Governance in an Era of Globalization

Paper for the Club of Rome Annual Meeting

Vienna, 26-27 november 1999

R.F.M. Lubbers and J.G. Koorevaar

History of Globalization

When did globalization actually start?. According to Malcolm Waters, the word global is 400 years old. The concept of globalization is much younger. It was coined in the 1960s, but it took till the 80s before it became used more often. In the 90s globalization became a buzzword and scientists recognized the significance of the concept.

So, it took till the end of the Cold War before the interaction between economic, political and technological processes caused such a speed up in border-crossing processes that the word globalization became widespread.

This does not automatically mean that globalization is a recent process. Three different positions can be recognized in the discussion about the birth-date of globalization.

First, globalization can be seen as a process that has been going since Homo Sapiens populated this world. Human beings have, in all historic periods, stayed in contact with their neighbors. Contacts among the different peoples of the world have always existed, only now those contacts are more direct and more intense.

Second, globalization can be seen as a process that really took off in the 15th and 16th century, with the rise of trade capitalism. Today's transboundary processes and contacts are a result of the voyages of discovery, the Copernican revolution and international trade in products like silk, pepper and cotton.

Thirdly globalization can be seen as a far more recent process, dating from the 1980s. Dengs Open Door Politics since 1979, Gorbachevs Glasnost and Perestroika from the middle of the 80s, the economic growth in some important former Third World states (the Asian tigers), the discovery and use of integrated systems of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the collapse of Communism signal the beginning.

Alvin Toffler called the social changes caused by ICT the Third wave. Societies went from hunting/gathering to agricultural societies (the first wave), from agricultural to industrial societies (the Industrial revolution, a second wave) and in the late second half of the twentieth century industrial societies are changing into digital societies. A third wave of change.

We assume that globalization is a consequence of modernization or enlightenment in the broad sense. Direct relations with peoples from far away became a structural part of life because new technologies made it possible to travel and communicate across borders easily, while the capitalist market-economy made it profitable to travel, to trade and to colonize overseas and the political (inter-)state system gave Europe the political stability and the military power to make border-crossing and even oversea adventures a profitable undertaking. So the deep roots of globalization go back to the 15th century.

The European society-model of nation state, capitalist market and rationalized technology is the basis, the socio-political configuration out of which globalization develops. It is as with the heatening of milk. From the 15th century onwards, the globalization-milk has been heated, it has warmed up pretty much over the centuries. As we will see in 1945 the milk started to give of some steam. But it was not until the late 1980s that the globalization-milk started to boil.

After World War two, a significant change occurred in international space. The European interstate system slowly becomes a worldwide system: colonies become states themselves. The inter-state system also becomes more regulated. The establishment of the UN signals the birth of the era of multi-lateralism and international law. Between WW2 and 1989, this inter-state system was structured along the lines of the Cold War: the first, capitalist world dominated by the US, the second, communist world dominated by the USSR and the third world formed by developing, non-aligned countries (the group of 77).

When the Second World vanished in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall, the traditional concepts lost their value. The givens of the world were gone. People started to look for new definitions of the situation. In doing so, it became clear that not only the dividing lines between the First, Second and Third world were blurred, but that the world itself was in turmoil: other concepts such as nation state, national security, national economies and so on seemed to fit reality less well. In the beginning of the 1990s the word globalization came in use. With the conceptualization of globalization, we seem to be able to make sense of todays world.

Basic Story-line

In short, the story runs as follows: due to technological innovation, especially in ICT and in miniaturization and dematerialization of products, it has become easier to travel, trade, produce, consume, communicate and entertain across borders, worldwide. We have seen an outburst in communication and mobility.

National economies become integrated in the world trade and finance markets, foreign direct investments are easier to make, monitor and withdraw when deemed necessary. Most countries try to gain from this internationalization of economy by opening up borders for international finance and transactions. The integration of national economies and markets into a world market goes hand in hand with the spectacular rise and strengthening of neo-liberal ideology.

