expanding the sphere of inclusiveness, global civic activism tends to undermine community connections. This is because the political ethics it advocates are deeply corrosive of social engagement and prone to elitist rather than inclusive consequences. The argument that the individual should have no higher political allegiance beyond their own moral conscience merely reflects and legitimises the radical rejection of collective political engagement and its replacement by elite advocacy and personal solipsism.
Despite lingering ambiguity surrounding the concept, global civil society is acclaimed by those who think they belong to it, and validated by international governmental organizations seeking legitimation for their activities. Its enthusiasts believe global civil society presages a more congenial kind of politics that transcends the system of sovereign states. Its critics deride its unrepresentativeness and complicity in established power relations. The critics can be answered by more subtle accounts of representation and by highlighting contestatory practices. Appreciation of the promise and perils of global civil society requires moving beyond preconceptions rooted in dated ideas about civil society and democracy as they allegedly function within states. Irrespective of the sophistication of such post-Westphalian moves, global civil society remains contested terrain, involving interconnected political and intellectual disputes. International relations theory proves less useful than it should be in clarif...
The prevailing model of international economic regimes is strictly positivistic in its epistemological orientation and stresses the distribution of material power capabilities in its explanatory logic. It is inadequate to account for the current set of international economic regimes and for the differences between past and present regimes. The model elaborated here departs from the prevailing view in two respects, while adhering to it in a third. First, it argues that regimes comprise not simply what actors say and do, but also what they understand and find acceptable within an intersubjective framework of meaning. Second, it argues that in the economic realm such a framework of meaning cannot be deduced from the distribution of material power capabilities, but must be sought in the configuration of state-society relations that is characteristic of the regime-making states. Third, in incorporating these notions into our understanding of the formation and transformation of international economic regimes, the formulation self-consciously strives to remain at the systemic level and to avoid becoming reductionist in attributing cause and effect relations. The article can therefore argue that the prevailing view is deficient on its own terms and must be expanded and modified. Addressing the world of actual international economic regimes, the article argues that the pax Britannica and the pax Americana cannot be equated in any meaningful sense, and that the postwar regimes for money and trade live on notwithstanding premature announcements of their demise.
One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypothesize that this clustering might be due to processes of policy diffusion. We think of diffusion as resulting from one of two broad sets of forces: one in which mounting adoptions of a policy alter the benefits of adopting for others and another in which adoptions provide policy relevant information about the benefits of adopting. We develop arguments within these broad classes of mechanisms, construct appropriate measures of the relevant concepts, and test their effects on liberalization and restriction of the current account, the capital account, and the exchange rate regime. Our findings suggest that domestic models of foreign economic policy making are insufficient. The evidence shows that policy transitions are influenced by international economic competition as well as the policies of a country's sociocultural peers. We interpret the latter influence as a form of channeled learning reflecting governments' search for appropriate models for economic policy.
This article draws attention to a fundamental reconstitution of the global public domain: away from one that for more than three centuries equated the "public" in international politics with sovereign states and the interstate realm, to one in which the very system of states is becoming embedded in a broader and deepening transnational arena concerned with the production of global public goods. One concrete instance of this transformation is the growing significance of global corporate social responsibility initiatives triggered by the dynamic interplay between civil society actors and multinational corporations. The UN Global Compact and corporate involvement in HIV/AIDS treatment programs are discussed as examples. The analytical parameters of the emerging global public domain are defined, and some of its consequences illustrated by the chain of responses to the Bush administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by a variety of domestic and transnational social actors.
The 1990s saw a systemic shift from the liberal post–World War II international order of liberal multilateralism (LIO I) to a post–Cold War international order of postnational liberalism (LIO II). LIO II has not been only rule-based but has openly pursued a liberal social purpose with a significant amount of authority beyond the nation-state. While postnational liberal institutions helped increase overall well-being globally, they were criticized for using double standards and institutionalizing state inequality. We argue that these institutional features of the postnational LIO II led to legitimation problems, which explain both the current wave of contestations and the strategies chosen by different contestants. We develop our argument first by mapping the growing liberal intrusiveness of international institutions. Second, we demonstrate the increased level and variety of contestations in international security and international refugee law. We show that increased liberal intrusiveness has led to a variety of contestation strategies, the choice of which is affected by the preference of a contestant regarding postnational liberalism and its power within the contested institution.
