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Meeting
the Political Challenge to Globalization
By Richard
Falk
Princeton University. TFF associate
"The Battle of Seattle" that occurred during the
recent meeting of the WTO in Seattle needs to be
understood as the first crisis of globalization that
poses a political challenge. The Asian financial crisis
more than two years earlier was mainly a regional crisis
of an economic character despite its wider reverberations
in Japan, Russia, Brazil. The control mechanisms proved
reasonably effective, and an Asian recovery is underway
without any pressure for deep substantive reforms. We
hear less and less talk about "a new financial
architecture" in the last several months. Perhaps, there
is more awareness of the importance of sound banking
systems and a less dogmatic attitude toward fiscal policy
on the part of the World Bank and IMF to avoid the sort
of social trauma that especially befell Indonesia after
1997.
But Seattle was a different and shriller alarm bell.
It occurred in the city of Microsoft, Starbucks, and
Boeing, three of the symbolic giants of a globalizing
world. It created anew images of civil society at war
with the established order, but this time over the
character and nature of global capitalism. Unlike the
Asian financial crisis, this time the core concerns in
the streets and in the meeting halls were not primarily
about the economic viability of globalization, but about
the political acceptability of global economic
governance.
Putting to one side, the anarchists, relics of the old
left, who smashed some storefronts associated with global
capitalism. And putting to the other side, some familiar
complaints by governments of the South that the WTO was
administering regimes of "unfair trade." These issues can
be put aside because they were neither new nor
fundamental challenges directed at globalization. What
was new, and at the core of the events at Seattle, was
the insistence that if globalization is to go forward,
its managers must apply many of the same democratic
principles in the international policy arenas that shape
the globalization agenda that it ardently supports for
state/society relations.
Of course, it is possible to contend that mob in the
street is of no political weight, and that they have
their political arithmetic backwards. Such was the
argument put forward by "the end of history" pundit,
Francis Fukuyama. His main claim, echoed by an array of
influential mainstream editorials, was that the
progressive protesters have it all wrong, that
globalization has been of great help to the poor of the
world, that its effects have achieved far more equity
than either socialist or welfare-oriented governments
ever managed. Even socialist China has acknowledged this
role of the world market by doing its best to become a
full participant, including membership in the WTO.
Of course, there is considerable economic merit in
this message to the protesters, but it mainly misses the
point. The protest was less about economics than about
politics. The bottom line can be summarized: "It's
democracy, stupid!" And here, it is important to
recognize the dual nature of the opposition to the WTO
operation: those making noise in the streets were on a
parallel path to the angry complaints of many
governmental representatives inside the meeting halls.
These latter complaints were directed at "the green room"
tactics of the dominant rich countries was shutting them
out from meaningful participation in WTO agenda-setting
and policy-making. In effect, the WTO was being run by a
small, secretive, unelected, and unaccountable club of
countries dominated by the United States.
This inter-governmental line of complaint converged
with the allegations of the protesters in the streets,
but it was far from identical. The activist NGO consensus
was formed around the idea that the WTO, as a whole was
encroaching upon the sovereign rights of the peoples of
the world, that it had usurped constitutional rights of
citizens everywhere, and that it was operating in a
manner that had some of the trappings of an oppressive
form of "world government." These criticisms mix
perceptions with fears, and do seem to exaggerate both
the nature of the WTO, and its capabilities. Politically,
this set of views is an inversion of normal progressive
politics, as it puts forward a defense of the state and
the idea of sovereignty rather than the more usual
leftist attack. But if carefully considered, the relation
between power and politics is being transformed by
globalization. The state, if responsive to its citizenry,
now becomes a source of resistance to the growing fears
associated with abusive globalization. In an important
sense, post-cold war politics is mainly about an emergent
struggle to control the way in which the state mediates
between global market priorities and the interests of its
territorial citizenry.
In this respect, the wavering of Bill Clinton suggests
a change in the direction of the prevailing wind.
Clinton's approach to being "a new Democrat" through most
of his presidency has been to go all out to promote
economic globalization, defying many traditional
interests of his party in pushing for the ratification of
NAFTA and in championing the WTO. But at Seattle Clinton
flinched, expressing sympathy, verging on solidarity, for
the demands of organized labor and of those calling for
democratization of the WTO.
This question of democracy is surfacing now as a
contested issue. Many influential commentators insisted
that the global trend toward democracy was the most
significant and hopeful achievement of the century just
ended, but their point of reference was public order
internal to the state. It was an endorsement of
constitutionalism relating to elections, free speech, and
human rights generally, for all peoples. Such enthusiasm
for democracy was shared by most protesters in Seattle,
but their view of the scope and emphasis of democracy was
decidedly more globalized. These protesters wanted
democratic ideas of participation, accountability, and
transparency to extend to international institutions, and
especially to those concerned with the shaping of global
economic policy. They were objecting to elitism in the
WTO, and elsewhere, and to the tendency of global market
forces to override the priorities and interests of
nation-states.
Unlike the Asian financial crisis, there is no
economic "fix" for the troubles in Seattle. The challenge
is to find a political fix that commands widespread
societal support. It is possible to move toward more
representative procedures within the WTO, IMF, and
elsewhere, and this would meet part of the criticism. It
would also seem feasible to operate with far greater
openness, and with more responsiveness to the concerns of
economically distressed countries. What may be more
difficult to address is the demand that international
standards in relation to labor be implemented in the
developing countries, and that environmental protection
in the North take precedence over considerations of world
trade.
An important part of the challenge is a matter of
better public relations. It is encouraging in this
respect that so many leading global corporations have
come to realize that their profitability is bound up with
their reputation as respectful of social and
environmental concerns. The mood at Davos was shaken the
last couple of years by the Asian financial crisis, and
will undoubtedly be shaken this year even more by
Seattle. As the MIT economist, Paul Krugman, sagely
notes, the forward thrust of globalization will not be
sustained unless those who control the play of global
market forces find ways to engage a far larger part of
the public throughout the world in the belief that the
world economic system is not only economically
beneficial, but that it is also working in a manner that
is consistent with their political beliefs and
values.
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