[A-List] PROUT Gems - 34

["Dharmadeva" <dharma@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

PROUT Gems - 34

The Future of United Nations and Structural Possibilities of World
Governance - World Government, Globalization and UN Reform

Sohail Inayatullah, edited by Dieter Dambiec

[Originally written in 1999 this article has been re-edited and updated,
as well as pointing out additional ideas on PROUT not found in the
original.]

This article investigates emerging united nations positions, summarizes
recommendations for United Nations transformation and provides a
synopsis of relevant bibliography.

A parliament of humanity or a world government is humanity's natural
progression from barbarism to civilization. Only internal fear, greed,
hate and other emotions have kept humans from achieving this goal. This
is fundamentally the moralist-idealist position adopted by humanists,
utopians, and spiritualists.

The future world is a mixture of sensate and ideational civilizations;
an integrated world that is holistic, wherein there is economic balance
between regions, between city and rural areas, between genders, and
within the minds of each person. Individuals themselves have found a
balance between the materialist, psychic / mental and spiritual
tendencies within themselves - with the attraction being towards a
cosmic understanding. In this vision of the future, nations gradually
disappear and identity is reframed around bio-regions and other more
rational, less sentimental (not religious, national, racial,
territorial) forms of social organization.

The Western liberal view of the long linear march of democracy - the
perspective that democracy is the highest form of human social
organization, is a relative phenomenon and no true account has ever been
made in practice of what democracy actually is.  Numerous assertions
that here there is democracy and over here there is another democracy,
are often motivated by what party politics is about rather than what is
democracy.  The United Nations stays primarily an organization of
nations, with all their relative assertions about democracy or so-called
democracy. These nations set out to assert that people are collectively
best joined within the nation-state rubric. And that nations, however,
can and should, join together to create a parliament of nations thus
ensuring collective security.

Within the UN itself, within the framework of the nation-state,
hierarchy of power is desirable since there are the wise and the
foolish, the rational and the irrational, and the parent and the child.
Eventually power and responsibility will be shared once the foolish
change their ways and children grow up, once all nations become truly
democratically representative - so the theory goes, without ever coming
to the root of what is actually democracy.  But the aspirations for some
nations to seek dominance is unlikely to make this a reality.  This has
been a pervasive American model (which has its own agenda of dominance),
democracy having originated in Greece and passed through Europe to
finally rest in the US, it is believed. Now that communism is dead, it
is only the chaos of the Third World that needs to be managed; that is,
world order is primarily a function of implementation, merely a
technique, to use Focauldian language. The image of the emerging world
order is one where the principles of the European enlightenment and
further articulated by the US State Department are realized. The UN
would ascertain that universal human rights are respected, that nations
follow liberal models of economic growth, and that territorial
boundaries are honoured.

Structural-Functionalist

An alternative structural-functionalist view argued for by Zenia Satti
posits that the UN must be seen historically. The United Nations came
about to meet certain needs and changed once these needs were met. The
League of Nations represented the shift from the European
balance-of-powers system to the notion of collective security, of the
view that the entire body of nations would safeguard each other from
aggression. However, non-compliance from states and its weak structure
(the inability to stem aggression when it suited powers) led to the
downfall of the League. Nations continued to make agreements based on
their national interest.

Because of the failure of the League of Nations to become a
supernational authority, the UN was less idealistic in its goals,
eventually focusing not on becoming a supernational authority but on
developing mechanisms of regulating the balance of power between the two
world blocks.  This is a narrow origin.  As a result, general universal
notions of justice or peace, behind the idea of collective security,
were in practice abandoned, argues Satti. As a consequence, UN meetings
became focused on theatrics of mass consumption in the home nations of
leaders. However, with the end of the Cold War, the UN was once again at
a transition phase, most argue. What type of UN results in the near
future is dependent on a range of variables, including world
geo-politics, the growth of the world economy, technological
advancements, and the globalization of culture.  Recently, we have seen
the geo-politics of the USA take precedence supported by its deputy
countries of the United Kingdom and Australia.  The expectations of the
UN may have been higher, having been in an idealistic phase, but now
having been given a good belting by the USA in the build-up to the Iraq
dramatics and the current situation of being caught back in the question
of its relevance, a decline of its worthiness has resulted.

More radical reforms are required.  Radical reforms, for example, call
for a consensus on global human rights, on denying sovereignty of
criminal nations , for a world militia, that is, a UN organization which
is more than the United Nations. Clearly, unlike the 1930's during the
demise of the League, the UN is not irrelevant if these reforms are
being called for. As Boutros Boutros-Ghali has remarked, "The United
Nations has almost too much credibility."  Grave questions now arise
about this statement also.

