Legitimization and Effectiveness of Denationalization

Legitimization and Effectiveness of Denationalization Processes

The work of Zangl and Zurn entitled: "The Effects of Denationalization on Security in the OECD World" published by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies" states: "Denationalization can partly explain not only the outstanding and unprecedented success with which nation states in the OECD world are today able to provide external defense and ensure the rule of law, but also their growing inability to adequately secure their legitimate monopoly of force and to provide sufficient internal protection. This transformation in the provision of security by states within the OECD world has far-reaching consequences for international politics." (1998) the work of Perez (2006) entitled: "The Internationalization of Lawmaking Processes: Constraining or Empowering the Executive?" relates the suggestion that "globalization and the proliferation of international regimes have contributed to constrain the executive power, compromising state sovereignty."

I. DENATIONALIZATION

Denationalization or to 'denationalize' is defined as "...to divest of national character or rights" and "to remove from ownership or control by the national government" (Merriam-Webster, 2008) the work of Paul van Seters entitled "Communitarianism and Law" states "Political parties may have many prudent reasons to avoid Europeanization and denationalization of their rivalry in the public sphere. It involves the risk of party schism, the loss of political capital of older generations of leaders and activists, a struggle for power between politicians of large states and politicians of small states, an increase of transaction costs of politics and costs of campaigning, basic uncertainty about the relation between loss of old constituencies and gain of new ones, the danger of artificial divisiveness regarding European policies, and the familiar dark side of international public associations (lack of engagement, corruption, bureaucratization, irresponsibility in financial and economic matters, and hypocrisy in legal and moral matters)." (2005) According to van Setters the communitarian case for European integration."..seems weak. On the one hand, communitarian philosophers and social scientists argue that the European scale is too large to engender common values and norms in society and coherent laws and policies in politics. On the other hand, historians and experts in comparative studies argue that the European Union is neither a community nor a state but a joint venture of governments for control of state rule and national passion in an expanding region. Member states may represent real communities in the spirit of representative and participatory democracy. But they cannot create an overarching community of communities, neither by democratic means nor by authoritarian ones." (Van Seters, 2005)

II. FORMATION of NEW INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Zurn writes in the work entitled: "Global Governance and Legitimacy Problems" that while the traditional institutional norms were previously viewed as "an international complement to a dominantly national paradigm, today's international institutions are an expression of political denationalization. The new international institutions are much more intrusive into national societies than the traditional ones." (2004) Stated as the reason is the containment of "supranational and transnational features" which are increasingly undermining the "consensus principle of international cooperation." (Zurn, 2004) When these changes are comprehended by society and political actors, they then "begin to reflect on the features of a legitimate and effective political order beyond national borders." (Zurn, 2004) the result is stated to be that denationalization "...becomes reflexive and thus politicized." (Zurn, 2004) Simultaneously, "the politicization of international politics harbors the potential for resistance to political denationalization, which increases the need...for the legitimation of such international institutions." (Zurn, 2004) Zurn relates that in normative terms there exists an agreement that is broad in nature and that holds that the "functioning of international institutions such as the WTO or the UN does not meet democratic standards." (2004)

III. DEMOCRATIC DEFICITS

Stated as 'democratic deficits' are:

1) the lack of identifiable decision-makers who are directly accountable for wrong decisions-making processes and thus the advantage the executive decision-makers have over others in terms of information;

2) the prime actors in international politics (multinational business and the superpowers) are at best only accountable to a fraction of the people affected by their activities;

3) Most deficits cannot easily be remedied because the democratic majority decisions depend 'in descriptive terms' and 'at least partially' on "a political community built on trust and solidarity." (Zurn, 2004)

In relation to the 'descriptive perspective' or in relation to 'societal acceptance' the democratic deficit of international institutions was viewed for an extended time as "a purely academic problem" however there has been a shift in focus accompanied by "massive protests, partly violent, at major meetings of international institutions" such as that in Seattle and Genoa and including at EU summit talks (Nice, Gothenburg) and as well that has been noted to be a rise in the "right-wing populist tirades against the EU and other international institutions." (Zurn, 2004) Zurn notes that in the United States, "objections by national parliaments...to international agreements..." (Zurn, 2004)

Zurn relates that taking activities of other states under consideration has been the only manner in which states have been able to achieve their political goals entirely since states "only actually became states by being acknowledged as such by other states, and the territorial integrity of a state was unquestionably influenced by the expansionary plans of neighboring states." (Zurn, 2004) From this view states interdependence is "a constitutive characteristics of the modern state system." (Zurn, 2004)

