Authors: Petru Dumitriu European UnionInternational Labour OrganizationUnited NationsWorld BankWorld Trade Organization

Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? Normative Pressures and Decision-Making Rules

2015

At first sight, the very choice of the title of this book may indicate that the author, Alexandru Grigorescu, was not sure about the existence of such thing. Indeed, to be or not to be democratic is not a top concern on the internal agenda of international organizations. Therefore, Grigorescu’s fresh endeavour to find an answer to such a purposeful question is ab initio a praiseworthy academic démarche.

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Grigorescu goes well beyond appearances and headlines. He proceeds to a Cartesian and rigorous analysis in a manner Descartes himself would be proud of. First, he builds his case on a right choice of criteria for assessment, based on a suitable analogy with democracy within states: (i) fair representation in decision-making; (ii) fair voting; (iii) participation of representatives from civil society in decision-making and in the implementation of decisions; (iv) parliamentary oversight of the executive; and (v) public access to information. This axis of good is well accompanied in Grigorescu’s model by a thoughtful pick of international organizations under scrutiny: the League of Nations, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. Together they make a fine sample of diversity in mandates, institutional structures, and distribution of power. With these powerful tools in hand the author performs a step-by-step overview of the democratic mechanisms as they exist in practice or in the constitutions of the selected intergovernmental organizations. In other words, Grigorescu engages the reader in a demanding but rewarding effort to lighten the dark under the lamp: to what extent is democracy practiced by those who preach it? Is there any trend in the evolution of intergovernmental organizations, from the visionary experiment of the League of Nations to the supranational impulse of the European Union, passing by the tripartite configuration of decision-making in the International Labour Organization? Analyze that! The method chosen by the author being quite clever, the results are not less. The algorithm works impeccably. Grigorescu leaves no initial question without response. He starts with an elaborate introduction entitled – with useful caution and inverted comas – “Democratic” Intergovernmental Organizations. Further on, each chapter dealing with the five criteria / norms listed above (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) takes a measure on how the democratic norms come to shape decision-making in intergovernmental organizations. The quantitative analyses are doubled by a historical perspective on the application of norms. The author was visibly aware that the enunciation of norms and their introduction in the constitutions of intergovernmental organizations is not self-explanatory of actual practices. To fix the settings, Grigorescu adds to his toolbox a subtle analysis of normative pressures and strategies to defuse them. This brings the reader to a picture that is closer to a heterogeneous reality, allowing interesting conclusions. I have no intention of depriving you of the pleasure of arriving at such conclusions. Nonetheless, I cannot resist the temptation to whet your appetite. Here are some examples. Challenge them if you can! The great amount of power controlled by the P5 in 1945 does not explain why they allowed six non-permanent members in the United Nations Security Council. Because they held a greater proportion of the world’s power than the League, the P5 could have established even more control over the United Nations Security Council than they had over the League Council. (Fair State Participation, pp. 87-88) The multiple cases of simultaneous change in voting rules and in the European Parliament’s power within the European Economic Community and European Union could not be explained without taking into account the normative pressures and the efforts to defuse them. (Fair Voting, p.129) … of all great powers it was the United States, a country with one of the oldest traditions of transparency, not the United Kingdom (with a long tradition of secrecy), that spearheaded such reforms in the World Bank and even in the World Trade Organisation. (Transparency, p. 176) Lastly, the UN member-states also challenged the pro-NGO norm by emphasizing that many NGOs were not representative entities and, therefore, their presence in an intergovernmental organization was not reflective of democracy. (Participation of Nongovernmental Actors, p. 218) The parliamentary oversight norm was very strong among members at the establishment of the Council of Europe and the European Coal and Steel Community. [….] The fact that parliamentary bodies have spread to other intergovernmental organizations in other regions of the world, once their member states became more democratic, further supports the argument that norms have played an essential part in this particular institutional development. (Transnational Parliamentary Oversight, p. 262) From algorithm to poetry As there is no formal prohibition of quoting poetry in reviewing political sciences’ books, let me relay for my pleasure, and hopefully yours, some of the most quoted verses of T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, section V) Grigorescu has indeed taken the reader on a useful journey and a minute inspection of the grounds of democracy in intergovernmental organizations. At the very end of his exploration, he comes to a somewhat surprising, but yet wise and prudent retrospective conclusion: ‘… looking back over the past two centuries, as global democratic norms have become more powerful, the general direction of the messy trends in intergovernmental organizations appears to be the same one as in the domestic realm and in all other levels of human interaction’ (p. 281). In other words, we are back to square one, democracy in member states, i.e., places where the concept and practice of intergovernmental organizations were born. Questions in the making I will not question this conclusion, although the author has brought so much light under the lamp and has gauged pretty clearly the ‘messy trends’. After all, we can interpret his last lines as a light prediction: he who keeps an eye on the course of democratization processes everywhere may anticipate the future of democracy in international organizations. The author’s modesty may explain the existence of the interrogation in the title of the book. The presence of the question mark at the beginning of the study was understandable. Its persistence at the end of the research is a promise of more. That gives me the liberty to place new question marks on what I infer may be relevant in future research: Do we really need more democracy in intergovernmental organizations? Do we not risk defusing the power in a manner that can be detrimental to the capacity of international organizations to act swiftly and efficiently when needed? Is the analogy with national democratic mechanisms right? Are we dealing with the same measure of representativeness and with similar leverage in the exercise of power? Does it make sense to design a universal Parliament? To what extent do the existing assemblies of the parliamentarians across boundaries really serve measurable purposes? Should we continue to empower and legitimize the involvement of mushrooming crowds of non-governmental organizations of all horizons and origins in decision-making in intergovernmental organizations? If so, are we making the world more orderly and governments more accountable, or are we just transforming the international agenda into a global talk-show leaving little room for action? Grigorescu’s tome is as scientific as political sciences can be. We, the ‘practitioners’, hope to see him continue to navigate the unchartered waters of democracy, as practiced inside intergovernmental organizations, with the same compass of high precision. I trust he can go deeper and farther under the same auspicious question mark.