In the 1980s this process had two major consequences for the world order. First, many important countries that used to belong to what was called the Third world had been able to reap the fruits of economic internationalization and realized spectacular economic growth (notably the Asian tigers). Although there were and still are many devastatingly poor countries, the Third World as such does not exist any more as one recognizable underdeveloped block. The Second World, the communist block, also collapsed, its parts actively seeking integration into the world-economy and international political institutions. Thus, the world order of the Cold War broke down, old concepts became meaningless. George Bush proclaimed a new world order of market plus democracy, Fukuyama wrote about the end of history and many Western commentators spoke about the victory of the West.

Frictions and shortcomings in governance

Soon however, it became clear that the neo-liberal, globalizing world was not a perfect world.

The globalized world consists of interdependent, but also very different countries. In times of the Cold War the many differences were overshadowed by the divisions between First, Second and Third World. Now, a much richer diversity of interests, loyalties and values manifests itself. These differences in stages of development, political priorities and cultural background make themselves felt in all kinds of international governmental organizations: from the WTO to the UN. That makes it difficult to come to effective and credible global governance via international institutions.

That is not all. Nation states themselves experience frictions, caused or strengthened by globalization as well. States suffer from several governmental shortcomings. In times of globalization they become both less effective and less credible. Nation states are less effective because their governance-power is restricted to geographical borders while the processes they are supposed to govern and the problems they are supposed to solve now almost all have important global, or at least border-crossing dimensions. Processes ranging from cultural reproduction to monetary policy and problems ranging from climate change to social inequality all are global or at least transboundary, in character. Furthermore, even the state policies on national issues are directed, if not forced, in a certain way by global processes and actors. Forced IMF reform-policies are one obvious example of this. The downsizing of the welfare states, especially in Europe can be seen as the consequence of internal failures caused by the logic of the welfare-systems themselves. Indeed, in the welfare system people had become objects of care, instead of citizens empowered to participate in work and society.

However, it can hardly be denied that the down-sizing policies were also inspired by mechanisms of global competition and by the world-wide neo-liberal ideology.

States become less effective in face of global processes, problems and anonymous global powers. They also become less credible in the eyes of citizens. This has several reasons.

The fact that Western states dont want to and can not fulfill one of their core tasks since World War 2 -provide citizens with social security and sustain the welfare state- in combination with the fact that they are not capable to fulfill new, important tasks in global society does enough to discredit them. On top of that they are not successful in fighting violence in failed states, or in responding to environmental challenges.

The commercialization and mediazation of politics harms the integrity of politics further.

Elections are marketing-stunts, media-events, oriented to presentation and fund-raising rather than on serious political discourse. Voters go for this, but that does not mean they take politicians serious because of it. Integrity of politics is undermined by the growing (visibility of) corruption that seems to invade democracies and non-democracies alike: there is more market as integrity in dealing with the public cause.

So, while international governmental cooperation is hampered by the differences in political choice, cultural background and economic development between nation states, national governments can not provide needed governance because they are too small and because they lose effectivity and credibility in the eyes of their citizens. This is all the more painful, since the globalizing world suffers from serious deficits.

There are many problems that need to be solved urgently, problems that seriously threaten quality of life for all peoples and nations.

Deficits

First of all we have to deal with problems concerning security.

This security-deficit as perceived by the public at large, is a consequence of the fact that nation states are supposed to look after their own internal security themselves. However, failed states do not, can not do so, and the international community Btime and again- finds it difficult to respond. The lack of social cohesion and the insufficient capacity to include people is another cause. Exclusion fuels crime. Finally a more borderless world inevitably is also a window of opportunity for crime in a world where nation states are fundamentally limited to their own territory.

So, on the one hand we face conflicts in failed states and the incapability of the international community to respond adequately. On the other hand both Asurvival criminality@ caused by poverty and Aorganized crime@ Bfacilitated by a more borderless world- intensify.

Secondly there is a social deficit.