Given that the emerging world order is believed to be fraught with local
and regional ethnic and religious conflicts, usually carryovers from
colonial and communist days, the UN has expand its functions over recent
time to deal with these matters. The task of the UN now that the world
is no longer bipolar is to expand peacekeeping and peacebuilding, to
gradually move towards world governance on issues of ecology,
development, human rights, penal code and other problems that no one
nation-state can individually tackle.  Optimists still seek this
outcome.

Realist

>From a realist view, critics such as Coral Bell, Keith Hindell, Frank
Ching and Wang Kan Sang argue that any future of the UN must deal with
the fact that it is primarily one-nation run and that all nations use it
when it is to their political benefit. Thus, even though the actual
balance of powers has shifted, governments remain committed to national
self-interest. The realist discourse continues to dominate with global
justice applied equally to all nations remaining an elusive, if not
impossible, idea and reality. Thus the idealist future does not deal
with the resentment small nations might feel toward big power hegemony.
How will they find a voice in the UN as it becomes more active, remains
the operating design question? If they cannot, then we should again
expect to see the euphoria surrounding the UN transformed to the
realization that it is merely a branch office of Security Council
nations and even then its parent company that of American foreign policy
can prevail, argue critics.

In this realist position of the UN, the image of the future world order
is that it will be primarily dominated by a few nations, those currently
wealthy and having nuclear advantage. The UN will be used on a case by
case basis to press military, strategic, economic and cultural
advantages. Even then, the current situation that could develop, of
which the Iraq war is an example, is that one nation which has enough
military clout can render the UN irrelevant in any case and take on for
itself what it considers to be a world cause.

Alternatively, instead of a unipolar world, there is evidence that in
terms of relative power the most likely world future is that of a
multipolar world.  Mind you, that is not anyone's democratic choice,
either.  This assertion can have a range of consequences. First, instead
of the assumption that the UN can easily restructure, it could mean that
there will be more tensions, as not one but multiple hegemonic powers
vie for who gets to run the world. Galtung has argued that we might have
an emerging Islamic power (two or three generations hence, although he
may be wrong on that given the difficulty of actual unity of those
nations), India, China, Japan, and three Western (US, Europe, and
Russia) hegemons. However since zones of power are clearly demarcated
even in this multipolar world order, structural reform of the UN might
indeed be possible.

There is a range of potential conflicts ahead which the UN must prepare
to handle. Some of these being between two hegemons, a coalition of
hegemons (as in against Iraq), and a coalition of peripheries (they of
course will not gain UN legitimacy since they were not victorious in the
Second World War).  We would expect the UN to play a different role as
it tries to accommodate the cultural and governance assumptions of these
very different world powers. In this model of the future, we would
expect continued efforts of India and Islamic nations to gain full-time
Security Council membership, thus joining the US, France, England,
Russia and China.

In any case, the guiding assumption is that the UN has come about for
various reasons and its structures reflect these reasons. There is no
grand march of history, no Geist, no divine force leading humanity to
progress, to civilisation. Nor is there any a priori reason that nations
should peacefully coexist. Power and its pursuit, in contrast, go on.
However, this simply reflects the lack of real universal or human
welfare sentiment.

Historical-Structural

Related to the functionalist views is a historical structural position
offered by Immanuel Wallerstein and Crane Brinton which argues that
because of our historical evolution there are only a range of possible
world structures available: world ideology as in a world church (the
Holy Roman Empire or the Caliphate, for example); a world state as with
the communist model; world empire as in the Mongol empire or the Roman
empire; or world capitalism as politically constituted by the particular
mix of inter-state relations, the call for democracy within nations, and
the actual state of anarchy between nations. Mini-cultural systems or
small self-reliant states or regions have historically tended to
capitulate to these larger structures, as they have been unable to fend
off globalizing trends. Thus, we should be surprised if a world
government or world governance structure emerges that is multi-cultural,
multi-civilizational and resolves issues of local/global, market/state,
individual/collective, and spirit/body/mind dilemmas. Idealistic
utopians, however, argue that these paradoxes can be resolved and that
we should expect a higher level of complexity to emerge that creates a
new human being; one not tied to the dark past, but one committed to a
humanistic, ecological, gender-equal, inclusive view of the future.

Specific reforms

Given these general positions and images, what are some specific
suggested reforms that would create an alternative future for the UN in
emerging world orders, if indeed it should be called the UN at all.
These include:

(1) An end to the veto structure arising from the Cold War, so that the
UN is now expected to work better. Thus no new dramatic changes are
needed overall.

(2) The UN should be restructured by increasing the number of permanent
members on the UN Security Council. This is to reflect emerging new
military and population powers such as India and Indonesia. The UN
Security Council must become more representative.  But this sort of
power is not representative of people in general - but only of the
politics between nations, of the shifting might of trying to outgun each
other.