IV the SPREAD of INDUSTRIALIZATION

Zurn relates that as industrialization spread in the 19th century that the interdependence "extended into the economic and thus societal sphere" and that the international system of states was "for a long time...unable to cope with the interdependence of societies and the increase of transborder externalities." (Zurn, 2004) One example provided is that it has been demonstrated by economic historians that "the world economic crisis of 1929 was not a direct consequence of the so-called Black Friday, but in fact brought about by the reaction of the major trading nations to the sudden fall in stock-market prices." (2004) the reaction from states with economic importance was to increase their customs tariffs and devaluation of their currencies in order to protect their own economy from the crisis. The result was a breakdown in world trade in total and the Great Depression. (Zurn, 2004; paraphrased) Since the ending of World War II the western world has been stated to have been able to "turn economic interdependence to their advantage..." And that this success "can be attributed to the international institutions established after World War II under the leadership of the U.S.A., and of which the economic institutions were of particular significance." (Zurn, 2004) Zurn notes the international trade regime (GATT) as well as the regimes, which regulate currency and financial affairs and their creation of "an institutional framework without which the world-wide post-war economic boom would not have been possible." (2004) it is related that embedded liberalism was the facilitator of "relatively unrestrained economic trade among all industrial countries, but still left room for different national political and societal structures." (Zurn, 2004) According to Zurn the challenges that nation-states face in their attempt to accomplished their goals in governance "do not...directly translate into the 'fall' or 'retreat of the nation-state'." (2004) While the challenges are often serious in nature the outcome is for the greatest part determined "by political responses to them and not to the challenges themselves." (Zurn, 2004)

V. RESPONDING to GLOBALIZATION'S CHALLENGES

There are various ways that governments and other political organizations can provide response to globalization's challenges and Zurn states that the most frequent of all responses is "the establishment of international institutions." (2004) Therefore, it is held by Zurn that "embedded liberalism has a dynamic of its own: the growing numbers of international institutions since World War II has made national borders less significant for societal transactions (societal denationalization) and this in turn has led to an increase in the number and political scope of international institutions (political denationalization)." (Zurn, 2004) the economic policies were in the beginning under the guidance of the Bretton Woods institutions however, in the ongoing political denationalization these institutions have "become involved in a whole range of conceivable policy areas." (Zurn, 2004) the international institutions in the present delve deeply into the national systems while historically they granted a large degree of autonomy to the national political systems.

VI. INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS & the 'NEW QUALITY'

There has been a growth in the numbers of international agreements between governments growing from 15,000 in 1960 to more than 55,000 in 1997 and Zurn states that "a similar growth rate is measured in the annual ratification of multilateral treaties." (2004) These growth rates falling just short of "central globalization indicators" and exceeding growth rates in national legislation are in the primary areas of international economic and international environmental policy however there has also been a great deal of growth in the areas of both security and human rights policy. Accompanying the "increase in international agreements" is "a growing intensity in transgovernmental relations through the building up of networks among various national state authorities such as regulatory bodies, courts, executive bodies and also, increasingly, legislatives in different countries." (Zurn, 2004)

VII. GATT

Zurn (2004) states of GATT that this regime is a primary example of an international institution in the traditional sense in that the form of GATT regulation has three features, which are distinctive as follows:

1) the states are the ultimate and exclusive addressees of the regulation. They are issued with directives not to increase customs tariffs or to apply them in a discriminating way. The objective of the regulation is therefore to influence state behavior in order to solve the problem in question.

2) Such regulations take effect at the borders between states, and in this sense, they primarily constitute a form of interface management, regulating the transit of goods and bads out of one national society into another.

3) There exists a relatively high degree of certainty as to the effects of such regulations. The actors are able to make relatively precise, empirically sound predictions about the economic consequences of their tariffs. (Zurn, 2004)

VIII. DIFFERING FEATURES of INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

According to Zurn's work in the present age of "societal denationalization and globalization" there are differing features of international institutions" and international regimes for overcoming the problems of the global environmental are such as the following:

1) the ultimate addressees of regulations issued by international institutions are largely societal actors. While the states act as intermediaries between the international institutions and the addressees, it is ultimately societal actors such as consumers and businesses who have to alter their behavior in order, say, to reduce CO2 or CFC emissions;

2) the new international institutions are no longer merely concerned with interface management. The reduction of pollutants requires regulations that take effect behind the national borders, within the national societies. In this sense, the international climate regime regulates behind-the-border issues, but the new international trade regime, with its focus on the prohibition of subsidization and overcoming discriminatory product regulations, has also developed in this direction. Equally, the measures of the Security Council of the United Nations have for some time now increasingly been directed at intrastate rather than interstate wars;

3) International institutions today are for the most part concerned with finding solutions to highly complex problems. There is therefore a high degree of uncertainty as to the ecological and economic consequences of, say, a particular climate regime. The same is true of other environmental regimes, but also financial agreements and regulations on product safety as well as security issues. (Zurn, 2004)

