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Speaker: Robert Goodin, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University
On April 13, 2009, Robert Goodin, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University, delivered a lecture entitled "Global Democracy: In the Beginning."
Global democracy is impossibly far off, a "hopelessly distant prospect" most people claim. Not so, Robert Goodin argues. While representative government as we know it, wherein leaders are chosen in freely contested elections that accord one person one vote, is not on the immediate horizon, Goodin argues that we are moving in the direction of a global democracy. His lecture invited us to take stock of where we are and argued that we are in the beginning stages of democracy at the global level.
Goodin opened his lecture by describing what he calls the "reform act" model of democracy: one person, one vote; or, one vote, one interest. It is generally assumed that democracy requires a system of representative government and leaders chosen in freely contested elections. This vote- or election-centered model of democracy is thought to be the be all and end all, as we see in election-monitoring efforts and in international law recognizing the right to democratic governance as a right to elections.
In the context of global governance, this model seems to require that we have a directly elected people's assembly with "real law-making powers." In UN discussions, this took the form of demands for an assembly made up of representatives apportioned according to population to counterbalance a second assembly where each country has one vote irrespective of population. Today, people are calling for a popularly elected global assembly that would represent individuals rather than states along with rules governing electoral districting, campaign finance, election manipulation, and corruption. This, Goodin calls the "global reform act."
Goodin recognizes that democratizing the global order along these lines is unrealistic: while representative democracy at the global level may be achievable eventually, it is nowhere near realization now. But this shouldn't be cause for concern or despair, Goodin argues. Comparing the democratization of the global realm with that of the domestic polity, Goodin notes that the reform act movement toward representative democracy was the last step, not the first step. What can we say about global democracy in the meantime?
If we are looking for a model of democratization, we need to look to the beginning – the early stages of democracy in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries (not the 19th century). If we look to democracy's beginnings, we see two key developments: first, the king's arbitrary exercise of power was curbed. In the interpretation and reinterpretation of the Magna Carta, the notion that the king's rule is law was replaced by the notion that the king rules subject to law. Then it was a question, how to embed principle in practice? The second key development was that the sovereign was made accountable to others: he has to give reasons for what he has done. This was the Bill of Rights of 1689 as interpreted and reinterpreted.
These two developments were separated by centuries.
Will we see the same thing in the democratization of international institutions? Goodin notes that things are progressing in uncannily similar ways today. The arbitrary exercise of power by certain actors is being challenged and curbs on the exercise of that power are being enshrined in international law and practice. International law is, while far from universally acknowledged, increasingly potent. For example, certain treaty regimes have increasingly strong enforcement mechanisms (World Trade Organization and the International Criminal Court). Sources of international law now include principles articulated in judicial decisions, "soft law" norms that are vague, lacking precise meaning and authorized interpreters. The enforceability question is still present: how to interpret international law's mandates and enforce it on states? But this is no different than the situation we faced after the Magna Carta. Finding a way to put principle into practice was not obvious. Still, however, the principle had been articulated. Goodin likens this to the state of international law, noting that while it is lacking enforcement mechanisms its principles and obligations are observed almost all the time.
The second move: make the exercise of power internationally accountable. We are developing a multitude of accountability mechanisms beginning with mutual accountability between states, intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations. While these networks lack enforcement mechanisms – no one has to answer to anyone else – informal processes of mutual accountability (naming and shaming, withdrawing resources) still seem to be functioning even in the absence of formal sanctions. While these networks and global actors may not be internally democratic, we should still mark progress in the establishment of accountability regimes. Once they are in place, we can work to democratize them as we did in 1689.
Will the rest of the process play out as the democratization of the domestic polity did? Goodin recognizes that, to say that we will see the same steps in the democratization of international institutions is to concede too much to contingent facts about the way domestic political democratization took place. That said, if we are to get to a representative democracy that is election-centered, we need to put other rights in place first such as the rule of law. We are well on our way.
Goodin doesn't offer a forecast as to whether we are on our way to a representative system where there will be one person, one vote in a global democracy. Rather than predicting the outcome of this process, he sketches a model of democratization based on the domestic analogy that would push us in that direction. He asks: what democratic developments would be difficult to roll back? He notes that from time to time, there are crises to which an expansion of accountability is often the solution. The second point he notes is that accountability mostly expands and almost never contracts. Taking the vote as an example: each expansion of the franchise was almost never taken back. Once an excluded group was given voting power, they almost always held on to that power. Rather than searching for factors that will push us toward democracy, Goodin urges us to think of democratization instead as a hole: once you fall in, you can't get out. And almost everyone ends up in the hole. Of course, there are instances of dramatic breakdown where a revolution takes place. But for the most part, even in less dramatic cases of setback like a military coup, while democracy might be set back and rights abrogated, when democracy is restored it tends to go right back to where it was. Democracy picks up where it left off.
