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In A New World Order, Anne-Marie Slaughter presents an alternative conceptualization of global governance in an increasingly interconnected world. Challenges facing contemporary states disregard borders, and yet a world government is, according to Slaughter, appropriately feared. What, then, is the solution to this “globalization paradox”? Rejecting proposals by other scholars, Slaughter argues that neither one-dimensional states, nor a world government created from the amplification of inter-governmental organizations, will govern the world of the future. There may, instead, be another path: governance by the expanded transnational government networks of multi-faceted states. In her book, Slaughter not only presents a vision of what is happening, but also offers a normative prescription for a more effective and just world order.
There is no shortage of evidence that this process is under way, and the author points to the three branches of American government as proof. In the executive branch, government networks form around international law and problems that transcend state borders. Slaughter shows that transnational networks already address financial stability, environmental regulation, trade policy, debt management, poverty reduction, corporate accountability, international crime, and terrorism. Regulatory agencies harmonize rules and procedures as part of an effort to facilitate cooperation and share expertise with foreign counterparts.
At this point, Slaughter anticipates two main critiques. First, widened use of executive orders and regulatory mandates to determine policy can undermine self-government, especially where these sources of policy are either unelected bureaucrats or foreign specialists. Second, these methods challenge the representative character of government and alter the original procedures for policy formation. The author notes that traditional international treaty organizations are often criticized for being removed from the people they are meant to represent, and that the distance between supra-national policymakers and those who live by their decisions drives popular reticence to the idea of global government. While Slaughter flirts with this dilemma and some potential solutions, her view is disappointingly narrow.
What the author fails to consider is that regulatory policy by bureaucratic consultation, while efficient, comes at the cost of public input. It increases the likelihood that the involved public will be comprised of groups closest to the issues and with capacity for monitoring, and not necessarily those who represent citizens’ interests. For better or for worse, the current system is not a technocracy, but one of input from a public with average knowledge. Without questioning the value of highly capable appointees and regulators, there is a well-founded anxiety that permitting bureaucrats to formulate policy without the input of the general public will undermine the representative process. Congressional advice and consent typically ensures that policy modifications for harmonization are considered in light of the broader interests of the
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public. As transnational policymakers and bureaucratic negotiators take on greater responsibility, become more apolitical, and acquire more technical expertise, they are likely to become less responsive to the general political will. Senators who consider treaties must communicate their reasoning to their constituencies, but the public is less likely to hear from decision-makers with no electorate. Finally, the form of bureaucratic cooperation on specific transnational issues proposed by Slaughter comes at the expense of comprehensiveness. This part-and-parcel approach treats issues such as environmental regulation as insular when, in reality, the boundaries between policy arenas are artificial. Traditional avenues hold greater potential to develop broad policies that consider the interplay between, for example, public health, environment, and industrialization. Slaughter is effective in endorsing transnational networks as a solution to common problems, but she is less persuasive in proving that they should be the primary means of international cooperation.
A New World Order also fails to present the full impact of its vision on all states. Transgovernmental networks, as the principal latticework constructing global governance, would have dramatic effects on less powerful countries. It is difficult to imagine that smaller and less-developed states will subscribe to Slaughter’ portrayal of sovereignty as merely the capacity to participate. They will instead perceive transnational networking (as the exclusive means to establish trade policy, for example) as eroding their sovereignty, a concept weaker states will continue to understand as the ability to determine what policies best suit their countries without having to give superseding consideration to the interests of other, more powerful states. In her analysis, Slaughter does not offer any semblance of democracy among states. For example, she touts the World Bank as an example of how “soft law” will replace the “hard law” of traditional treaty organizations. However, states would likely reply that institutions such as the World Bank sometimes offer transitioning states little in the way of local input and civic participation in policies. Slaughter indicates that the influence of organizations such as the World Bank on transnational networks will ensure the availability of the best information and highest expertise. But even if she is correct in that assumption, Slaughter fails to reassure less-influential states that the new world order will afford their citizens meaningful or equal participation.
The vision of transgovernmental networks is simultaneously insensitive and responsive to the reality that not all states benefit from the same approach to a shared problem. It is responsive by accommodating input from a variety of states and transferring ideas in all directions. However, the network-system may also be insensitive to the diversity of national experiences, spawning policies that are ill-fitted for particular national situations. Under such a system, less-powerful states will likely have to make more, not fewer, concessions to a dominant partner.
While Slaughter assumes that a disaggregated state is a present and desirable reality, its price is not meager. Regulatory policy from transnational experts may be functional and effective, but its threat is over-specialization. Without
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comprehensive discussions, negotiations, and critiques, policy formation by highly specialized experts will likely yield a host of unintended externalities in other domains. Perhaps the clearest example is the Structural Adjustment Policies put forth by the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) during the late 1980s and early 1990s. IMF policies often had an unintended but signifi-cant impact upon labor, healthcare, agriculture, urbanization, education, and poverty in less-developed countries. Such externalities are less likely in a multi-issue organization that permits greater public discourse on potential consequences of proposed policies. Without such valuable discourse, decentralized decision-making may create issue-specific policies which contradict efforts of other policymakers.
In the legislative and judicial arenas, Slaughter’s primary portrait is less controversial. The author claims that the current practice is for legislators and judges to confer regularly and share professional approaches to universal challenges, and she is persuasive in showing the benefits of such interactions. The rewards of learning from the experiences of others are priceless, especially for countries in governmental transition. However, Slaughter’s discussion of the “cross-fertilization” between judges, evidenced by their opinions, overlooks several nuanced contentions. She cites the widespread awareness of international law by American scholars and judges, and then expands this to support international and foreign law as a persuasive authority in American opinions. She notes, for example, that Americans find little problem with the influences of English law on U.S. jurisprudence or the influence of their own Constitution on foreign governments. However, Slaughter’s discussion of this topic ignores the distinction between the use of foreign law as an interpretive tool and its use an authority with which to override domestic law. The oversimplification of this debate, like her cursory and insufficient discussion of the development of human rights law, is to the detriment of her commentary. Otherwise, she has constructed an elegant expansion on a long line of articles discussing the manner in which judges cooperate, conflict, consult, and negotiate on overarching questions.
A New World Order is excellent when it is descriptive, providing an outstanding account of how regulators, legislators, and judges interact with their foreign counterparts to share expertise and find solutions to common problems. It is when the book adopts a prescriptive tone that it raises more concerns than it resolves. Slaughter’s expansion on Keohane and Nye’s now classic concept of complex interdependence reveals its proliferation, but it does not provide a clear roadmap for how this phenomenon will buttress the ideal global order. Instead, Slaughter persuasively promotes transnational networks in concert with traditional intergovernmental organizations. Throughout her book, she sets out to show that such networks will eventually come to replace traditional avenues of international cooperation in all but a few arenas.
—Melanie Conroy
HLSHRJ@law.harvard.edu
This file was last modified:
Wednesday, 27-Sep-2006 09:32:52 EDT