(3) The UN should cease to be nation-state focused and better represent
the views of the many social movements who have been and remain critical
of both capitalist and State oriented economic and cultural models.
These include movements such as the ecological, the spiritual, the
alternative-development, indigenous peoples and women's. Often
representing non-statist perceptions of social reality and value
structures, these groups argue that nations do not adequately represent
local and regional interest groups. Currently they have no official
power and their success lies in the moral authority they wield and the
development programs they have accomplished and the alternative
development model they work from. However, they are rejected by many
national UN missions since social movements are not considered to
represent the people since they are "private" special interest groups.
They, for example, are not elected to power at local or national levels,
yet claim to represent the people. Social movements, however, respond
that while they are not democratically elected, they better represent
the aspirations of many and represent positions (generations ahead) and
groups (the environment) for which elected officials have no incentive
to defend. Nation-state representatives often only represent a certain
elite, usually, male, upper-class, elite university, and disciplined in
political science or international relations, they also argue.

(4) The UN should evolve into a world government with two houses: one
house being nation-based the other house being population-based (instead
of a general assembly and security council) or some other governance
structure that takes into account the range of identities that exist
today. Another option (more complicated) is that the UN should have
three houses: one based on nations, the second on social movements, and
the third a house of the people.

(5) The power of the Secretary-General should increase as currently the
UN General Assembly (GA) bogs down executive decision-making and
implementation because of bureaucratic and national concerns.

(6) The UN should become less centralized and move to become a
facilitator, helping bring social movements, individuals, governments,
ethnicities and other identities into forums of mutual exchange and
negotiation. It should focus on its moral authority and not attempt to
increase its executive, military or judicial powers.

(7) The UN should be disbanded because it represents a minority (which
can be the West, the third world, intellectuals, or international
bureaucrats depending on one's political, knowledge and class position).
Regional associations are better suited to solve conflicts. In any case,
the UN has merely become a debating society of clever national leaders.
It suits nor helps no one but international intellectuals and
bureaucrats.

(8) The UN must be revitalized so it can better deal with the many
conflicts ahead, including, but not limited to, issues of the newly
created nations, problems within old nations, and emerging cases
resolved only by global law. However to be revitalized it must obtain
increased funding from member nations.

(9) The UN should remove itself from the exercise of third world
development since, among other reasons, East Asian experience shows that
the international system is a hindrance not a help to the creation of
miracle economies, to economic growth. The sooner the UN (and, of
course, related international agencies) ceases to function (particularly
as lender, regulator, and expert) the better it is for economic growth
since the UN only serves to create a global welfare state and to create
development experts who are unable to transform local or global poverty.

Let us focus in of some of these aspects and changes to the UN and
images of the future world order.

* West-Oriented World Government:

Franz Shurmann in his American Soul gives an image of the UN. The UN
once a debating society has rapidly become a world government. The first
stage of the creation of the world government is a Western Block from
Vladivostok to San Francisco. There are some historical precedents for
this, when in 1879, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck convened a great power
conference to settle all world problems. However in the long run nothing
came out of it, instead a generation later a world war erupted. Even if
there were a most likely future of a world government it would be
West-oriented: a continuation of the Enlightenment project of individual
rights and liberal democracy for all. Economies would be liberal for
corporations, not necessarily citizens, and free for corporates but with
borders primarily for labour and drug trafficking. However, tourists and
currencies could travel freely.

In this image of the future, human rights are seen as individual-based,
although confined to their borders depending if you are a member of a
corporate that gets the privilege of being borderless.   The perspective
of these rights is also somewhat limited being based on the need to seek
self pleasure - with real enlightenment being irrelevant or secondary.
So communal and collective interests (the role of groups) don't count
for much.  Nor does redressing the history of colonialism. The third and
fourth worlds as well as China are left out of this equation, or must
join on the terms of the West if they are willing to give up their
cultural views of rights and the role of the State in capital formation.


* Cultural Basis for Governance:

The Chinese, however, as evidenced by numerous articles in the Beijing
Review take a different view of the UN, arguing, for example, as He
Hongze does in his "New Role for the UN", that "the internal affairs of
one country can be solved only by the people of that country. The
efforts of the international community can only be helpful or
supplementary." In addition, Chen Jian has argued that reform efforts
should not change the structure or mechanisms of the UN, they should
merely strengthen it. Change should be accomplished through consensus in
line with "the principle of balance and that of rationalization".  Of
course, coming from the language of a nation being on the Security
Council, this is nothing unusual.  Although, it again points out the
narrow basis of the UN.

