How trade agreements inscribe class hierarchies on the emerging global order.
On November 19-21, 2014, politicians and academics from the world over assembled in Santiago to rethink the “social question” in global terms. Social reformers and socialists have debated how to address social rights and inequalities for well over a century, but typically within the nation. Globalization demands that we think increasingly about how to engage class formations across nations.
The gathering in Santiago brought progressives from the U.S., Europe, Africa and Latin America together to discuss and analyze how class articulates international organizations and global flows. Trade agreements moved to the center of debate.
TTIP is more than an economic question; it is a question of who is writing the rules of the emerging global order.
The “Next Left” knowledge network—funded by the EU’s Foundation for European Progressive Studies and affiliated with the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament—had already organized an October meeting in Washington to debate with Americans the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The Party of European Socialists needs to figure its place in that proposal for increasing trade and harmonizing regulations between the U.S. and the EU. Its support, or opposition, will determine the agreement’s fate within the European Parliament.
Some socialists have supported that agreement, believing that increasing ties across the world is, intrinsically, progressive. However, many socialists are troubled by the ways in which the proposed agreement appears to elevate corporate citizenship above real citizens, and corporate rules above democracy’s law. Alfred Gusenbauer, Austria’s former chancellor, was especially emphatic about withholding socialist support for the agreement. That led most in the assembly to conclude that progressive support depends, first, on eliminating the symbol of corporate class power, the Investor Dispute Settlement Mechanism (ISDS), from the agreement before other issues are even addressed.
Beyond class, however, this agreement signals another transnational social question with geopolitical effect: Where is Latin America in TTIP?
This question, posed during the Santiago gathering by Chile’s former president, Ricardo Lagos, is obviously not about his Pacific Rim country. But no Latin American country, whether it borders the Atlantic or otherwise, has been invited to the TTIP negotiating table. Why? And perhaps even more importantly, so what?
This exclusion marks a more systematic feature of the trade agreements proliferating in the wake of failed multilateral efforts. Growing powers of the global economy, most notably China, India, and Brazil, are not part of TTIP or its Pacific Rim counterpart, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Trade experts debate the likely impact of TTIP and TPP on the world economy, and on the national economies included and excluded in these partnerships. For the Santiago assembly, this was more than an economic question, however. It is, again, a question of who is writing the rules of the emerging global order, and whether trade agreements are the proper forum for restructuring global governance.
Ireland’s former Foreign Minister, Eamon Gilmore, was especially emphatic on the importance of reforming international institutions so that they might represent the whole world better, and less its concentrations of power. The leader of Chile’s Diplomatic Academy, Juan Somavía, put a concrete proposal on the table in that spirit. The United Nations would be more representative of its constituent member-nations without the veto power of the Security Council. Certainly the prospect of ending that practice will strike many as utopian, given the power of already constituted interests, but Somavía asked whether the Council might not be convinced to eliminate its right to veto in the selection of the next U.N. Secretary General.
To debate whether TTIP extends corporate power at the expense of the working class, and how the United Nations might be transformed, appear to be questions worlds apart. They are not, however, when knowledge networks cross hemispheres. Globalizing knowledge typically means shifting domain assumptions and analytical frames. Europeans and Americans might debate the contents of trade agreements, but when the discussion moves south, the question of class in trade must be supplemented with the question of national prerogatives in global futures. Globalizing knowledge in practice, however, means more than having expertise on trade, class and global governance in the room.
In order for that debate to carry consequence, it requires that basic questions academics pose find receptive ears among politicians who legislate the rules but have little time for much beyond immediate and lobbied concerns. It requires that we have political figures like Ricardo Lagos and Alfred Gusenbauer who understand the mechanisms of everyday governance but also can think beyond its needs to anticipate, and help structure, global futures.
Knowledge networks are increasingly effective at mobilizing intellectuals across generations and continents, but the next step requires that we figure ways to extend their direct engagement with the international institutions and agreements that are the objects of their analysis. This Next Left in Santiago was just that expression, an articulation of intellectual responsibility before a world in crisis and transformation.
Start Reading Globalizing Knowledge »
Michael D. Kennedy (@Prof_Kennedy) is Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Brown University and the Watson Institute for International Studies and the author, most recently, of Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities, and Publics in Transformation.
Comments