Globalization offers a lot of people chances to improve the quality of their lives. These chances can be grasped if one is highly educated, has highly developed social skills and has access to well functioning labor- and/or capital markets. Many people are not this lucky, many people are excluded. Within countries income gaps and social cleavages grow. At the international level many countries and almost all of Africa are incapable of joining the globalized economy. This is already very painful in real facts and figures. The experienced social deficit is even larger. In the West people can now see the injustice done to workers and poor in the less developed countries. Out of this arises a general feeling of discontent. In the less developed countries, people get a glance, via tourism, advertisement and TV, of the rich life in the West. It is not too speculative to suppose that this aggravates feelings of relative deprivation. The drama is that the world is becoming one economic space, while the world as one social space is far, very far away.

Thirdly there is an environmental deficit.

The Ocean our Future, the report published by the Independent World Commission, pointed out that the interface between humankind and the oceans is becoming vulnerable, because of the growth of mega-cities near the oceans and the application of modern technology and economic enterprise in the coastal zones.

With the spreading of economic welfare and unprecedented demographic growth (at least in absolute numbers) many such huge environmental problems come into sight. How to restore the balance between ecology and economy? National environmental policy is not very effective in dealing with global environmental problems. At the same time, it is difficult to develop global environmental policies due to differences between the countries of the world in economic development, political choices and cultural backgrounds.

Next to the security, social and environmental deficit we also have to cope with a democratic deficit. This notion captures two problems.

First, national democracies are weakening. The state is less effective in realizing societal values and therefore politics becomes less credible. Politicians and citizens often believe and vocalize that government has to be based on the voice of the market and the voice of the expert instead of the voice of the people.

Second, the sovereignty of the people as guaranteed by national parliaments is limited to national policies. The more these policies are being embedded in and dependent on the supra-national juridical-political surrounding, the less meaningful parliaments can be. On the international level, there is no representation of the people. With international treaties, parliaments only have the right to veto. Furthermore, international organizations usually have no parliament at all and if they do (the EU), parliamentary power is restricted. In short, the more the international and supra-national level gains in importance for world-governance, the less power there is for national parliament and the bigger the democratic deficit will be.

To counteract the basic governmental shortcomings as described above, states pool their governing capacities in international governmental organizations (IGOs), international agreements and negotiations, policy-coordination clubs and the like. In that way they enlarge their possibilities for political action geared to global problems. However, the democratic mechanisms for international political processes are fundamentally flawed.

The new world order is no perfect world. It is more scaring than promising. Certainly, there are opportunities, but a too optimistic view will destroy motivations and actions to improve quality of life in our world. At the same time we have to stress that a too negative, apocalyptic view will do the same. Globalization as such is a given, but the outcomes will depend on the combined effects of human action.

Rebound effects

Humans indeed act and react in very different ways to globalization. On the one hand they oppose to certain socio-cultural traits of the globalizing society. On the other hand, people become socially active to compensate for the several deficits. Now that governments can not effectively fight deficits, people turn their attention, hope and energy to social organizations and movements.

In opposition to globalization or in addition to a cosmopolitan outlook, people turn to local and ethnical identities to distinguish themselves from others. They accentuate their uniqueness, look for identification with local groups, cultural roots, ethnic notions. Sometimes this type of identification takes the form of aggressive in- and out group thinking as in fundamentalism and extreme nationalism. Most of the times however, local identification is constructive, it raises solidarity between group-members, without threatening outsiders.

In opposition to the economization of life, consequence of extreme liberalism, people start to accentuate values, emotions, spirituality and religion.

In opposition to individualization, people start thinking in terms of we, they look for groups to belong to. Humans develop as humans in meaningful interaction with each other. In the globalizing world the opportunities for meaningful interactions are threatened by passive consumption, passive entertainment and meaningless work. To balance this, more and more people associate in value-oriented groups such as non governmental organizations (NGOs), new social movements (NSMs) and religious movements new style.

Lastly, as opposed to the short-term oriented, destructive waste-society, people have become interested in sustainable development as an alternative trajectory for humankind. Economic objectives are to be integrated with and weighted against social and environmental objectives. The short-term interests of people here and now are to be integrated with and weighted against long-term interests, interests of people living far away and of people that shall live in the future.