However, at the 46th General Assembly Keith Hindell in his "Reform of
the United Nations" reminds us that the relativistic argument to human
rights was resisted most by newly-democratic Eastern European nations,
who believe that sovereignty is often an excuse for State terrorism. The
issue is: is there a greater good beyond state sovereignty. Must much of
the charter be rewritten to have a "right of interference" as suggested
but later disavowed by Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister of
Humanitarian Action? As the Secretary General has commented, sovereignty
does not confer the authority for mass slaughter.

All this casts doubt on the UN as the hub of an international community.
If not a hub, then it is a club.  A community, however, requires the
idea of being inclusive, people and nations working together to solve
common problems.

* The Need for Supranational Authority:

However, paradoxically - and this the Chinese find contentious to the
idea of an international community - national sovereignty can be a
stumbling block, and clearly a reflection of the Cold War and of the
lack of representation of Asian and African nations in world economic
and political bodies. As Hindell argues, "Taking a slightly longer-term
view, the issues of climate change, environmental pollution, AIDS,
migration, drugs, and international crime all require some kind of
supranational authority to act within the boundaries of the [nation]
state." Part of the issue is that without supernational authority to
enforce compliance, individual nations, who are legitimised in a
majority of ways (none of which is total consensus or for that matter
democratic), allow suffering and pain to occur to their own citizens.
"If national sovereignty resists the measures to reverse climate change,
some UN members will drown while others could lose large slices of their
territory." AIDS is another example. Hindell also suggests that an
International Criminal Court be established. "An ICC would need to be
backed up by an international law-enforcement agency with powers of
arrest, detention, arraignment, trial and imprisonment."

Of course, all these challenge sovereignty; a boundary that major powers
such as the US as well as less powerful Asian nations who have yet to
realise full (not only political but economic and cultural as well)
sovereignty would yield to. But as R.B.J. Walker reminds us the
nation-state is a recent phenomenon, created out of the battle between
church and empire. It is a reflection of the modern world, neither
eternal nor necessary. Indeed, completely relative.  All that is
relative, eventually dies.  From the view of Hisahiko and Terumasa, what
is needed is for nations, particularly Japan, to adopt a three-fold
strategy: national interests, UN interests and international interests.
These must be balanced. Nations must balance their own interests with
those of the UN itself. Equally important are regional interests. This,
of course, reflects a more forward moving world, rather than the dogma
and staticity of nations.

* Moral Not Strategic Power and Authority:

Robert Aldridge believes that governments' unwillingness to relinquish
authority to the UN should not be seen as a temporary condition, as
idealists have maintained. In fact given that strong solutions (such as
military or sanctions) in the long run fail, the UN should focus on
becoming the "spokesperson of humanity".   Part of becoming a
spokesperson involves the Secretary General giving a State of Humanity
address. Robert Muller seconds this proposal for a State of Humanity
address - it should have been so at the 50th UN anniversary. He also
suggests that NGOs prepare reports on their activities, results, and
membership so as to articulate comprehensive world assessments.
Education then of the young in every country - a drive of the NGOs - is
a far more important strategy than the long wait for governments to
accept supernational authority, especially when such authority can go
against their own particular national interests.

* World Government: Benign or Dictatorial:

A related view at the simplest level, whether one believes a world
government is desirable or not, is that based on whether one believes it
will be benign or dictatorial, argues Titus North. From there comes the
inevitability is that eventually there will be a world government.

North writes that historically there have been two ways to consolidate
power: integration by empire, that is, by conquest as in the case of the
Huns and Mongols; or by consent, as initially in the case of the US.
Conquest attempts to break down the notion of balance of power between
sovereign states while consent attempts to redefine issues and mutual
identity at a global level. The third effort has been hegemonic, not
conquering but avoiding consent as well, that is, creating spheres of
influence, of colonies. As Crane Brinton writes, in "Global Governance:
A historical survey", "It would be rash to prophecy an effective world
government in the near future, but it would equally be short-sighted to
maintain that no such government is possible. On the contrary, the
precedents point clearly, assuming no catastrophic destruction of
civilization, to the establishment of some form of organized world
government possessing the necessary police and financial powers, and it
is not inconceivable that the United Nations will develop into such a
government.