Zurn relates that the reason that the new quantity and quality of international institutions leads to a "relative rise in supranational and transnational institutional features" is found in three differing mechanisms as follows:

1) a high density of international institutions increasingly gives rise to collisions between different international regulations as well as between national and international ones. In such cases, a supranational arbitration body is a sensible means of settling differences. The dispute settlement procedure of the WTO for instance decides in case of a collision between WTO rules and domestic regulations as well in case of collision between environmental and trade goals, for instance with reference to the Codex Alimentarus. Furthermore, the increased complexity also gives rise to a greater need for independent dispute settlement bodies. The quantitative growth and the growing complexity of international institutions thus leads to an increased need for supranational components.

2) the significance of independent supranational and transnational institutional features also increases as the numbers of regimes grow that are concerned with behind -- the border issues and specify societal actors as the ultimate addressees. In such cases, verification problems become more complicated. The more difficult compliance and monitoring become, the greater the need for supranational and transnational agents to gather and provide reliable information on compliance rates. Hence, many international secretariats have the assignment to gather information about rule compliance and, at the same time, transnational NGOs, as for instance Amnesty International, are most active in this area; and 3) Finally, the growing need for international institutions to gather and distribute impartial knowledge and information on complex international problems also strengthens the trend towards supranationalization and transnationalization. The conferences and institutes created by the United Nations Environmental Program are good examples for this development. (Zurn, 2004)

Zurn relates that the traditional institutions were historically viewed as "...an international complement to a dominantly national paradigm..." However, the international institutions of today are stated to be "an expression of political denationalization." (2004) it is possible, according to Zurn to separate the transformation process into different stages as follows:

1) the first stage is characterized by an emerging trending towards supranationalization and transnationalization as the more or less 'unintended, indirect outcome of the sum of deliberate political responses to perceived functional demands on international institutions as a result of societal denationalization;

2) the process becomes 'reflexive in this stage and when actors in society and politics gain a comprehension of the changes their view settles on the features of a 'legitimate and effective political order beyond national borders'. According to Zurn, this is "where issues of transboundary identity and transboundary ethics are taken on board in their deliberations." (2004)

IX. COMPLEX INTERDEPENDENCE

The work of Keohane and Nye entitled: "Power and Interdependence" made an introduction to the concept of 'complex interdependence'. Keohane and Nye are noted to have played a role that is dominant in the "early formation of this challenge" of an intellectual nature to Realist comprehension of International Relations. (Isiksal, 2004) Keohane and Nye state as one a basic assumption that in the "era of interdependence, the very nature of world politics is changing and Keohane and Nye provide "a means of distilling and joining the positions in both modernist and traditionalist perspectives by developing a coherent and theoretical framework for the political analysis of interdependence." (Isiksal, 2004) the world has become more interdependent in the area of economics as well as communications and human endeavors and the primary actors in this area are stated by Isiksal (2004) to be non-territorial actors and to include multinational corporations, international organizations, and transnational social movements." (Isiksal, 2004)

There are also issues of a multiple nature however with "no hierarchy and military concerns play relatively less importance." (Isiksal, 2004) it is within the context of these assumptions that Keohane and Nye discuss interdependence and they begin "by defining interdependence as a situation of mutual dependence where the loss of autonomy creates reciprocal costly benefits." (Isiksal, 2004) the goal of Keohane and Nye was the development of "a coherent theoretical framework that could explain the continuity and change in world politics in order to demonstrate the reality of interdependence in contemporary world politics." (Isiksal, 2004) Complex interdependence was defined by Keohane and Nye by three specific characteristics as follows:

1) the actors are states and non-state actors with multiple channels of communication; interstate, transgovernmental and transnational;

2) the agenda of interstate relationships consists of multiple issues that are not arranged in a clear or consistent hierarchy. In other words, there are multiple issues with no hierarchy; military security does not consistently dominate the agenda; and 3) Military force that plays a relatively minor role in international relations mainly because "it is not used by governments toward other governments within the region, or on the issues, when complex interdependence prevails." (Isiksal, 2004)

Resulting is a "distinctive political processes which translate power resources into power as control of the outcomes of the linkage strategies, agenda setting, transnational and transgovernmental relations." (Isiksal, 2004) There is no claim made in the work of Keohane and Nye that military power is insignificant in nature and they state the argument that military actions come at a high cost and that there has been an increase in these costs for the reasons as follows:

1) the first example is that nuclear weapons increase associated costs of conflict; and 2) Relative to cost three is no guarantee that military means will be more efficient than economic ones in achieving goals. (Isiksal, 2004)

Isiksal (2004) states that it is explained by Keohane and Nye the cost had four explanations: