The National Interest
Fall 2001

Can European Democracy Survive Globalization?

by Ralf Dahrendorf

 

. . . Democracy means three things: change is possible without violence; there are checks and balances to the exercise of power; the people have a decisive say in the process. Representative or parliamentary democracy links these elements through the election of representatives who in and through parliament can change policies and, if necessary, government, as well as scrutinize and control the exercise of power. Such institutions were historically developed in the nation-state, and, indeed, in many cases alongside the formation of nation-states. Both Madison and Mill (and many others) offered important reflections on the size and the nature—or rather, the culture—of the communities in which democratic institutions work; Madison speaks of a space in which there are "chords of allegiance", Mill of "nationality."

However we define or describe the traditional political space for democratic institutions, from a European perspective at least, it is rapidly losing relevance for important decisions. Whether and when interest rates are changed is decided by an unaccountable European Central Bank. Attack from the air on Kosovo is planned and initiated by NATO. Whether Russia receives further help from the international community, despite the halting repayment of its debt, is a matter for the International Monetary Fund. While in these cases one can at least point to institutions, other decisions of great significance issue from less defined agencies, as when a Japanese company decides to invest in Wales rather than in Normandy, or an American speculator grabs an auspicious moment to drive the pound sterling out of the European Monetary System and, by so doing, puts billions of dollars into his own accounts. Sometimes it is just wholly anonymous "markets" that seem to call the tune.

So what happens to democracy? Change without violence? This is hard to bring about if one does not even know who does what, when and how. It could be argued that all international agencies should apply an equivalent of the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and impose strict limits on the terms of office of their leaders. That might solve one problem. Checks and balances? This is arguably the area on which we should concentrate in years to come. There are ways of controlling the exercise of power in a globalized environment. In part they are judicial in the widest sense of the term, including regulators and arbitrators. In part, and at an earlier stage in the process, auditing international decision-makers is a prerequisite of control. Information technology helps bring to light relevant facts and figures. In some cases, national parliaments could gear themselves up to scrutinize international decisions without jeopardizing the advantages of global spaces in the process.

This is a list of items on the agenda for a democratic response to the emigration of decisions from traditional political spaces, but it fails to address the remaining and fundamental issue: How can the people have a say in processes for which there are no appropriate institutions? The large, and at times violent, demonstrations in Seattle and Washington and Prague and Genoa are clearly not the answer, though they do underline the question. They show that people want a say, that they resent the removal of important decisions from their grasp. This conclusion is derived not so much from the slogans of demonstrators convened over the Internet, but from the quiet support that they get from many who would not dream of setting cars on fire or smashing shop windows, though they enjoy reading the anti-capitalist diatribes of Viviane Forrester and others. As a result the "politics of cultural despair" is once again with us, and with it the political dangers that led Fritz Stern to write a book of this title about antimodernism in Imperial Germany.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that democracy and the nation-state are tied to each other. The weakening of the nation-state by a process of internationalization is by the same token a weakening of democracy. So far we have not been able to apply the principles of democracy to political spaces beyond the nation-state. . . .