In response to globalization as such and the frictions and deficits it causes, people express opposite attitudes: looking for roots, emotions, we-feelings, spirituality. Those attitudes crystallize in institutions. It is interesting to see that there is a revival of civil institutions and organizations like NGOs, New Social Movements (NSMs), religious movements, sects, cults, neighborhood-groups and the like. In those institutions people associate voluntarily, not forced by law or necessity, but internally motivated, convinced of the value of participation in itself. That gives these kinds of social institutions their special value and a governance-systematic based on voluntary compliance.

So, the reactions, the attitudes of people are not confined to the individual realm, but institutionalize and often get organizational forms. They become social forces that interact with and change the globalization process.

Recapitulation

At the end of the eighties it became clear that technological innovations and the hegemony of neo-liberalism changed the world order of the Cold War for good. The Second and Third World became part of the First. International markets became global ones. The world was in change and it seemed for the better. The West won, the societal-model of market plus democracy would spread worldwide and we would all live happily and ever after.

Unfortunately it soon turned out that the perfect world had not arrived. The globalizing world suffers from frictions, governmental shortcomings and (security, social, environmental and democratic) deficits. The problems can hardly be solved by the nation-states of the world, since these suffer from governmental shortcomings due to the very same globalization process.

Will the dream of market plus democracy turn out to be a nightmare? That depends on how we act and react to globalization, it depends on the response of citizens, political actors and businesses to the process. It is clear that we need to act, but how? How are globalizing societies to be governed in such a way that the deficits and dangers are fought, while the opportunities are grasped?

Recognizing the governmental shortcomings and the enormous complex problems that need to be tackled, seeing the tasks that need to be fulfilled, how are we going to provide quality of life in the globalizing world? After the exhilarating moments right after the fall of the Berlin wall, the question of governance in an era of globalization becomes paramount.

Governance scenario=s for the globalizing world

We have come to the conclusion that the globalizing world suffers from deficits and problems that need to be solved with a sense of urge and direction. But we have also seen that states and the interstate system suffer from governmental shortcomings and democratic deficits. They can not realize the needed quality of life in the globalizing world. Thus, we need to look for governance alternatives. In the older literature, from say the beginning of the nineties, we usually find four scenarios.

The first is what we could call Adam Smith revisited. This boils down to trust the market, let states and other political institutions disturb the market as little as possible.

The second model is called Fragmentation. In this scenario, states will eventually return to their own national business, using protectionism new style to keep foreign influences, products and people out. Globalization will not succeed because economic, cultural and/or political conflicts will break out. In this scenario even states may fail and prove to be incapable to resist societal fragmentation

A third option is the Pax Americana. The chaotic worldwide governance-network will be structured by the hegemonic United States. Problems will be solved in the American way, under American leadership.

The last alternative model is Global coordination. In this model, states, regional institutions and IGOs all have a function. Within this system national governments exist next to regional governance-institutions and next to the (global) UN. Across these geographic layers, there are also functional dividing lines. Global coordination is achieved by a matrix of coordination per issue and regional coordination.

In the real world we see a mixture of those four scenarios. There are trends towards Fragmentation and coordination, towards liberalization and Americanization.

However, in recent years many authors have come to the conclusion that more is needed. Next to (a blend of) those four, which are all elaborating on the nation state/democracy model, we can identify a supplementary model named new governance.

New Governance

We use the concept new governance to distinguish it from traditional government (the democratic nation state and the inter-state/IGO system, based on nation states each with their own constitution and Trias Politica).

New governance refers to the capacity to realize societal values, while this capacity is not based on the possibility to form and enforce laws, but has strength beyond the law. New governance is not based on territorial jurisdiction, on the parliamentary approach, on a constitution and paper law, on law enforcing institutions. New governance is based on values practiced in and by societal institutions. Global new governance will ideally be based on a global ethic. The values are to be realized and the ethic internalized by both states, business and civil society. This all sounds rather vague, or optimistic at best. However there are signs that the basics for new governance -to complement the nation states and IGOs- are developing.

As we saw already in the discussion of rebound effects, globalization creates its own counter-effects. In opposition to globalization, people turn to values and to voluntary value-oriented civil/religious associations. NGOs are e-mailing societies, they gain strength from ICT. It is in those institutions that people express their values and preferences and act to realize them. Civil society organizations, especially the one-issue NGOs, stand for social values like: sustainable development, nature conservation, human rights, neighborhood improvements, solidarity, equality, and so on. In those institutions people try to realize values in a direct, active way: they actually plant trees, built schools, lend money to women, take care of the ill and desperate and so on.

But civil society organizations have more functions. NGOs put pressure on other actors to realize values. They monitor the actions of businesses and states, they inform members about bad behavior of certain states or companies, they mobilize media and consumers/voters. In doing so they make use of consumer and civil power. Consumers, being voters as well, can pressure states not to tolerate misbehavior of businesses (withhold permits) or states (economic sanctions) and they can penalize corporations with a consumer-boycott.

After Shells Brent Spar and Heinekens Birma affair, TNCs have learned to take NGOs and the public serious. They know they can get in trouble if they dont.

Of course, it is a companys goal to make profit. However, in todays world, corporations need to be aware of values and norms living in their social surrounding and they are more conscious that being aware of this serves their own interests:

As discussed already, NGOs can mobilize consumers and politicians if a corporation violates important social values: for example if it violates human or labor rights.

Secondly, businesses are vulnerable to actions of NGOs since employees and staff of TNCs do not like their company to be scandalized (the shame factor). Management is afraid of demotivation of their staff.

Thirdly, judges have now started to penalize TNCs when they violate soft law principles, such as the precautionary principle.

Fourthly: companies need local cooperation for new investments.

Next to external pressures, business becomes internally motivated to maximize social goods and minimize social bads. Experience learns TNCs that going for safety, social policy, good labor conditions and environment friendly production improves quality of production and cost awareness. There are so called win-win experiences.

Both internal motivation and the external pressure causes TNCs to internalize societal values into their organizations. They do so by mission statements, codes of conduct and voluntary agreements. The trend of green and social accounting/reporting fits the new governance model too.

So, civil society has gained some influence already on business and politics. Important other routes of influence for citizen-organizations can be named. In the international political arena, NGOs are taken more serious. They are invited at summits, in UN expert-commissions and in all kinds of policy-fora to act as partners in policy-formation and/or implementation. Although they usually are not part of the decision-making process, their voice is heard more often and more clearly on the international level. The broad presence of NGOs at the summits in Beying (woman), Copenhagen (social summit), Cairo (demography) and Rio de Janeiro (Environment and Development) can illustrate this.

One last aspect of the growing activity and influence of civil society can be noticed in the search for and dialogue about a global ethic. The peoples of the world are interdependent, interconnected and constantly in contact with each other: via markets, television, communication, migration, etc. In our behavior in global society, and that is also in our national societies as parts of the all-encompassing whole, we must reckon with this global dimension.

The sum of our individual behavior has global consequences. Therefore, we must guide our behavior with certain universal, global norms. Norms about how we should relate to each other, to other groups and to mother Earth. The search for such an ethic has intensified and broadened since roughly the 1990s. NGOs and religious movements are trying, in many different forums and discussions to find global ground rules.

These global ground rules can serve as soft law. Judges apply soft law even though the norms are not (yet) ratified by government. Usually they are (inter)nationally, widely accepted norms. In the US, judges especially apply soft law in environmental and health-related cases.

This practice forces societal actors, especially businesses, to be pro-active. It is not always enough to simply stick to the law sec. One also has to reckon with general, global norms of good civil behavior. Of course, states can later turn soft law into hard law, but this does not necessarily need to happen. Soft law, global ethics and the pressure of civil society can quite effectively enhance corporate responsibility by themselves.

In the governance model here described, social values and quality of life are realized by NGOs business and government together. A new symbiosis of those three is slowly developing. However, the constructive developments as sketched here will not automatically gain strength. New governance, a global ethic, active civil society and socially responsive business compete with fragmentation of states, extreme nationalism and fundamentalism, further individualization and also visible down-ward pressures caused by naked competition on global markets. The global dialogue competes with the race to the bottom.

