I am a member of several
worthless political science groups on Facebook and other Internet locations. I
come across thoughtful and encouraging literature from time to time. The rest I
see a dangerous ideology of collectivism and growing favor toward technocratic
governance. These global elites think up, write, and publish theories on ways to
remove people from the equation of government and governed. Such was the case
this morning. A thoughtful scholar or grad student thought it would be
interesting to share Daniel Esty (2006) [1] essay from the Yale Law Journal,
“Good Governance at the Supranational Scale, Globalizing Administrative Law.”
Don’t let the Yale part
intimidate you. Many who write in it are usually flat-out wrong, and usually
dangerous as a consequence. What is most disturbing to me is the troubling groupthink,
the intellectual hangers-on who think the best and brightest are more capable, and,
therefore, required to govern the lives of the masses. Nowhere is this fantasy
more exercised than at the global level. At any rate, the naive poster asked if it was
time to turn over control of governing to the world’s elites.
In a word no; I took the
time to read the essay and Esty sums up that sentiment himself by describing
Rousseauian democratic tradition as “the right to exercise power has been
connected to the expression of majority will…a function of electoral process.”
If only Mr. Esty had stopped there.
Mr. Esty cannot be bothered
by three well known facts in international relations.
- States do not like to have their destiny tied to another.
- There is wide disparity between the kinds of government, culture, and domestic law.
- People desire representation, accountability and transparency.
Applying this principle
toward supranational governance, it begs the questions whose will, and what
majority will exercise power? —the people of the world or the governments of
the world? In any case, neither can act unilaterally without the other
reacting. Legitimacy comes from the will and feelings of the people. If
previously enjoyed rights, customs, and institutions were usurped and passed to
some distant global governing body, the result would be problematic. ” Moreover, would this necessarily mean Western bias? –
or hegemonic directed outcomes? How would developing states react, or
non-Western states for that matter?
In other words, there would
exist an “absence of an electoral connection between the governed and their
officials.” This never works out in the long run.
Esty postulates “direct
electoral underpinnings are not necessary for good governance” and that
international representatives “can have authority even without direct
elections.”
I’m not sure what model he
used to come to this conclusion, but any “good governing” body has the consent
of the governed, and, thus, is legitimate in nature. The technocratic example
he uses that “legitimacy may derive from expertise of the policymaker and the
governing institution’s ability to generate social welfare gains” is likewise
unfounded. What if these so-called experts make a bad calculation?
For example, what if the
grain form the Ukraine that was supposed to feed the Congo, so the people in
the Congo could be free to mine the metals that would be shipped to Europe so
its factories could build cars and steel, sank in the East Med during voyage?
Would people continue to delegate their sovereignty and destiny to a group of
experts they’ve never met?
The likely reaction would be
that most people would start doing for themselves.
There are places, however,
for global governance but in no way the kind Esty considers. Meaning, where
states’ interest align, naturally cooperation emerges. This isn’t magic or
“evolution” on the part of states or people. As trade and communication
increases across the globe, interests and agreements converge. States will have
to consider what norms can be agreed upon and to what benefit or “relative
gain” a state stands to receive. This is seen in the WTO, WHO, and the ISO.
However, each regime has specific and limited functions pertaining to issues
important enough states have decided to cooperate as opposed to remaining
decentralized.
It is undoubtedly true that
the interconnectedness of states creates an environment where a partial
forfeiture of autonomy is necessary for the facilitation of mutual prosperity,
such as in economics, and also that certain problems are “inescapably global,”
where a lack of cooperation would “result in market failures, economic
inefficiency, and social welfare loss, not to mention environmental
degradation,” but these conditions do not necessary translate to establishment
of a system where the interest of every state is enabled through an
international governing body.
The trade off is that each
state gains security or trade increases. That’s it.
We must not take similarities
in one thing and express them as commonalties into another.
[1] Esty, Good Governance at the
Supranational Scale, Globalizing Administrative Law, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 115
(2005-06), pp. 1490-1563
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