This chapter examines the role that international organizations play in world politics. It explains what international organizations are, whether we need international organizations in international relations, and what constraints and opportunities exist for international organizations to achieve their mandates. The chapter also considers the reasons why states create international organizations and how we can analyse the behaviour of such organizations. Two case studies are presented: the first is about the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the G77, and the second is about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the interests of money-centre banks. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether international organizations suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’.
This chapter examines the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in world politics. It considers what distinguishes NGOs from other actors in international politics, what types of influence NGOs exert in international relations, and whether NGOs contribute to more democratic policy-making at the international level. The chapter also discusses the growing importance of NGOs and presents two case studies that illustrate how they have contributed to the emergence of new norms through their engagement with international governmental organizations (IGOs): the first is about campaigns run by transnational NGOs to end violence against women and the second is about their climate justice activism. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether transnational NGOs contribute to more democracy at the international level.
International institutions are increasingly being challenged by domestic opposition and nationalist political forces. Yet, levels of politicization differ significantly across countries facing the same international authority as well as within countries over time. This raises the question of when and why the mass public poses a challenge to international cooperation. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding the nature and implications of politicization of international cooperation, outlining three scope conditions: the nature of public contestation, the activities of political entrepreneurs, and the permissiveness of political opportunity structures. By empirically examining these scope conditions, we demonstrate that politicization can have both stabilizing and destabilizing effects on international cooperation. Highlighting the systemic implications of politicization for international cooperation has important implications for international relations scholarship. While international organizations may face challenges, they also have remarkable ways of being resilient.
This chapter surveys the demands made towards the WTO during the Doha Round by rising powers and twenty of the most influential trade-related transnational NGOs. It also compares these to the demands of established powers. Using techniques from qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis, it analyses these actors’ substantive policy demands, and the argumentative justifications that they provide for their demands. It finds that while the rising powers are largely satisfied with the institutional status quo, they are strongly dissatisfied with existing policy content. Their demands reveal a social purpose that can be described as developmental liberalism. In this approach they have found allies mostly in market-critical civil society organizations.
The chapter focuses on global social movements, defined as transnational networks of actors that define their causes as global and organize protest campaigns and other forms of action that target more than one state and/or international governmental organization. Bridging insights from international relations and social movement studies, the chapter analyzes the spread of transnational contention, examining some main characteristics of repertoires of action, organizational model, and framing processes, with particular attention to the global justice movement. Explanations for the spread of global movements are then reviewed: the politicization of international relations, the development of multilevel opportunities, movements’ strategies of domestication and externalization, and the spreading of neoliberal globalization. Finally, the chapter examines the potential evolution of global movements, considering the challenges to transnationalization of contention in recent anti-austerity protests.
Scholars and critics often lament that corporations rule the world, but predominant accounts of global governance imply almost the opposite: With theories populated by national governments and intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, it might appear that nearly everyone except corporations writes the rules that govern across borders. This article compiles research on the varied ways in which multinational and transnational corporations have shaped global governance, drawing attention to the contours and limits of corporate power. Corporations can be seen variously as sponsors, inhibitors, and direct providers of global governance. They have, for example, been sponsors of neoliberal trade rules, inhibitors of some labor and environmental regimes, and providers of private standards for finance, safety, sustainability, and human rights. Scholars may be tempted to focus on just one of these roles or to presume unified corporate dominance, but it is important to grapple with all three and to investigate the conditions under which corporate actions are more or less unified and decisive.
Based on a wealth of original information and research, this book offers both a critical introduction to NGOs and a discussion of recent theoretical approaches which have either dismissed or wildly exaggerated their political significance.
Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the 1999 Conference was the plenary session in which Professors David Held and Mahdi Elmandjra came together to discuss the theme of ‘“Globalization”: Democracy and Diversity’. The Conference also witnessed the launch of Global Transformations (Polity Press, 1999), at which David Held was joined by two of his three coauthors, Professor Anthony McGrew and Dr Jonathan Perraton. Global Transformations is the product of almost a decade’s work by a research team (based at the Open University and supported by the ESRC) who have produced what James. N. Rosenau has called ‘the definitive work on globalization’. It is a study which not only synthesises an extraordinary amount of information from research on globalization in a range of social science disciplines, but also makes its own distinctive contribution to our understanding of the complex range of forces which are reshaping the world order. We are delighted to be able to reproduce here an ‘executive summary’ of Global Transformations that summarises the major findings of this 500-page survey in just six thousand words.
