Panel on “Global Democracy: The Struggle for Political and Civil Rights in the 21st Century” Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:00 - 2:00 pm World Bank / Auditorium JB1-080 PRESENTED BY AUTHOR Didier Jacobs Special Advisor to the President, Oxfam America DISCUSSED BY Ann Florini Director, Centre on Asia and Globalization, National University of Singapore, and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program, Brookings Institution Amar Bhattacharya Director, G-24 Secretariat MODERATED BY John Garrison Senior Civil Society Specialist, Civil Society Team, World Bank The book launch session was co-sponsored by the World Bank’s Infoshop and Civil Society Team together with Oxfam America. It began with a short introduction by John Garrison who welcomed participants and thanked Oxfam/America for having co-sponsored the session. He also noted that his own experience of having grown up in Brazil and worked with civil society before joining the Bank, leads him to feel strong resonance with the basic premise of the book, that there is a need to strengthen citizens voice and representation at global institutions such as the World Bank.
| Didier Jacobs made a short presentation on the contents of the book. The book highlights three trends in global governance: globalization, rise of emerging countries (i.e. China, India, Brazil), and increase of ‘cosmopolitanism’ and global citizenship. These trends are continually undermined by the pull of nationalism which continues to spur North – South imbalances, regional tensions, and national conflicts. The 1990’s saw an upswing of multilateralism through the activism of the World Trade Organization, signing of the Kyoto Protocol, and establishment of the International Criminal Court, but this momentum has slowed during this decade. What |  |
is vogue now are interesting yet compartmentalized global initiatives such as corporate social responsibility, multi-stakeholder forums (e.g., Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative), and public-private partnerships, all of which rely on voluntary norms as the basis for governance. Yet issues such as climate change and the food crisis cannot be tackled solely through voluntary norms. Government action is required.
The underlying problem is that intergovernmental organizations face increasing difficulties in reaching consensus when the number of states wielding real power increases. Moreover, there is a ‘democratic deficit’ at the global level where citizens don’t have a voice or vote in decisions made at the global level, even though these decisions profoundly affect their well being. While we have reached a “one citizen – one vote” at the national level in most countries, power at the global level is largely dominated by the most powerful, either economically or militarily. Even the “one country – one vote” as practiced at the UN is a flawed approach since it ignores population size and citizen’s participation. Eventually, global public policy decisions ought to be made by majority voting according to the “one person, one vote” rule, which would increase both the efficiency and legitimacy of decision-making. This shift toward “one person, one vote” could happen incrementally throughout the 21st century, and the book describes how. Ann Florini began the discussion by saying that while she agrees with the three long term trends highlighted in the book, she doesn’t feel that two of the emerging actors – global middle class and elites – are committed to reducing the democratic deficit at the global level. She also wasn’t convinced by the underlying premise of the book that global governance structures are basically unbalanced and ineffective. While there is no dispute that looming problems do require improved consensus-building, we shouldn’t overlook the achievements of such institutions as the UN and World Bank. It would also be a mistake to propose some sort of ‘league of democracies’ as some world leaders have recently, in which countries such as China or Russia might be excluded as this could lead to further tensions and lack of consensus around major challenges facing the planet. Amar Battachrya, reflecting the point of view of emerging governments, began by stating that he closely identified with the book’s premise that global governance structures, such as the Bretton Woods Institutions, are unbalanced and power skewed towards rich countries. This has led to dysfunctional global governance at a time when global problems such as climate change and energy crisis are demanding that middle income and poor countries have a larger say in how these problems are addressed. There are at least two ways forward in reforming global institutions: either through gradual reform in which the G8, for instance, is enlarged to include emerging powers; or through a more structured reform of voting and representation at the UN, World Bank, and IMF.
 | The discussion which ensued brought varying views on the ‘idealist’ vs. ‘pragmatist’ view of how to improve global governance. One suggestion was to reward countries for good behavior in promoting development in their own countries and internationally by using the UN’s Human Development Indicators as the criteria for apportioning voting power in global institutions. One participant reminded the audience that developing countries account for 75% of world |
growth and thus should have proportionate levels of power in global institutions. Another participant suggested that population size should also be a criteria used in determining voting share as a country with over a billion people should not have the same voting share as a country with less than 1 million persons.
To learn more about the book, see www.global-citizens.org.
Podcasts - Part I and 2 |
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