Therefore an important question is how and if civil society can become powerful enough to counterbalance business and politics. Businesss power is based on hard dollars, governments power is (in the very end) based on a monopoly of violence, civil societys power is based on goodwill of its active volunteers, its members and sympathetic consumers and citizens.

A relevant question, that we must ask, but can not answer completely once and for all, thus becomes: how can the processes and structures of new governance be strengthened?

Strengthening New Governance in an era of globalization

In new governance, business and civil society both play important roles, but so does the nation state and the inter-state system. To realize effective governance, it is therefore important to improve the capacities to govern of states. Due to the uncritical acceptance of neo-liberal ideology, the market and business-principles have strongly influenced the world of politics. Internationalization of markets and conscious deregulation of national economies have caused politics to lose control over the economic realm. With privatization and market conform reform of political institutions the market penetrated the heart of politics itself.

A lot of good has come out of liberalization, deregulation, privatization and commercialization. Efficiency gains and enhanced economic growth are the most important benefits. But, markets can not do without regulating, mediating, monitoring, and conflict-resolving external institutions. This goes for both national and global markets. It is very important to re-balance the power between the economic and the political realm. Not only because the market is not good at realizing social values (like social justice, environmental care, acceptable minimum labor standards) all on its own, but also because markets can not sustain themselves in the end.

Empowering politics in an era of globalization means also globalizing organized political power. Improving international governmental cooperation and strengthening International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) is therefore imperative. Extending the already existing body of international law can also do a lot of good. International law can regulate border crossing processes. Besides, via International law and when necessary International Courts, the mechanism of negotiation and mediation that on the national level is served by governments, can be established at the global level.

The democratic state, active in a dense network of intergovernmental relations, will have to stay in constant contact with businesses and civil society.

Since all institutions bear governance-power, it is important that all of them stick to certain rules concerning good conduct. Especially relevant are the general rules of integrity (no corruption), accountability and transparency. Those norms regulate the relation between organizations and between organization and public at large, but only in a very general way. More substantive principles will need to be available, to guide the moral dimension of all individual and institutional behavior. It would be overly ambitious to formulate such an encompassing ethical framework in law. But, it is possible to formulate basic ground rules, basic moral principles for all actors in global society in a general global ethic.

The formulation of and discussion about such a global ethical framework has only just begun. The pioneering work is important, since a global society can only function if it adheres to some basic common principles.

Furthermore, citizens are of paramount importance in the new governance model. They chose their politicians, they decide over business policies, they realize values in NGOs. Their influence in governance is not restricted to the democratic processes in politics, but they can also directly exercise influence. Therefore, empowering citizens is a core task for governance in globalizing societies. Education, participation, critical reflection are key-words. In the end, the quality of society depends on the quality of the people who constitute it.

The ethical framework will motivate empowered citizens, democratic politicians and socially responsible businessmen alike.

The new symbiosis of politics, business and civil society will generate governance-power to realize a just, sustainable and participatory society.

A just society, to reflect the need for justice, equity and fairness.

A sustainable society, because we have borrowed the earth from coming generations.

A participatory society, because each individual counts and every person needs self-realization in meaningful interaction with her or his fellowman.

Questions and points for debate

A) Deeper integration

The paper does not talk much about IGOs. However, these institutions remain powerful and important governance actors in the globalizing world. Problem with IGOs, like with NGOs is that:

1) the North is almost always stronger represented/more powerful than the South

2) both types of organizations concentrate on issues, an institution that integrates policies and settles disputes among different issues and organizations (like the state does on the national level) is missing.

Related to this second point is the interesting question of deeper integration that has come up in the debate around the WTO. An important point of debate is whether or not trade issues should be coupled with social, labor and/or environmental issues. Should we go for deeper integration or is it better to work with one issue international governmental organizations (IGOs)?