Established in 1945, the United Nations Organisation (UN) is the world's largest global governance institution. It encompasses almost universal state membership and addresses a full spectrum of issue areas. As of 2009 the UN Secretariat had 40,000 staff stationed around the world (UN 2009a). Another 120,000 persons from 116 countries were serving in 15 UN peacekeeping operations (UN 2010: 3). The regular budget of the core UN bodies (i.e. excluding related agencies and peacekeeping operations) came to US$5.2 billion in 2010, a figure that far exceeds that for any other global governance organisation examined in this book (UN 2009b). Core organs of the UN include the General Assembly (GA), the Security Council (SC), the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Secretariat. The wider UN system also comprises fifteen specialised agencies and a host of other related bodies. Civil society contributions to UN accountability often involve interrelations between the central bodies and the specialised agencies. However, for reasons of space and manageability, the present chapter focuses its attention on the core organs of the UN, rather than covering the full spectrum of related institutions. Other book-length works have considered civil society involvement in the wider UN system, albeit without a focus on accountability issues (e.g. Gordenker and Weiss 1996; Willetts 1996; Foster and Anand 1999; Joachim 2007 McKeon 2009).
As an initial step in exploring the relationship between civil society and accountability in global governance it is important to clarify the core terms. Each of the principal elements in this equation is subject to multiple and often conflicting interpretations. The point of this opening chapter is not to resolve these theoretical and political disputes with definitive definitions. Such an aim is neither achievable nor from the perspective of creative democratic debate desirable. Hence the following discussion only sketches broad conceptions and concerns in order to provide a starting framework of analysis for the subsequent case studies. Individual authors will, in those chapters, elaborate their particular understandings of the general issues in relation to specific global governance arrangements. The present chapter has three parts that successively address the three central concepts in this study. The first part identifies global governance as a complex of rules and regulatory institutions that apply to transplanetary jurisdictions and constituencies. In line with globalisation as a major general trend of contemporary history, global governance has grown to unprecedented proportions and significance in recent decades. The second part of the chapter discusses accountability in terms of processes whereby an actor answers for its conduct to those whom it affects Shortfalls of accountability (especially democratic accountability) in respect of global governance agencies constitute a major challenge to the delivery of effective and legitimate public policy.
The World Bank is one of the most visible institutions of global governance, and one of the most frequently targeted by civil society organisations (CSOs). The critiques vary widely. Some see the Bank as an irredeemable instrument of a discredited neoliberal agenda that has increased poverty, indebtedness and environmental destruction. Others view the institution as a necessary actor in global development, but one that is much in need of reform. The tactics of these civil society critics have also varied greatly, ranging from highly visible protests and confrontations to more collaborative efforts with Bank management and staff to promote institutional reform. What difference has this civil society activism made? More specifically, how and to what extent have civil society actors furthered the accountability of the World Bank to its constituents? This chapter argues that CSOs have been fairly successful in expanding Bank accountability at the project and policy levels, particularly through improved transparency and consultation requirements, the establishment and enforcement of social and environmental safeguards, and the creation of complaint and response mechanisms. However, these civil society impacts have been limited, particularly because accountability to affected peoples has not been well integrated into the incentive structure for Bank staff. Officials continue to be rewarded largely on the basis of considerations that tend to impede meaningful public participation and control (such as streamlining procedures and maximising loan disbursements).