* The Inevitability of World Government:

Far more enthusiastic about the possibility of a world government is
P.R. Sarkar. For Sarkar, part of the problem is local leadership and the
fear that they will lose their leadership. Normally a cyclical theorist,
however, with respect to social movement Sarkar believes that the
strength, by and large, of geo-political and social sentiments
(casteism, racism, nationalism) will continue to fade over time. He
advocates a step-by-step formation of a world government authority,
although not necessarily based on a transformation of the UN, and a
strengthening of regional organizations. As a suggestive design, Sarkar
argues for two houses. The first would have representatives based on
population and the second on nation. Both houses would have to ratify
decisions. Initially, the world government will be legislative but only
in certain areas. Perhaps that which touches most commonly on all
people, eg the necessity for a common penal code.  This legislative
ambit will eventually expand. But world governance must be based on more
than a theory of collective security, it must be fundamentally cultural,
humanitarian, a belief that local cultures combined can create a new
global human culture and retain their own individual aesthetics. In any
case, the process for Sarkar must be incremental. Although, incremental
not in a sluggish sense but in a rational endeavour to reach the goal
that most promotes human welfare, realising also the past still creates
hindrances and most be appropriately dealt with.

Charles Paprocki, as part of the International Network for a UN Second
Assembly, has extended this argument further and writes that the UN
General Assembly should become an upper legislative house, and a council
of non-governmental organizations (or people's organizations) should
become the lower house. Resolutions would be introduced in the lower
house and, if approved, passed by the upper house. Once the legislative
structure is in place, Paprocki believes that the world government can
become strengthened once the Executive and Judicial branches have
increased power.

* A New Ethic for Peacekeeping:

Less concerned with grand issues such as world government, political
scientist Coral Bell, writes in "The Fall and Rise of the UN" that a new
ethic is needed to justify why a young man from X country should die in
a UN peacekeeping operation elsewhere. Formerly having rights within the
context of the nation-state also meant that one had the duty to protect
one's nation. But patriotism does not help the family of a dead UN
peacekeeper. What is needed is the creation of a UN legion, a military
service made up of volunteers, working at their own request. His or her
death would then not be a burden for a particular state but perhaps a
hero, someone who died for the larger idea of global peace or justice.
This view is echoed by Edward Luttwak , who believes it should be
structured like the French Legion. Using this language of justice would
take out the issue of mercenary, of men and women fighting not for their
country but for wealth. However, Okasake Hisahiko and Nakanishi Terumasa
ask in "Clearing the Way for a Global Security Role" how can a standing
army be democratically governed? Who will command the forces? Won't it
simply reflect the values and force of the world power that has most to
gain from the particular military action? They believe that a UN army
will primarily reflect the views of the nation that leads the army and
thus argue that Japan should change its constitution so it can play a
potentially greater role in future UN actions.

* Transforming the Security Council and the General Assembly:

Bell gives other suggestions as well, the first of which is based on her
reading of the fall and rise of the General Assembly (GA). Used
initially by the US as a way to avoid the Security Council (SC)
stalemate, the UN General Assembly eventually became a breeding ground
of Third World aspirations, argues Bell. Thus initially for the US, "the
moral authority of the Assembly had been substituted for the merely
legal authority of the Council". The notion then was that the General
Assembly better represents the community of nations, with the SC
representing only the victors of the second war, the great nuclear
powers. However, once the GA was less compliant to US interests, the US
attacked the General Assembly's power in the UN. The US's miscalculation
of assuming that the world thought like itself - assuming the universal
nature of a particular philosophical tradition - was a fundamental
mistake signalling the fall of the UN for Bell.

The implications are that any effort to rethink the UN must have a
intuitive and universal cross-cultural view of human rights, it must
account for difference that does not go against the cardinal nature of
human rights as well as desired similarity.  That is, the UN must become
a real parliament of humankind, in which nations would create
international harmony and thus banish war and eventually poverty, the
original view of Woodrow Wilson.  Cardinality is relevant here.
Cardinal means that on which something hinges - fundamental, important.
This is in contrast to the view of the UN as a great concert of powers,
of the mighty paternalistically developing the new young nations so as
to make sure that no evil tendencies arise - with those definitions of
good and evil being based on a elative view of virtue and vice, which
does not get to the intuitive source of inspiration.

Coming to consensus on issues such as human rights, economic rights, and
now even national sovereignty should begin with an approach to a will to
peace, where peace is sentient and dynamic, not static peace.  Sarkar
explains that static peace derives from the lower levels of existence,
in the attempt to seek only physical security without great human
aspiration.  Sentient peace is the willingness to expand one's
consciousness and realise peace is more than feeling basically
comfortable.  It requires the willingness to fight basic animal
tendencies and malevolent intellect - this sentient peace is the
attraction towards a greater centre of humanity and to retain the focus
there in individual and collective life.  In the personal life of every
human being, there is a constant fight between the benevolent and the
malevolent intellect.  This fight between the static and sentient forces
will continue as long as the universe exists.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the UN regained centre stage,
allowing the possibility of what it was originally designed to do.  But
with the US lead invasion of Iraq (the term 'coalition' being more of a
convenient scapegoat to try to hide the origins of the invasive
tendency), this has again slipped.  The Security Council has to bear
some responsibility for this degradation of the UN.  To transform the
Security Council, Bell believes that the Council must be more
representative and include India, Japan and Germany, as well as some
representatives from the South: Brazil from South America, Nigeria from
Africa, and Indonesia from the Islamic world.  The problem with this is
that the 'old' structure still brings forth all its inefficiencies and
lack of vision for a universalist and expansive UN.

