Re: McFarling on Wagar

Fri, 02 Aug 1996 18:12:11 +1000
Bruce R. McFarling (ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au)

On Tue, 30 Jul 1996, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote:

> I strongly support Christopher's suggestion. Just some notes.

> > From: Christopher Robinson <cr4@axe.humboldt.edu>

> > Possibly, a more functional goal would be a decentralized system of
> > increasing economically (and thus potentially socio/politically)
> > autonomous "regions"

> why not to begin with EU, NAFTA, Russia with CIS, Japan with S-East Asia,
> India with South Asia, etc?

[This is actually a continuation of my South Atlantic posting in
disguise. Except, I guess that writing this here spoils the disguise.]

Let's look at NAFTA as a particular case. By a simple page count,
NAFTA is less than 1/5 a trade treaty, and more than 4/5 an international
investment treaty. So, as a rough approximation, we can consider NAFTA to
be a treaty regulating international property rights and capital account
transactions between Canada, the US, and Mexico.
A "community of community" strategy would be to build upon NAFTA
by developing additional such Trade / Corporate investment zones:
Mercosur gives a kernel to build upon in the Southern Cone; CARICOM and
CACM give a kernal to build upon in the Caribbean and Central America; and
the Andean Pact gives another (though less active) kernel to build upon in
Northern South America. One way to promote the development of these zones
would be to for the signatories of one zone -- say, NAFTA -- to enter into
trade or other negotations with the signatories to another zone on a zone
- to - zone basis. This might help balance the bias in intra-zonal
relationships where the zone was originally established in recognition
(whether or not valid 8-)# of common interests, but the focus of
relationships within the zone is normally on individual, national
interests. The process of negotiation with another organization provides
broadnes the focus to include identifying and pursuing interests as common
interests, and if the zone is originally perceieved by its residents as an
arena for organized conflict with their neighboring countries, expansion
of its role in multi-lateral economic negotiations may help recast it as
the resident's common front in the hostile international environment.

>> that are "bound" by a centralized global system of standards

> am I right that these standards should have the status of
> international law?

>> and values

If the deconstruction of large nation-states is not feasible, the
next best alternative may be construction of entities with enough size to
act as counterbalances, and in sufficient numbers to avoid polarization
into a few large, mutually antagonistic group. An example that comes to
mind is the success of Mobutu in Zaire in the 1960's and 1970's (and it
must be noted that none of his successes, individually or in aggregate,
apologize, excuse, or compensate for the devastation that has accompanied
his struggle to remain in power despite the wishes of the majority of
Zairian people) in avoiding the 'tribal conflict' that was a constant
problem in many of the newly independent African states of the time. And
a big part of the success was due to the fact that no single or small
group of Zairian tribes had sufficient numbers to challenge to represent a
significant independent political force on the national scene.

In terms of praxis, since this approach also implies that such
organizations as NAFTA or the EC should be deepened and democratrized
rather than broadened, it may be possible to work toward this goal in
coalition with already - active opponents to the expansion of the
membership of these systems. Using NAFTA to develop inter-zonal
relationships with CACM / CARICOM, the Andean Pact, and Mercosur is also a
bulwark against efforts to incorporate the memberships of these groups
into NAFTA. And the reduction of the democracy deficit of these regional
organizations also seems to be an immediate strategy we can pursue in
order to promote the development of democratic governance institutions at
the global level (whether or not we see these governance institutions as
forming a coherent system).

Virtually,

Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au