Dieses Lehrbuch bietet eine verständliche und umfassende Einführung in die Grundzüge und die Analyse der heutigen Weltpolitik. Zu diesem Zweck verbindet es eine systematische Untersuchung des Wandels weltpolitischer Rahmenbedingungen und Akteurskonstellationen mit der theoriegeleiteten Analyse der kollektiven Bearbeitung globaler Herausforderungen in den zentralen Feldern „Sicherheit“, „Wohlfahrt“ und „Herrschaft“. Veränderungen der internationalen Machtstruktur, der Prozess der Globalisierung und der Wandel weltpolitischer Leitideen haben, zusammen mit dem Auftreten neuer politikmächtiger Akteure im globalen System, zu neuen grenzüberschreitenden Problemen geführt und alte verschärft. Zu deren Bearbeitung sind verschiedenartige Steuerungs- und Regulierungsarrangements auf globaler Ebene auch jenseits des zwischenstaatlichen Multilateralismus entstanden. Das Lehrbuch zeigt auf, welche Formen von Weltregieren (Global Governance) in den verschiedenen Problemfeldern zu beobachten sind, wie ihr Auftreten zu erklären ist und inwiefern sie geeignet erscheinen, transsouveräne Probleme – wie z.B. die Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen, den transnationalen Terrorismus, ausgeprägte globale Wohlstandsdisparitäten, den Klimawandel oder systematische Menschenrechtsverletzungen – effektiv und legitim zu bearbeiten.
I will devote a considerable part of my time after this Conference to try to improve information and dialogue with the civil society, taking into account the point of view of all the WTO Members, and the rules which you have given to me. (Renato Ruggiero, 1998)I believe we have made real progress in our efforts to enhance the WTO's image and engage civil society. We are reaching out to NGOs through regular seminars and symposia … We are also seeking to encourage a greater level of engagement from business leaders, trade unions and other sectors of civil society. (Mike Moore, 2002) There can be no doubting the fact that we can improve in all areas of our work including … improving our links … with civil society. (Supachai Panitchpakdi, 2005) As the Doha Round progresses it is vital that the WTO continue to engage civil society. For me, civil society and governments are both important interlocutors. (Pascal Lamy, 2005) Introduction As the quotations above indicate, every Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has made positive rhetorical gestures concerning the importance of civil society. In this respect leaders of the principal global governance agency for trade have spoken much like managers of the UN, World Bank and IMF discussed in the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, the relationship between civil society actors and the WTO has been a contentious matter since the inception of the organisation.
Many of the issues that are today part of the discussions surrounding international investment agreements were first dealt with when governments sought to negotiate a United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations (and various related instruments) almost 40 years ago. The Code was meant to establish a multilateral framework to define, in a balanced manner, the rights and responsibilities of transnational corporations and host country governments in their relations with each other. This article looks at the origins of these negotiations, the underlying interest situations of the participating country groups, the experience of related negotiations, the actual negotiations of the Code, the reasons for the failure of the negotiations, the current situation, and factors driving change. The article concludes with lessons learned from the Code and related negotiations. These lessons may be of interest to current efforts to improve the international investment law and policy regime.
How can democracy be suitably formulated in face of the more global character of contemporary society? Modern ideas and practices of people's rule' (whether in a statist or a cosmopolitan mode) fall short as frameworks for global democracy. Statist approaches to global democracy have a host of behavioural, institutional, historical and cultural problems. Modern cosmopolitan approaches do better in addressing contemporary social changes, but are deficient in terms of their globalist tendencies, often oversimplified notions of political identity, limited cultural reflexivity, usually tame responses to resource inequalities and anthropocentrism. To address these shortcomings one might explore an alternative of postmodern global democracies' built around principles of transscalarity, plural solidarities, transculturality, egalitarian distribution and more ecologically framed ideas of political rights and duties.
Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international organizations across issue areas, policy functions and world regions from 1950 to 2010. Addressing the question of where, how and why international organizations offer transnational actors access to global policy-making, this book has implications for critical issues in world politics. When do states share authority with private actors? What drives the design of international organizations? How do activists and businesses influence global politics? Is civil society involvement a solution to democratic deficits in global governance?