* Making the UN More Representative:

Richard Evans in "Reforming the Union" also believes the UN must be more
representative. He argues that the British, French and German seats
should become a single EU seat and Japan should get a seat as well. The
UN should also in itself become democratic, he believes. He asks why
five members can dictate policy to over 174 other members. Of course, 15
nations do pay 84% of the budget, but unfortunately there are few
suggestions to include this in the reform equation since nations are
expected to be altruistic (or foot the bill for their international
interests).

More problematic for Evans is that the UN is US-dominated. "Even its
allies are afraid to vote against it." The US uses the UN to support its
own policy agenda, witness the attack on Iraq and the reticence of
action against Yugoslavia, argues Evans.

* Asia's Voice:

In "Reforming the United Nations" Frank Ching believes that now that the
UN is already 50 years old, Asia should be heard more. Indonesia's
Foreign Minister Ali Alatas suggests the creation of a new category of
permanent members that do not have veto powers. Prime Minister of
Malaysia Mahathir Mohammed raises the larger international relations
issue, asking why the UN is not democratic? He believes the veto should
be eliminated. Singapore, however, has argued that the veto should be
diluted not eliminated. Two negative votes would be needed to block a
resolution. Moreover, there should be a corresponding financial burden
to pay for this privilege. Wang Kan Seng, the Singapore foreign
minister, believes that each veto member pay 9% of the UN operating
expenses and 11% of the peacekeeping operations. Other suggestions
include the regionalization of the UN: giving a seat to the Non-Aligned
Movement, to the Organisation of African Unity, to the Organisation of
American States. What these suggestions however do not tackle is the
implications for this. Will this lead to more regionalization, increased
effectiveness or to more stalemates, to a return of not an East-West
Cold War but a north-south divide. Pure democracy while participatory is
not efficient and efficiency is hardly ever participatory.

* Accountability in the UN:

Other reform-minded individuals are less concerned with what the UN does
and more with how it does what it does. American diplomats, for example,
argue that the UN should become more responsible and cost conscious.
Equally, Algerian diplomat Muhammed Sahnoun believes that the UN is slow
and incompetent, at least in how it acted in Somalia. The French have
gone a bit further in their attacks of UN mismanagement. They propose a
tribunal to punish UN staffers. This and other suggestions have led to
plans to create an Inspector General to sniff out fraud, waste and
mismanagement. Of course, being more business-like means less of a focus
on affirmative action in hiring practices. But Yeshua Moser gives an
alternative reading to the problem of fraud. Writing from Bangkok, he
argues that prevalence of fraud in the UN peacekeeping operation in
Cambodia has not only hurt the UN's legitimacy but has endangered peace
as well. In the Cambodian case it led to increased power for the Khmer
Rouge, who have come to represent "local" people.

This perhaps is the paradox: how to have an agency that reflects the
diversity of world expressions of cultural and management practices and
is efficient instead of an agency based on power politics, office and
position chasing. Part of the problem again of the entire UN is that it
is a united nations (representing its member notions) not united peoples
or movements or individuals.

Johan Galtung in his recent paper, "Global Governance For, And By,
Global Democracy" argues for global governance; with governance defined
as soft persuasion, largely using positive incentives focused on
cultural and normative power rather than on military or coercive power.
This is favoured instead of federal world government systems whose power
is too great. The goal is to create world citizens at different levels
of society, economy, and polity. But who are the world citizens today?
Are they transnational corporations representing capital, international
NGOs representing civil society often with lack of capital,
inter-governmental organizations within the UN (with its many layers
from the General Assembly to the Security Council) or the people
themselves?  The argument goes what then is needed is a world assembly
of states, a world assembly of people, with direct voting and direct
elections, even referendums, a world assembly of indigenous peoples (to
represent those who have special historical claims), a world assembly of
international people's organizations, and a world assembly of commerce.
Concretely, this means adding a second assembly to the UN for the people
and a third for the corporations. Membership would be based on criteria
such as representation, level of democracy, concern with human
interests, reflecting world perspectives, and having a sense of the long
term, of permanence.

This model appears to ignore the practical realities of the dynamics
that are created when all this is tied together.  Again, the quest for
peace is insufficient, it depends on the type of peace.  Sentient peace
has a greater human welfare objective in the physical, mental and
spiritual spheres.  Mere peace or static peace has little of this
cosmological concern - basic security is enough for static peace, with
the objective of keeping fear at bay while ignoring the internal
psychological origin of fear and the external means such as alleviation
of poverty and guarantee of minimum necessities of life that can remove
fear and insecurity.

