Thinking global brings a world of problems

By Janet Daley
26 Sep 2009

You are a political leader whose domestic programme is bogged down in messy controversy: what do you do? You go global. You walk the world stage with an air of supercilious moral righteousness, implying by your preoccupied manner that all the trouble back at home is just parochial backbiting.
I am not just talking about Gordon Brown. He is part of a great tradition of failing prime ministers and presidents at the fag end of their tenures going walkabout on the international circuit, in the hope that this larger arena will provide some sort of dignified final chapter to their historical story. But Barack Obama is at it too, and he is just at the beginning of what could still be (in spite of his present difficulties) a successful presidency.
No, there is something quite different going on: it is not just the clapped-out and desperate players who are leaping on to the grand transnational plane. There is a new discourse in the air which goes beyond the established understanding of the relationship between national and international politics: a language of "global governance" and an apparent consensus that all the interests of responsible countries are now "shared interests".
This vocabulary has aroused little resistance outside America, perhaps because older nations are sufficiently cynical to utter platitudinous phrases that they never intend to be bound by, whereas the US, whose political culture rests on sacred documents, places much more significance on words. And some of the words that are bandied about by the G20 are fatuous at best and sinister at worst.
The idea of global governance is meaningless without mechanisms to enforce it, so what are we talking about here? World government? A system of laws and policing which would be beyond the reach of the electorates of individual countries, and therefore have no direct democratic accountability to the peoples of those nations? Even assuming that such institutions did not take on a self-justifying life of their own – which history teaches us is almost inevitable – and that they remained fastidiously responsive to the heads of national governments, they would still be, by definition, supranational.
In other words, their function would be precisely to ignore those needs and interests of individual countries which might endanger the welfare of the larger entity. And the welfare of that larger entity would be judged by – what? The interests of the most powerful or the most populous countries? Or by a simplistic majority vote? Or by endless wrangling and ineffectual compromise – as we see now in that sententious talking shop, the G20? And in this vast permanent seminar, how much would democratic legitimacy count in a nation's degree of influence: would a dictatorship have as much power as a fully fledged democracy, which would have to take the wishes of its own citizens as a priority?
Then there is the moral blackmail of "shared interests". Mr Obama has actually contended that, in the newly interconnected world, all of our interests are shared. Which is clearly false. Some of them are and some of them aren't, as has always been the case. When nations do indeed share interests, whether they are economic or military, there are traditional ways of formalising their mutually advantageous understandings. There have always been bilateral or multilateral trade and credit arrangements, just as there have always been mutual defence treaties and foreign policy agreements. It is no coincidence that such arrangements have tended to be temporary: national interests change with time and circumstances. Does Mr Obama (and Mr Brown, who is trotting alongside him) believe that we have reached the end of history, or that circumstances are actually altering more slowly now than in previous eras? Surely not. All of his rhetoric, in fact, says the opposite.
Which brings us to the sticking point: the tricky bit comes when the interests of sovereign countries are not shared, but actually conflict. When Russia's territorial inclinations are at odds with the independence of eastern European republics, or China's reliance on exports is contributing to America's credit problems, or Germany's economic priorities threaten Britain's finance industry – what then? Intoning pious banalities about global consensus will not make these differences go away: for the countries concerned they are – or may seem like – fundamental imperatives.
Every country has its unique history, its political culture, its sense of continuity and progress – and, above all, a duty to its own people. At the moment, the global governance fashion is trying to depict that duty as simply a malign parochialism – a kind of purblind national selfishness in which nations would rather beggar their neighbours than engage in civilised give-and-take. Again, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
What nobody seems to be saying is that it is the proper business of democratically elected governments to protect and defend the needs and wishes of their own people. This is nothing less than the whole 18th-century project of modern democracy with which we are playing fast and loose. Ironically, the fad for "global governance" – whatever that turns out to mean – suits democratically elected leaders rather well: it absolves them of responsibility while enhancing their prestige. Perfect. But then exposure on the world stage is also likely to betray the limits of their understanding: does Mr Obama really think that he can coerce or shame European nations – with all their historical baggage and self-serving complacency – into forsaking what he calls their "collective inaction" on foreign policy (on Iran, say)? It is hard enough for a leader to remain in touch with the consciousness of his own people: playing to a global electorate puts almost any politician out of his depth. Not that we are talking about electorates any longer. Voters are way, way down on the list of considerations in this new ball game.
But perhaps you find yourself convinced, in the present economic circumstances, that there are no national crises any more, only global ones – and that the governing of all nations must now be subsumed under some overarching international framework of law and supervision, to be monitored and policed by suitably empowered agencies. Maybe you think that is an acceptable price to be paid for stability at home and security abroad. But consider this: what if the new dispensation, once installed, fails to produce that stability and security, or delivers it only to certain nations (not yours), or does so only by limiting freedoms that you consider precious? What recourse will you have then to remove it peaceably from power, as you do your national government?

Source: Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/6234981/Thinking-global-brings-a-world-of-problems.html