Bei der letzten Tagung von IWF und Weltbank im April 2006 rief das globale Aktions netzwerk gegen Armut erneut zu umfassender Streichung der Schulden von ärmeren Entwicklungsländern ohne Bedingungen seitens dieser Institutionen auf. Sie verhin derten die Verringerung von Armut, seien wirtschaftspolitisch unnötig und untermi nierten die Fähigkeit der Schuldnerländer, eine selbst bestimmte Entwicklungspolitik zu betreiben. Analyse: Diese und zahlreiche ähnliche Äußerungen unterstellen eine beachtliche Durchset zungsmacht der internationalen Finanzinstitutionen (IFIs), die so aber kaum gegeben ist: Die Macht von IWF und Weltbank wird tatsächlich meist überschätzt, beide Institu tionen verfügen weder über große Apparate noch unendliche Mittel; ihre Durchset zungsfähigkeit gegenüber den Kreditnehmern ist begrenzt. Sie waren auch nicht sonderlich erfolgreich darin, parallel zu ihren eigenen Pro grammen zusätzliche private oder öffentliche Mittel zu mobilisieren. Sie sind aber nach wie vor entscheidende Agenturen für die Datensammlung und-aufbereitung, in der entwicklungspolitischen Diskussion und bei der theoretischen und praktischen Begleitung von Strukturreformen, auch wenn ihre Informations vorteile langsam schwinden. Letzteres hat paradoxerweise auch damit zu tun, dass ihre Transparenz im Umgang mit der meist kritischen Öffentlichkeit deutlich zugenommen hat.
This article examines the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in supporting the current hegemonic forces in the global economy. It challenges the current rational choice approach to understanding the Fund in mainstream journals as being too narrow in scope and unambitious in its critique of the Fund. I pose an alternative means of critique that assesses the Fund from a historical materialist perspective and examine the Fund's function in promoting hegemonic norms and co-opting elites in the developing world. This type of critique has been absent in recent scholarship and must be the focus of creating meaningful change within the Fund.
In the last two decades, striking correlations in the location and timing of structural pension reforms have raised important questions about the kind of information used by policy makers in their decisions to adopt such measures. This study tests the hypothesis that the adoption of pension privatization is shaped systematically by an interdependent logic, wherein the decision to privatize pensions in one country is systematically linked to corresponding decisions made by governments in relevant peer nations. Duration analysis with time-varying covariates of data from 59 countries between 1980 and 1999 reveals that the decision to adopt a private pension reform in one country increases systematically as the proportion of peer nations that have adopted corresponding measures rises. Importantly, the effect of this peer dynamic varies across groups of nations, with the most powerful impact of peer decisions being found among Eastern European and Central Asian nations. Peer dynamics likewise contribute powerfully to the adoption of private pension reforms in Latin America, but do not significantly shape the hazard of privatization among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations. Even controlling for diffusion mechanisms, the analysis shows that pension reform decisions remain subject to domestic political and economic considerations, including demographic pressures, financial costs and incentives to reform, and constraints delimited by the political institutions in each nation.
Under anarchy, uncoordinated competitive theft by “roving bandits” destroys the incentive to invest and produce, leaving little for either the population or the bandits. Both can be better off if a bandit sets himself up as a dictator—a “stationary bandit” who monopolizes and rationalizes theft in the form of taxes. A secure autocrat has an encompassing interest in his domain that leads him to provide a peaceful order and other public goods that increase productivity. Whenever an autocrat expects a brief tenure, it pays him to confiscate those assets whose tax yield over his tenure is less than their total value. This incentive plus the inherent uncertainty of succession in dictatorships imply that autocracies will rarely have good economic performance for more than a generation. The conditions necessary for a lasting democracy are the same necessary for the security of property and contract rights that generates economic growth.
This paper examines in what ways and to what extent civil society activities have made the International Monetary Fund answerable to those whom it affects. It is argued that various types of civil society associations have used multiple kinds of tactics to advance IMF accountability on a number of occasions, particularly in relation to certain matters such as transparency, debt relief and social concerns. However, the overall scale of these contributions has remained modest to date, so that civil society has only partly closed the significant accountability gaps that are found at the Fund. Moreover, civil society relations with the IMF have often been rather hegemonic, in the sense that the accountability secured through these citizen channels has, on the whole, flowed disproportionately to dominant countries and social circles, rather than to subordinate countries and social strata who generally experience the greatest accountability deficits vis-à-vis the Fund. The need for future improvements in IMF accountability is therefore not only to nurture more civil society activities in respect of the institution, but also more civil society initiatives that directly engage, and are themselves more accountable to, marginalised countries and social groups.