Main trends

To summarize these are the main reform-oriented trends that have some
standing in the intellectual discourse:

(1) Transform Security Council - make it more representative of real
power;
(2) Change structure of power within UN - between the SG, the GA, and
the SC as well as UN bureaucracy by increasing the power of the SG, or
transforming the power of the SC or making the GA more representative.
(3) Democratize UN - by better representation of aspirations of the
world. This could mean not only within statist forms by, for example,
diluting the veto, but also by allowing for some type of role for NGOs
beyond consultative status.
(4) Make UN more accountable - treat UN as a business instead of a large
bureaucracy functioning through political state level patronage and thus
more responsive.
(5) Redesign the UN - two houses, four houses, regional associations or
some other design structure.
(6) Rethink peacekeeping - creating a military with soldiers not from
nations but a professional standing army.
(7) Popularize UN - create a house of NGO's or social movements that
reflect the values of the grass roots movements, ecology, positive
peace, spiritual transformation, social justice and sustainability.
Develop an annual State of Humanity address.
(8) Strengthen UN - more powers, more military powers, more
peacekeeping, more development, and more funding for the UN.
(9) Become a World Government - with legislative power initially and
eventually executive and judicial powers; also deny national sovereignty
when necessary.

In general, there are three basic positions:

(A) REINVIGORATE AND REALIZE THE UN'S ORIGINAL PURPOSE

This is the most popular perspective. It includes a range of structural
reforms (SC representation, right of veto, power of GA, world militia)
to prepare the UN for the next century and the likely political shifts
the world is undergoing. Part of the reformist position is to make the
UN more accountable to member nations and to general principles of good
governance. The focus should be on becoming a moral authority not a
world government, a spokesperson for humanity and ecology, not a site
for the advancement of the egos of national functionaries. The UN should
thus realize its mission of being an arbiter of the disputes of nations.

(B) RETHINK ITS STRUCTURE AND MISSION

This is less popular among national functionaries. It involves
rethinking the UN representational structure to include other forms of
representation including social movements, who reflect non-State and
non-business power as well as a general assembly of commerce to reflect
the views of global commerce. The rights of indigenous cultures and of
women is also important here, not only at economic or cultural levels
but for allowing their thinking, values, mechanisms, as a means of being
part of the running and the structure of the United Nations.

(C) TRANSFORM AND EXPAND ITS PURPOSE

The UN should become a World Government through some model of layered
sovereignties with the UN having supreme sovereignty on most issues
(federal and state structure) including the right to suspend national
sovereignty when needed.  The problem of the UN as quoted earlier by
Boutros-Ghali is that it has too many expectations placed on it, too
much credibility. It is the ideal of a family of united nations, of
united peoples, united organizations that people yearn for, hoping
somehow that the UN organization can somehow meet that need. The UN then
often is more than the UN, a metaphor of what is possible and desirable:
positive peace and justice.  Realistically, while national self interest
and its politics prevail, this is unlikely to help that ideal.
Realists, of course, are not surprised given the power politics of the
world system, but idealists have renewed calls for a fundamental
transformation in the United Nations.

The long view

Structurally, if we are to take a macrohistorical view, there are four
possibilities. These are derived from: Sarkar's notion of four types of
power, being worker, warrior, intellectual and merchant (or labour,
coercion with protection; religion or intellectual, and remunerative);
Sorokin's ideas of three types of systems, being sensate focused on
materialism, ideational focused on religion and integrated, balancing
'earth and heaven' if one wants to use metaphors; and Wallerstein's
world systems theory.

Simply stated, there are or have been four structures.

1. Mini-systems - small, self-reliant cultural systems - ideational 2.
World Empire - victory of warrior historical power - coercive/protective
- sensate 3. World Church - victory of intellectual power - normative -
ideational 4. World Economy - globalizing economics along national
divisions - sensate

In the next 25 years, World Empire is unlikely given countervailing
powers and given lack of political legitimacy for recolonization, as
well as the fear of one hegemon (the most recent example being the USA)
for simply conquering other nations. World Church is also unlikely given
that there are many civilizations vying for minds and hearts. While the
millennium has evoked passions associated with the end of humanity, and
the return of messiahs, sons of God and the like, the religious
pluralism that is our planet is unlike to be swayed toward any one
religion, any one saviour.  The World Economy, has been the stable
system but now has become increasingly problematic. While the
globalizing tendencies remain, the strength of the interstate systems is
undergoing relative reduction. Mini-systems is possible because of
electronic systems and aspiration for many for self-reliance ecological
communities electronically linked. However, small systems tend to be
taken over by either warrior power, intellectual/religious power or
larger economic globalizing propensities. In the context of a globalized
world economy, self-reliance is difficult to maintain.