How to explain this phenomenon? Three shifts take place that make it very difficult to roll back democratic accountability, to disenfranchise people: first, the cultural shift that takes place in acknowledging someone as your equal. It is almost impossible to recreate a statist conception of community based on roles and strata. Second, the psychological shift that takes place once people have something. People tend to be more sensitive to loss than they are to the possibility of gaining something they don't yet have. Third, the sociological fact that it is difficult to demobilize people once they have been mobilized.
Will we see something similar in the process of global democratization? Goodin notes that we have already seen this pattern in intergovernmental organizations. The OECD has only ever expanded, never contracted. The G7 became the G8 and now has become the G20. The list of nongovernmental organizations that enjoy official consultative status at the table of intergovernmental organizations has basically only become longer. It seems that circles of accountability basically only ever expand, almost never contract.
But does the domestic analogy really work? In the domestic case, for example, there was a state before there was a push to democratize it. Goodin notes that we are too quick to assume that the institutional structure of states was well-developed in that early period. The King couldn't do much to exercise his power over the territory he claimed, just as international institutions don't have formal strong enforcement mechanisms in place. But this isn't to say that we can't call for the democratization of the institutions that do exist globally. The fact that they are functionally delimited has little to do with whether we can make them more democratic. And democratization of these institutions would mark progress toward global democracy. We may end up with weak democratic institutions with limited powers, but this will be no less a global democracy, and might pave the way for strengthening those institutions.
A lively discussion ensued...
Francis Kamm was puzzled by Goodin's focus on the democratization of global institutions, rather than that of individual states. She asked whether Goodin was arguing for what she viewed as a more radical thesis: global democracy as democratic control of different states. Eric Beerbohm pressed Professor Goodin again on the domestic analogy. He asked whether a democratic system of global governance would admit undemocratic states or rule them out. One could argue that a global democracy that admitted undemocratic states was either more or less democratic. On a similar note, David Grewal asked why we would not want to push for national revolution rather than international revolution. Why would we want a global crisis leading to global democracy, rather than a series of national revolutions? Goodin responded that he means both. In the short term, we might democratize institutions like the World Trade Organization. Looking at the path we are on, however, he argues that we are moving toward a second assembly of the United Nations that is popularly elected. He did not claim to predict the pace of change or to identify what exactly will get us there. But he argues that international institutions' decisions will eventually bind nation-states.
Yael Tamir asked whether we have to proceed through undemocratic institutions to get to democratic global institutions. He noted that accountability to entrenched powers might be worse than no accountability at all. Goodin responded that taking one step back to go two steps forward may not be so bad, noting also that, though this an accurate description of where we are, this isn't an equilibrium and we are likely to take our two steps forward before too long.
Jane Mansbridge and Brodi Kemp both pressed on the issue of accountability. Brodi Kemp noted that Goodin focused primarily on electoral accountability as a means of holding the sovereign accountable and wanted to know whether we might do well to think about other potential mechanisms of accountability. For example, reason-giving in international relations: we tend to think that a state must provide reasons to explain its decision to use military force.
Jorge Garcia noted two ways in which moving toward the one person, one vote conception of democracy globally might work against liberal justice. First is the possibility of domination of smaller by larger nations of the world, giving people even less control over their fate. Second, both illiberal state regimes and illiberal populations will be empowered. Thus, in addition to large states dominating small states, we may also see less liberal states and people have more power over other liberal peoples. Even if you're right about moving in the direction of global democracy, why should we think that it's something good? Goodin agreed that elections opened the possibility that "our" side might lose. But if you think democracy is the right standard and that everyone is morally equal and entitled to a say in their life, this is the risk you have to take. If you think that liberal values are important and democratic values are important, you deal with this problem by trying to persuade people to be respectful of liberal values. If you can't persuade them, you can always try America's route: ride roughshod using power. But this isn't a long-term sustainable thing or necessarily desirable. Why as democrats should we say that one country, one vote is desirable? States are just consolidations of the interests of individuals.
Lionel McPherson asked Goodin about his seeming equivocation between the descriptive/predictive and normative. He pressed Goodin to explain why we should be global democrat normatively. Goodin responded that he was not inclined to worry about that question – what grounds the idea of liberal democracy. He noted that the fact that we can't translate our liberal values exactly shouldn't get in the way of progress toward more democratic global institutions: we shouldn't try to dictate too much substantively. For democracy to retain independent value it must be largely a procedural value requiring us to respect the will of people expressed through the proper procedures.
Brodi Kemp, Graduate Fellow in Ethics 2008-09