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NIGD's five-year Plan of Action or A Strategy for Global Democratization

Background
In contrast to the old class-based social movements, the focus of the new transnational civic actors is often on a particular single issue, such as human rights, gender, environment, humanitarian relief, peace, developmental assistance, or gay and lesbian identities. Although many of these movements have found each other in the activities of global civil society – not least in the World Social Forum – what has been lacking is at least a partially shared framework and purpose.

Although it is clear that democracy is a contested concept also among various movements and other civic actors, we believe that global democratization can provide such a framework and purpose. Indeed, if significant parts of global civil society supported a shared vision in combination with the issue-specifics, perhaps new reform-coalitions involving also states could be much more easily formed. Hence, NIGD has worked to identify a well-grounded strategy for global democratisation, which is a vision of priorities, political possibilities and feasibility of arrangements.

NIGD launched the North-South Dialogues-process in spring 2001. The process was set (i) to develop new ideas about democratizing globalization and (ii) to evaluate these ideas and a number of other prominent political initiatives. The basic aim has been to develop a map for concrete actions. It is important to distinguish between the desire and the possibility to carry out reforms; and between political possibilities for and feasibility of the proposed arrangement. While certain reforms are clearly more desirable than others, not all reforms are equally realisable or feasible. The work done thus far has generated a general strategy of how to best further world democratization.

In the first phase of the North-South dialogues project, NIGD organised a brainstorm- session among political decision makers, representatives of civil society and academia from both North and South. The June 2001 meeting focused on identifying initiatives on global democracy . In the second phase, NIGD contracted experts from the global South to conduct unique reports of evaluations and rankings of the five most prominent initiatives . In addition, and as a complement to the North-South Dialogues process, NIGD has conducted its own mapping and evaluation of initiatives on global democracy .

Global democracy is best conceived as a process of democratization, which means that we should not aim for a single model of democracy but rather for a process of open-ended democratization.

Starting points of the project
The empowerment of the global civil society is a necessary element in a strategy for global democratisation. Although widespread participation is essential for democracy also in world politics, a major problem is that Southern movements, unions and NGOs lack the resources to participate in global processes. They need support, channels to be heard and resources to analyse the global situation and develop new factual and normative knowledge.

One of the fundamental reasons hindering poor countries from developing is their debt burden. The establishment of a debt arbitration mechanism and global taxes – and the currency transactions tax (CTT) in particular – emerge as the most important possibilities for immediate reforms. Since many crucial mechanisms of power in the global political economy are based on financial dependency, both the creation of a debt arbitration mechanism and the CTT would have major impacts. They would relieve the dominance of global finance and the Bretton Woods institutions over states, the rule of law and democratic politics. A debt arbitration mechanism and the CTT could also be exemplary democratic arrangements themselves. These kinds of mechanisms could also serve as a first step towards global reconciliation clearing ground for a democratic and equal world . So far, NIGD's work has resulted in a draft treaty on a currency transactions tax. The draft treaty is at present being discussed and commented upon in global civil society. A process leading to a similar concrete proposal for a debt arbitration mechanism is ready to be launched. These instruments developed by global civil society serve as instruments for governments to adopt on the path towards a new world order.

As regards reforming existing institutions, the democratization of the WTO seems most feasible. Despite its rapidly expanding scope and powers, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) seems to be the existing multilateral arrangement that is most susceptible to democratic change. The one country/one vote rule on which it is in principle – although not in practice – based makes changes possible, however difficult. Reforms would have to focus, primarily, on reducing and redefining the scope of the WTO and, secondarily, on democratising its preparatory process, decision-making procedures and dispute settlement mechanisms. The WTO reforms will be uncertain and contingent on first making the bulk of Southern countries more autonomous by relieving the financial pressure and conditionality they now face.

This strategy outlines a politically possible and feasible path that does not, however, exclude other possibilities. The components are not exclusive – on the contrary, there are other good initiatives that walk hand-in-hand with this strategy. Reforms should also create new opportunities for further reforms.

The work divided in four parts
The work divided into four parts: We have divided this work into four concrete projects:

A. Research on the debt question: Work on third world debt, which seems to have been going downwards on the list of priorities, needs to be revived. Governments need clear and detailed plans for a debt arbitration mechanism. Civil society has a role in formulating discussion papers and formulas. Although a lot of work has already been done, details of the debt arbitration mechanism need to be developed further, also from the perspective of criteria of democratization, and potential links to a North-South truth commission explored. This work should lead to a detailed draft for a debt arbitration mechanism. The draft should then be widely circulated in global civil society, commented upon and amended.

B. Coordination of civil society activities in support of a draft treaty on currency transactions tax: A draft treaty on currency transactions tax has already been produced . The text is now being commented and revised by global civil society actors. The challenge is to keep this process open and global. NIGD is also working to get support for the idea that the state organising the international conference on the CTT should be from the South, e.g. Brazil. At present, Pauline Eadie is conducting a mapping of recent positions of governments regarding a currency transactions tax.
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C. Research on WTO: Detailed and in-depth studies of the political possibilities and practicalities of concrete reform proposals. Thus far insufficient attention has been given to the democratic implications of different reform proposals. Also the agrarian question on global capitalist agriculture needs to be explored from a Southern point of view. In the South some 70 % of the people live off agriculture while the corresponding figure in the North is only 5 %.

D. Work on following, analysing and supporting global civil society developments, in particular the WSF-process: Civil society produces many initiatives and lots of information. At present, there is no mechanism to catch, compare, analyse and structure this output. Global civil society is dominated by Western European NGOs. NIGD is focussing its energies on identifying positive developments in other regions and supporting trans-regional networking. In February, Laura Nisula and Katarina Sehm-Patomäki will begin to update and develop NIGD Discussion Paper 2/2002 on the WSF process. This is one of the few publications on the WSF in English.