Workshop with MGG participants and Young professionals from Germany

Event Type
Workshop

Location / Date
Bonn, 10.12.2008

Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)

Workshop with MGG participants and Young professionals from Germany

The workshop “Emerging Powers in a Changing World: Sharing Responsibility for Global Governance in the 21th Century” was part of the programme Managing Global Governance (MGG), jointly implemented by InWEnt–Capacity Building International and the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Considering that mutual understanding and dialogue are indispensable tools for constructing global governance structures, the organisers of the Managing Global Governance (MGG) programme decided to launch an ambitious initiative and provide both the MGG 4 participants and highly qualified German young professionals from key government organisations and think tanks an opportunity to meet directly and discuss important global governance topics. This was the main idea that inspired the workshop, which took place on December 10 at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) with representatives from both Germany and the Anchor Countries represented in the MGG programme: Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

Thomas Fues opened the workshop by underlining that the main objective of the workshop – i.e. to enhance the mutual understanding between tomorrow’s global governance leaders from emerging powers and from Europe – does not imply a homogeneous world view, nor a general agreement on all issues. He emphasised the decisive role of frankness and openness towards different world visions for trust-building, which is the most important element of effective and successful global governance. Hence the relevance of a peer-to-peer networking platform between the MGG programme participants and the German attendants of the workshop.

How to Share Responsibility: Three different perspectives

Christoph Zöpel, former Minister of State of the Federal Foreign Office (1999-2002) and former Chairman of the German Society for the United Nations, Berlin (2003-2007), dedicated his efforts mainly to make two suggestions based upon his understanding of the concept of power. After criticising the notion of “emerging power” as imprecise the panellist explained that there are three factors to determine a state’s power: geographical extension, population and military capacity. Considering this, and in order to achieve a democratic sharing of responsibilities on the principle of one person - one vote, Christoph Zöpel advanced the idea of including the world’s ten most populated states – about 65 percent of the world’s population – in the UN Security Council, whereas the rest should be represented only through regional organisations. His second suggestion was related to the security issue. Christoph Zöpel argued that, as long as the disparity between the UN general budget – around 11 billion US dollars – and the US military budget – more than 500 billion dollars – persists, there is no chance of the UN taking responsibility for global security. This is why he suggested that every state should give at least 5 percent of its military budget to the UN as a way of empowering the international institution.

The second contributor of the plenary discussion was Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) since 2004, who depicted the role of the emerging powers from a European perspective. He emphasised that the European Union (EU) is trying hard to reinforce its already existing international image as a civil power with a great deal of experience in regional integration processes. This is indeed one of the most attractive aspects of the way in which the EU approaches emerging powers because, as the panellist specified, every emerging power is also a regional power and consequently interested in regional integration. However, this positive image conceals the fact that the EU is not really an international actor, because it does not act as a unity in many important areas due to the contradictory interests of some of its member states. Even more so, the politics of compromise within the EU – something unavoidable with 27 member states – leads to a lack of international profile and thus to an incapacity to establish priorities. To illustrate this point, Günther Maihold mentioned that the EU currently leads negotiations with Mercosur to reach a commercial agreement, but at the same time announced that it was planning a strategic partnership agreement with Brazil.

Last but not least, Enrique Dussel Peters, Coordinator of the China-Mexico Studies Centre at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), described the impact of China’s growth on Latin American self-perception and on the region’s insertion in the international scene. To start with, he questioned some of the main stream concepts mentioned beforehand. According to him, the very notion of “emerging powers” is Eurocentric and even misleading, because in a situation of rising powers, the “old” ones would necessarily decline. At the same time, China must be considered a class on its own, not comparable to any other of the “emerging powers” – actually, China can hardly be perceived as a “new” or “emerging” power. Enrique Dussel also expressed his critical opinion about the general understanding of globalisation and its meaning. Hinting at Thomas Friedman’s book “Hot, Crowded and Flat” mentioned in Thomas Fues’ welcoming speech, the Mexican Professor maintained that the world is as cold and round as ever; that is, time and space do matter. Enrique Dussel also underlined that socioeconomic events are reversible and, finally, that parliamentary democracy is not a necessary result of globalisation, pointing at some Latin American countries or even at the Chinese case.

After the plenary session, the audience divided itself into five working groups. The thematic rounds not only generated interesting results, but also allowed, at least in some points, to apprehend the differences of perspective between the MGG programme participants and the German attendants.

Round Table 1

“Clearing the Air? Climate Change and the Challenge of Adaptation and Mitigation for Modern Societies”, chaired by Carmen Richerzhagen (DIE). The main questions discussed in the two rounds were: What is the role of the emerging developing countries in a new climate regime? How can we tackle the climate change problem? How can a new climate regime ensure justice?

Round Table 2

“Growing Vulnerability? New Modalities of Security Threats in the Twenty-First Century”, chaired by Jörn Grävinholt (DIE). There was broad consensus that the current state of global security governance is inadequate. It is characterised by a dominance of national interests that influence the capacity and will of states to act and finds its ultimate symbol in the veto power of permanent UN Security Council members. No consensus, nor even any strong preference, existed, however, with regard to any particular direction of reform. This was true even independently from how security is defined, or rather: “framed”; that is, in a narrow fashion and thus more practical and operational; or in a broader way, the concept of comprehensive security, and consequently with a less clear focus on traditional issues of “national security”.

Round Table 3

“Trade without order? A New World Trade Order in the Wake of the Doha Round”, chaired by Enrique Dussel (UNAM, Mexico). The conclusion of the round table may be summarised as a general agreement on continuing with the current WTO agenda as far as discussions and debates are concerned. However, the participants did not reach a consensus regarding the priorities of the WTO agenda from the perspective of the emerging powers.

Round Table 4

“The International Financial Architecture”, chaired by Ulrich Volz (DIE). The results of the discussion were little surprising, as there was a consensus about the necessity to establish a new international financial architecture, but hardly any coincidence on how such new system should look like. There was an agreement on general issues, such as the need for more transparency in the markets, more accountability and more regulations and supervision, but, again, no consensus was reached when it came to more concrete issues, such as who could / should take the initiative to lead the reforms into the desired general direction. Some participants suggested the G20 as a potential responsible actor for doing the first step, as this group has been organising a series of international financial summits and has been putting forward some useful proposals to reform the current system. Others mentioned the UN, which plans to launch similar crisis summits, but it was clear that the final answer to the question of responsibility remained unclear.

Round Table 5

“Subverted Sovereignty? Globalization and the Nation State in Transition”, chaired by Aletta Mondré (University of Bremen). The general consensus reached in the sessions was that the state as an organisation/political infrastructure has strong staying power and will not cease to exist in a globalised world. Besides, the states provide due process and sometimes democratic principles better than other entities. However, a difference must be drawn between sharing sovereignty and giving up sovereignty, as shared sovereignty and cooperation of states are mutually beneficial.

Rounding off the Workshop

In the third and last part of the workshop “Looking ahead: Global (dis)order in the 21th Century?”, workshop attendants from Germany and from the MGG course had the opportunity to present their own vision on global governance in a series of interview rounds chaired by Günther Taube (Director of Department 2, International Regulatory Framework, Good Governance, Economic Policy, InWEnt-Capacity Building International, Germany). A very wide range of topics could be discussed, some of them dealing with German involvement in global governance issues like climate change, security and peace-building challenges and German commitment with other countries. The most interesting moment occurred when the security topic was discussed. A German participant claimed that Germany should be more active when it comes to its involvement in international security structures, but simultaneously recommended that the German government should limit its goals in this issue, because of the upcoming proliferation of failed states.

Hinweis

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