Revolutions from above (global institutions from UN, WTO, IMF) and
regional institutions (APEC) and revolutions from below (social
movements and nongovernmental organizations), revolutions from
technology (cyber democracy, cyber communities and cyber lobbying) and
revolutions from capital (globalization) make the nation far more
porous.  A countervailing force are revolutions from the past - the
imagined past of purity and sovereignty which seeks to strengthen the
nation state (to either fight mobility of individuals -immigration - or
mobility of capital - globalization - or mobility of ideas - cultural
imperialism) and seeks to create new nation states (ethno-nationalism.
These countervailing forces are narrow sentiments (geo sentiments of
socio sentiments) which limit prospects.

However, no problems these days can be solved in isolation thus leading
to the strengthening of global institutions, even for localist parties,
who realize for their local agendas to succeed (for example, the Green
Party), they must become global political parties, they must globalize
themselves.  Realise Global - Act Local.  This also means they must face
up to making useful economic policies as well, whereas many still have
problems dealing with alternatives to capitalism since the fall of
communism and in this bifurcated view fall into the trap of allowing the
free market of capitalism as the better system - forgetting entirely the
prospect of co-operative economics.  We are seeing even in local
tendencies a move to the global.  But for globalism, rather than
globalisation, to prevail there must be more then the freeing of capital
(which itself may be an impediment to globalism because of the risk of
loss of local economic democracy).  There must be the freeing of ideas
(multiculturalism), the saving of the environment, proper purchasing
capacity for achieving minimum necessities for all, all those
harmonising measures needed for integration.

During times of intense transformation, where there is a struggle
between worldviews and processes, the above dilemmas and thoughts arise.
Then comes a new centre, a reordering of power.  We should anticipate a
world government/security system in conjunction with thousands of
self-reliant ecological systems, a Gaian future. While liberals hope for
a world governance system to help manage world growth, the reality is
that over time, it will be a world government system with strong
localism that is far more likely.  The world government that supports
economic democracy.  Political democracy is largely a farce, as in
reality it is either individual or party dictatorships, given the
electoral structure of limited voting prospects around the world created
by all sorts of impediments like party stacking, financial donations,
etc.

The world polity will likely have a world constitution with basic rights
such as language, basic needs, culture and spirituality enshrined. The
meanings people give to these principles, however, is likely to be both
cardinal and local. We should be surprised if the UN at the beginning of
the next decade has not evolved from its current structure or been
replaced by the real push for global human welfare by another people
oriented structure.

Sarkar puts the position clearly in "Problems of the Day":

"The more time is passing by, the more the glare of casteism,
provincialism, communalism and nationalism is fading away. The human
beings of today must understand that in the near future they will
definitely have to accept universalism. So those who seek to promote
social welfare will have to mobilize all their vitality and intellect in
the endeavour to establish a world organization, abandoning all plans to
form communal or national organizations. They will have to engage
themselves in constructive activities in a straight-forward manner,
instead of resorting to duplicity and deceitfulness. Many people say
that divergent national interests are the only impediments to the
formation of a world organization, or a world government. But I say this
is not the only obstacle, rather it is just a minor impediment. The main
obstacle is the apprehension of local leaders that they will lose their
leadership. With the establishment of a world government, the total
domination which they exercise today in their respective countries,
societies and nations will cease to exist.

Divergent national interests and popular scepticism may stand in the way
of the formation of a world government. To allay baseless fears from the
minds of the people, this task should be carried out step by step.
Obstacles will have to be negotiated with an open mind, and the world
government will have to be strengthened gradually, not suddenly. For
example, to run the world government, two houses may be maintained for
an indefinite period. The lower house will be composed of
representatives from various parts or countries of the world, elected on
the basis of population. The members of the upper house will be elected
country-wise. This will provide opportunities to those countries which
cannot send even a single representative to the lower house due to their
small population, because they will be able to express their opinions
before the people of the world by sending their representatives to the
upper house.

The upper house will not adopt any bill unless it has been passed by the
lower house, but the upper house will reserve the right to reject the
decisions of the lower house. Initially the world government should go
on working merely as a law-framing body. The world government should
also have the right to make decisions regarding the application or
non-application of any law, for a limited period, in any particular
region.  In the first phase of the establishment of the world
government, the governments of different countries will have only
administrative power. As they will not have the authority to frame laws,
it will be somewhat difficult for them to arbitrarily inflict atrocities
on their linguistic, religious or political minorities."