Towards Global
Democracy
By
Boutros
Boutros-Ghali
Former
Secretary-Genereal, United Nations
Democratising globalisation is one of the
major challenges of the 21st century. If we fail to grasp the importance and
urgency of the task, we arguably run the risk of seeing globalisation
pervert and distort what has been achieved at great cost down the centuries
and what remains, even today, the goal towards which many peoples still
aspire - democracy at the national level.
It is clear that the democracies, even the most solidly grounded,
constructed as they are around the nation-state, have been significantly
weakened as a consequence of globalisation. For, whereas international
society consists of numerous political communities geared to a system of
compartmentalisation between States, global society decompartmentalises the
universal. In the economic sphere, large firms are being globalised as a
combined effect of technological progress, the rationalisation of management
methods and the democratisation of productivity. In the financial sphere,
the world has been globalised in real terms as a result of deregulation of
various kinds, the end of exchange controls, financial innovation and
advances in telecommunications. In the sphere of information, the pattern of
our lives is today shaped by the universal and instantaneous transmission of
news and data.
These far-reaching changes mean that the major problems concerning the
future of humanity are essentially transnational. It is clear that issues
such as safeguarding the environment, fighting AIDS, controlling population
growth, combating hunger or meeting the great technological and genetic
challenges are all planetary in scale and can only be partially addressed at
the level of the nation-state.
This anxiety-generating phenomenon of globalisation heightens
frustrations, undermines traditional bonds of solidarity and marginalises
countries, not to say whole regions of the planet. This situation is not
without risk. Wars, exclusion, hatred and ethnic or religious antagonism are
invariably fostered in such a climate. And irrational and fanatical thinking
is always on the look-out for an opportunity to offer false solutions to
distraught peoples.
We therefore have a compelling duty today to reflect upon a project for
living together that will offer States and men and women throughout the
world material grounds for hope. For the countries of the South, the fact of
being unable to play a part in the management of globalisation amounts to
being historically sidelined. It is in this context that the democratisation
of globalisation takes on its full significance. Democracy, to be truly
meaningful, must be capable of being exercised wherever power is
concentrated - at the local and national level, naturally, but also
globally. Democracy should be the mode that governs the exercise of power in
all its forms. In other words, the phenomenon of the globalisation of the
economy should be matched by a movement towards the globalisation of
democracy.
Global democracy involves more than simply transforming the structures of
national democracy. It must embody a new and specific architecture, adapted
to a constituency that is not directly one of citizens but rather of States,
multinational firms, municipalities, political parties, etc. This will
doubtless call for the creation of new political institutions as well as the
reform of existing international organisations.
How then can we contribute to the democratisation of globalisation
I had the occasion to explore this question in detail in the Agenda for
Democratisation that I submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on
16 December 1996, which has been largely ignored since I left that
organisation. Our action should be governed by four guiding principles.
Firstly, there is a need to broaden the scope of democracy within the
United Nations system itself. This will naturally involve reforming the
Security Council and strengthening the Economic and Social Council. In
saying this, I am very conscious of raising a paradox at a time when the
United Nations is experiencing one of its most serious crises.
Secondly, it is vital to implicate transnational firms in the process of
democratisation so that they appear not as predators playing upon the gaps
in the international social order but rather as agents of democratic
development.
Thirdly, we need to link the exercise of political and economic power to
the aspirations of social and cultural stakeholders, NGOs, municipalities,
universities, parliaments, political parties, religious groups, the media,
etc. This will not be easy, but we have no choice. For, whether or not
States wish to integrate non-State actors in the decision-making process and
the management of democracy, the latter will continue to influence the
development of the new international system. However, the example of the
International Labour Organisation, which was set up before the United
Nations, in which each State is represented by employers, workers and
governments, shows that technical solutions are possible, whether within the
framework of the United Nations by establishing a second General Assembly or
indeed through the creation of a new international organisation.
Lastly, if we wish to avoid the prospect of yesterday's Cold War turning
into cultural confrontation, into a war of civilisations fuelled by
large-scale international migratory movements and international terrorism,
we must defend cultural diversity and plurilingualism, which is as important
for planetary democracy as pluripartyism is for national democracy. It is
moreover one of the raisons d'?tre of UNESCO.
Such a proposition may seem highly anticipatory, not to say utopian. But
I wish to believe, and obstinately continue to believe, that peace between
nations based on the democratisation of globalisation is one of those
utopias that is both conceivable and attainable.
This article summarises the statement of H.E. Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali
during the 21st Century Talks session, recently organised by UNESCO on the
theme : "Should Globalization be made more democratic
