CURE ILLS OF GLOBALISATION BY DEMOCRATISING IT

By - - and Boutros-Ghali Boutros Reprint | | Print |

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PARIS, Apr 30 2004 (IPS) - The current process of globalisation is generating widespread distress, destroying traditional connections of solidarity, and marginalising entire countries and even entire regions while raising the risk of war, exclusion, hatred, and ethnic and religious conflict, writes Boutros-Boutros Ghali, UN Secretary General from 1992-1996. In this article, the author argues that the globalisation of the economy must be accompanied by the development of a global movement for democracy. Global democracy cannot be limited to a transformation of the structures of national democracy. Its objective must be a new architecture structured in such a way that it is controlled directly not by citizens but by states, multi-national corporations, non-governmental organisations, municipalities, and political parties. This will require the creation of new political institutions as well as the reform of the existing international institutions. While these ideas may seem futuristic or utopian, the author writes that peace among nations grounded in a democratisation of globalisation is a desirable, and reachable, goal.

The democratisation of globalisation is one of the great challenges of the new century.

Today even the most deeply-rooted democracies find themselves in a phase of weakness caused by globalisation.

In the economic sphere, major companies are globalising as a result of scientific advances, the rationalisation of management systems, and the optimalisation of productivity. In the financial sphere, deregulation, the elimination of currency controls, financial innovation, and telecom advances have made globalisation a reality. The universal instantaneous transmission of news has remade the information sector.

These major transformations render the problems of our time essentially transnational. Environmental protection, the campaign against AIDS, population control, the fight against hunger, and the major challenges presented by technology and genetics, for example, are all issues that exist on a planetary scale and that can be only partially addressed at the nation-state level.

The current process of globalisation is generating widespread distress, intensifying frustration, destroying traditional connections of solidarity, and marginalising entire countries and even entire regions. This situation introduces significant risks of war, exclusion, hatred, and ethnic and religious conflict, and creates a climate in which irrational and fanatical ideologies proposing false solutions to desperate people will flourish.

Today we have an obligation to reflect on a new project of collective coexistence that offers both states and citizens concrete reasons for hope.

For the nations of the South, the impossibility of participating in the shaping and steering of globalisation is the equivalent of being excluded from history. It is in this context that the term democratisation of globalisation acquires significance. Democracy has real meaning if can be practised in every area where power is concentrated, at the local and national levels, of course, but also at the global level.

In other words, the globalisation of the economy must be accompanied by the development of a global movement for democracy.

Global democracy cannot be limited to a transformation of the structures of national democracy. Its objective must be a new architecture structured in such a way that it is directly controlled not by citizens but by states, multi-national corporations, non-governmental organisations, municipalities, and political parties. This will require the creation of new political institutions as well as the reform of the existing international institutions.

Four principles should be respected in the process of initiating a democratisation of globalisation:

First, there should be a greater diffusion of democracy in the UN system, which would entail reform of Security Council and consolidation of the Economic and Social Council.

Second, transnational companies should be involved in the process of democratisation so they stop seeming like predators taking advantage of gaps in the international social order and instead act like protagonists in democratic development.

Third, the aspirations of social and cultural actors, non-governmental organisations, municipalities, universities, parliaments, political parties, religious groups, information media, etcetera, must be connected with the will of the economic and political authorities. This will not be easy, but it is not impossible: though states do not want to incorporate non-state actors in the decision-making process and the control of globalisation, they will continue to influence the evolution of the new international system.

The World Labour Organisation, in which each state is represented by delegates from businesses, workers, and government, provides an example of a solution to this challenge. Within the framework of the UN, a similar solution might consist of a second General Assembly. Or, another international organisation could be created.

Finally, if we wish to prevent yesterday’s Cold War from turning into a war of civilisations ignited by terrorism and massive migration across borders, we must defend cultural and linguistic diversity, which is as important to planetary democracy as political pluralism is to national democracy.

While these ideas may seem futuristic or utopian, I insist on believing that peace among nations grounded in a democratisation of globalisation is a desirable, and reachable, goal. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)