Review by Petru Dumitriu

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International Diplomacy Volume IV: Public Diplomacy

UN conferences on the spot – voices from civil society

In the fourth chapter of the book, Britta Sadou, focuses on non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Sadou introduces this particular group as civil society actors and continues by discussing possibilities provided to NGOs by various UN summits. The author highlights some of the main world conferences during the 1990s and early 2000s and poses two important questions - Has the time of those huge events come to an end? What could be the alternatives?

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Global Environmental Politics

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The Clash of Globalizations: Essays on the Political Economy of Trade and Development Policy

European Union external action structure: Beyond state and intergovernmental organisations diplomacy

This dissertation analyses the organisation of the external action structures of the European Union. As an international actor which is beyond a state, but also different to traditional international organisations, the EU has created a “diplomatic constellation” in which diplomacy from member states is not substituted but complemented by EU external action.

International Diplomacy Volume III: The Pluralisation of Diplomacy

The inertia of Diplomacy

Diplomacy is used to manage the goals of foreign policy focusing on communication. New trends affect the institution of diplomacy in different ways. Diplomacy has received an additional tool in the form of the Internet. In various cases of interdependence and dependence interference in a country’s affairs is accepted. Multilateral cooperation has created parliamentary diplomacy and a new type of diplomat, the international civil servant. States and their diplomats are in demand to curb the excesses of globalization. The fight against terrorism also brought additional work for diplomac...

Ten theoretical clues to understanding United Nations reform (Briefing Paper #6)

Multilateral Conferences: Purposeful International Negotiation

Ron Walker was a member of the Australian diplomatic service for 37 years, for the last 22 of which (1975-96) he specialized in multilateral diplomacy. His book on this subject is not an academic book. Instead he has done for multilateral diplomacy what Kishan Rana has done for bilateral diplomacy, namely, provided on the basis of long and wide experience, much at a senior level, a splendid handbook of practical advice for the novice.

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Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind

Framework of operational guidelines on United Nations support to South-South and triangular cooperation

Global Health and Foreign Policy

Small States at the United Nations

The proliferation of small states in the past few decades has brought small and larger states on the same playing field. Their increase in number triggered a wave of studies, raised concern by 'realists' and some powerful states, and led to an affirmation that at the United Nations, all states are equal, regardless of size.