The World Trade Organization is first and for most supposed to regulate trade among countries of the world at the world markets. To be able to do this effectively members of the WTO recently developed further Bin line with the GATT tradition- the dispute mechanism. The dispute commissions must come to their verdicts on basis of internationally acknowledged trade rules.

There are three options to develop this dispute settlement mechanism. First, one can state that the WTO is concerned with trade. Trade has to be its core-business. Therefore it should only take trade-regulations in account when deciding over trade disputes: only when a country violates trade-agreements, it should be corrected. (This is based on the principle each institution minds its own business)

A second plea is for undeep integration. If the disputing parties have both ratified international agreements containing other norms, like an ILO, UNDHR or UNCED/Rio declaration, these norms can also be applied by the WTO. Undeep integration uses the trade leverage@ to enforce nation states to implement social and environmental standards, which they have accepted by signing and ratifying agreements. In this model, the WTO can allow a country to restrict trade with the disputing party if this party violates norms that it itself has acknowledged. (This is based on the principle a promise has to be kept).

Lastly, some people want to go for deeper integration. Countries should be pressed to acknowledge normative issues (ILO conventions, UDHR, etc.) by applying trade-instruments (like blocking exports, partial embargos and the like). One might allow countries that adhere to strict normative norms to refuse exports from countries with less strict norms. This might lead to upward harmonization. In this model the WTO bases its verdicts on trade rules, but also reckons with environmental, human rights and other aspects of the disputes.

By coupling trade rules with other issues you can force countries to adopt just and sustainable production processes. If countries do not apply with a certain minimum level of, for example, labor conditions, other countries are allowed to close their borders for exports from the deviant. This way, exporting countries will have to adopt at least minimum levels of environmental, health, safety, human rights and labor standards. (This is based on the principle everyone has to do what is right, regardless if they have promised to do so, or not).

Question: should we go for deeper, shallow or no integration?

B) Powerbalance

The model of new governance first of all will have to be seen as valid and credible. It can only prove itself to be valid and credible if all institutions (meaning political organizations, businesses and NGOs) respect the norms of transparency, accountability and integrity. Also, hard results help to validate processes.

In the governance model sketched in the paper, NGOs and business both play a role in realizing societal values. Part of the synergy between those two depends on the power balance between NGOs and business. NGOs seem quite fragile in this balance. A relevant question becomes: how can we strengthen NGOs?

Strategies might be:

give NGOs social space, allow them to develop themselves,

involve NGOs in decision making political processes, both on the national and international level,

stimulate soft law. This is often (partly) formulated by NGOs and helps to give soft regulations judicial power when necessary.

Stimulate citizens to get involved with NGO work

For NGOs to be effective it is also of paramount importance that their social surrounding Bbusiness, political actors, citizens, judges etc.- takes them seriously.

C) Exclusion versus Inclusion

The exclusion problem is relevant both in the international context in which whole countries and continents are pushed to the margins (Lost Africa) and in the national contexts. In third world countries there are extreme rich elites next to the poor masses, while in the so called developed countries many very, very poor people struggle for their lives next to the rich middle-class people.

From the world population about 80% does not take part in the globalization process: many people do not have access to Internet, television, telephone lines and other globalizing media.

Also, many people do not profit from globalization. The generation of wealth brought about by free trade worldwide is concentrated in the hands of a happy few.

Lastly, globalization tends to strengthen the tendency of exploitation, because labor-power weakens in times of globalization (labor becomes less scarce and labor is less mobile as capital). This means that the differences in income among people and among countries tend to widen.

Traditional ways of fighting underdevelopment do not seem to work well. The UN financial institutions that occupy themselves with poverty now no longer seem to be effective. We do formulate minimum standards, for example in the ILO agreements and in the UDHR. This is okay, but it is far from enough. How should we deal with this inclusion-exclusion problem in the globalizing society? What can we do?

Globalization as it finds place now is exclusive in character. Is that inherent in globalization itself, or are there ways to make globalization inclusive? How can globalization go hand in hand with a just and participatory society?

This page has been updated on zaterdag, 22 januari 2000.