International Organizations and Architecture of World Power

If we want to create a different world, we have to imagine and construct institutional features of alternative futures. First, we need to ask to what extent the existing institutions can be reformed. And to what extent we need to create new global or transnational institutions. What could they be like? How can they avoid what Walden Bello calls "the Jurassic trap", the inability to tolerate and profit from diversity?

Assuming that the institutions of the world we want to create should be as democratic as possible, the question of applying democratic principles in global and transnational contexts is one of the most important ones we face. What could democracy mean in global governance? What are the limits of the "one country, one vote" principle? What would applying "one person, one vote" on a global level mean? Is, for example, the idea of a popularly controlled global parliament feasible? Is it desirable? If not, what is? Global civil society assemblies?

One theme that many of the organizations gathered in Porto Alegre consider important is a tax on intercurrency exchanges, often formulated as the Tobin Tax. It is however, not sufficiently debated what kind of institution(s) should administer the tax. The IMF, as originally proposed by James Tobin? The UN? A new transnational institution with radically democratic decision-making principles, as suggested by the Network Institute for Global Democratization?

These questions are also related to a basic question of political semantics. Is it analytically sharp and politically useful to define the organizations and movements gathered together in Porto Alegre as being against globalization, if the term is understood as the increasing transgression of nation-state borders on a worldwide level? Or is it rather that many of the organizations are looking for a different kind of globalization, perhaps formulated in the language of internationalism? Is deglobalization, as proposed by Walden Bello, an effective term to describe the aims of the movements?

It is frequently assumed that in the globalization debates, being "anti" represents more radical and revolutionary options, whereas the "alternatives" are on the side of more superficial reforms. Is this assumption really helpful? Should we take into account that while anti-globalization people can be pro-capitalist, pro-globalization people may be anti-capitalist?

While I am certainly in favor of aiming at radical transformations in the global space, the kind of cosmopolitanism of this attitude implies needs to be analyzed also in cultural terms. To what extent models of global democracy are such products of Western modernity that imply cultural imperialism or neocolonialism? Definitive answers are not easy to find, but it is time we start asking meaningful and concrete questions about what kinds of institutions we want to struggle for.

Some questions for the debate, prepared
Teivo Teivainen