Common African Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

The participatory approach that led to the elaboration of the Common African Position (CAP) on the post-2015 Development Agenda involving stakeholders at the national, regional and continental levels among the public and private sectors, parliamentarians, civil society organizations (CSOs), including women and youth associations, and academia. This approach has helped address the consultation gap in the initial preparation and formulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad

Regional and Multilateral Trade Agreements: Complementary Means to Open Markets

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Regional water cooperation in the Arab – Israeli Conflict: A case study of the West Bank

The conflict between Israel and Arab countries, with several devastating wars, is about territory and land, and maybe just as crucially on the water that flows through that land. This dissertation, an analysis of the management of water in the West Bank, as a case study, seeks to underline the possibility of using soft power diplomacy, in addition to mediation and water cooperation, for a more collaborative kind of approach to the conflict.

The globalization of public health: the first 100 years of international health diplomacy

Global threats to public health in the 19th century sparked the development of international health diplomacy. Many international regimes on public health issues were created between the mid-19th and mid20th centuries. The present article analyses the global risks in this field and the international legal responses to them between 1851 and 1951, and explores the lessons from the first century of international health diplomacy of relevance to contemporary efforts to deal with the globalization of public health.

Funeral summits

Berridge, G. R. (1996) 'Funeral summits', in David H. Dunn (ed.), Diplomacy at the Highest Level: The evolution of international summitry (Macmillan - now Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke).

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations

Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga

Question: When is a diplomatic victory not a diplomatic victory? Answer: When it is achieved by means of a veto in the Security Council of the United Nations. Nowhere is this maxim more tellingly illustrated than in the Council's meeting in New York in November 1996 which voted on the issue of whether or not to give a full second term (five years) to the Secretary-General, the University of Paris educated Egyptian scholar-diplomat, Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Of the 15 members of the Council, 14 voted in favour and one voted against. Since that member was the United States this represented a vet...

The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations

The complexification of the United Nations system

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy

The road to dignity by 2030: ending poverty, transforming all lives and protecting the planet

Assessing implementation mechanisms for an international agreement on research and development for health products

The Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) are currently debating the substance and form of an international agreement to improve the financing and coordination of research and development (R&D) for health products that meet the needs of developing countries. In addition to considering the content of any possible legal or political agreement, Member States may find it helpful to reflect on the full range of implementation mechanisms available to bring any agreement into effect. These include mechanisms for states to make commitments, administer activities, manage financial co...

The Milennium Development Goals Report 2015

Our Global Neighbourhood

Hanging Together: Cooperation and conflict in the seven power summits

A Tipping Point for the Internet: Predictions for 2018 (Briefing Paper #9)

Reforming the United Nations: The Challenge of Working Together

Use of language in diplomacy

Part of Language and Diplomacy (2001): Ambassador Stanko Nick takes a practical approach, examining issues such as the choice of language in bilateral and multilateral meetings, the messages conveyed by language choice, difficulties posed by interpretation, and aspects of diplomatic language including nuance, extra-linguistic signalling, and understatement. Language, according to Nick, is not a simple tool but "often the very essence of the diplomatic vocation."

Hanging In There: The G7 and G8 Summit in Maturity and Renewal

Organisational culture of UN agencies: The need for diplomats to manage porous boundary phenomena

The goal of this article is to introduce readers to the complexity of the organisational culture of UN agencies in order to limit possible misunderstandings about the functioning of the UN and its agencies and in order to make diplomatic interactions with UN agencies as efficient and as effective as possible.

The UN and the world diplomatic system: lessons from the Cyprus and US- North Korea talks

In Bourantonis, D. and M. Evriviades (eds), A United Nations for the Twenty-First Century(Kluwer Law International, 1996), pp. 105-16

Development Co-operation Report 2015: Making Partnerships Effective Coalitions for Action

Knowledge management: experience from international organisations

In this chapter, John Pace decribes the three-phase evolution of knowledge management in the human rights program of the United Nations. The realisation that knowledge management is a necessity came during the third phase. The author also describes the complex system of monitoring bodies and ad hoc mechanisms, and the developments that took place following four decisions taken in the mid-eighties.

Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? Normative Pressures and Decision-Making Rules