An earlier draft of this Article was presented at a faculty workshop at the University of Illinois College of Law. (Author's Manuscript, March 2005) This analysis of how civil society can contribute to a better system of global governance draws on the political philosophy of civil society and the comparative law of democracy. Its first part describes the civil society phenomenon in three different international organizations: the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the European Union. Part Two puts forward the moral principle upon which my argument rests: liberal democracy. The next part sets the stage for the discussion of contemporary liberal theories of civil society by reviewing the history of the concept. Part Four critically examines the four dominant theories of citizen associations and their contribution to the good life in democratic societies. These theories serve as the basis for evaluating the pro-civil society reforms that have been made to date in international organizations and for suggesting additional areas of improvement. Yet the review of the literature also demonstrates, somewhat surprisingly, that the political philosophers and the civil society activists are talking past one another: the theory does not address head-on the question whether associations should be represented in public decisionmaking. For civil society theory, the democratizing potential of civil society lies in collective life outside the state. Thus, Part Five explores the comparative law of contemporary democracies and shows that interest and identity groups can participate in public life in at least three different ways: pluralism, corporatism, and republicanism. The concluding section returns to the institutional reform of international organizations. In view of the premises and ideals that inform different cultures of democracy and the realities of politics in the international realm, I argue that the public law of corporatism is the most appropriate for today's international organizations.
Students of comparative politics have long acknowledged the importance of such institutional factors as electoral systems, parliamentary versus presidential rule, and the strength of parties; but they have either regarded the institutions as given or have explained them entirely in domestic terms (associating proportional representation, for example, with the intensity of social cleavages). In economically advanced democracies, however, these institutional aspects can be plausibly linked to dependence on trade: proportional representation, the parliamentary system, strong parties, and large electoral districts have “survival value” for developed democracies exposed to trade. That the recently revived agitation for proportional representation in the United Kingdom has been cast explicitly in terms of economic necessity and dependence on trade adds force to this argument, and suggests the need for further historical research on other cases of institutional adaptation and change.
The relationship between democracy and globalization has been a subject of both scholarly and policy debate. Some argue that the two go hand in hand - that unrestricted international transactions encourage political accountability and transparency and that politically free societies are least likely to restrict the mobility of goods and services. But others argue that democracies, in which special interests that suffer from foreign competition have voice, are more likely to have closed markets, and vice versa. Our analysis differs from its predecessors in three ways. We seek to uncover general patterns by considering as long a period as possible and all countries with the relevant data. We consider multiple dimensions of globalization, analyzing both trade liberalization and capital account liberalization. And we estimate these relationships using an instrumental variables strategy that allows us to confront the issue of simultaneity. Our findings support the existence of positive relationships between democracy and globalization. Copyright 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
I offer an explanation for the widespread diffusion of neoliberal tax policies in the developed democracies. After accounting for the policy influences of commonly experienced domestic and international forces, I consider several plausible paths of diffusion of neoliberal tax structure. My central argument is that the highly visible 1980s market-conforming tax reform in the United States should be especially important in shaping subsequent tax policies in other polities. There are substantial reasons to believe, however, that domestic political and institutional forces will shape policy-maker assessment of the benefits and costs of neoliberal reforms: the strength of right parties and the degree to which the median voter has moved right should condition adoption of neoliberal tax policy; the institutions of national and sector-coordinated capitalism should also slow the enactment of neoliberal tax reforms. I assess these arguments with empirical models of 1981-98 tax rates on capital in sixteen nations. I find that changes in U.S. tax policy influence subsequent reforms in other polities; in the long term, all nations move toward the U.S. neoliberal tax structure. Analysis also shows, however, that the short-term responsiveness to U.S. tax reforms is notably greater where uncoordinated market institutions are dominant. Theory and extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence indicate that pressures to compete for mobile assets, as balanced against the economic and political costs of adoption, anchor the process of diffusion of neoliberal tax policy. There is little evidence for the view that systematic policy learning or social emulation drove tax policy diffusion.
The relationship between democracy and globalisation has been the focus of substantial policy and academic debate. Some argue that democracy and globalisation go hand in hand suggesting that unrestricted international transactions leads to increased political accountability and transparency. And, politically free societies are likely to have minimal restrictions on the mobility of goods and services across national borders. Others argue that the causal relationship should be reversed: democracies are more likely to have closed markets and vice versa. We examine these relationships between political democracy and trade and financial globalisation over the period 1870-2000 and treat both democracy and globalisation as both cause and effect. Our empirical strategy uses instrumental variables and estimates relationships using the Generalised Method of Moments framework. Our general findings support the hypothesis of a positive two-way relationship between democracy and globalisation.