Economists launch blog on “Triple Crises” in finance, development, and environment

On February 1, new voices joined the policy debate on the global crises in finance, development, and the environment. The “TripleCrisisBlog,” with an initial roster of economic analysts from nine countries, was launched by the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University (USA), India’s Economic Research Foundation (ERF), and the Washington office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The initiative is chaired by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and ERF’s Jayati Ghosh.

“Crises are not new to the world economy nor to developing countries,” Gallagher and Ghosh write in their introductory post. “Indeed, our current predicament is a convergence of at least three crises: in global finance, development, and environment. These areas are seemingly disparate but actually interact with each other in forceful ways to reflect major structural imbalances between finance and the real economy; between the higher income and developing economies; between the human economic system and the earth’s ecosystems. This blog seeks to contribute to a more open and global dialogue around these three crises: about how they interact, and how they can collectively be solved.”

The TripleCrisisBlog starts with a wide diversity of analysts from the global North and South. In addition to Gallagher and Ghosh, the roster includes: Jeff Madrick, Sanjay Reddy, Mehdi Shefaeddin, Charles Abugre, Martin Khor, Alejandro Nadal, Matias Vernengo, Adil Najam, CP Chandrasekhar, Jim Boyce, Ilene Graebel, Gerhard Schick, Timothy A. Wise, Lyuba Zarsky, and Frank Ackerman. Ghosh and Gallagher will co-chair the project, with Wise serving as "managing editor."

Visit the TripleCrisisBlog >>> here.

ILO Declaration: Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation

Following two successive years of debate, the ILO's annual International Labour Conference adopted a major Declaration on "Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation". According to Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the declaration “speaks of the need to make a different reality possible. In place of our world of income inequality, high levels of unemployment and poverty and the growth of unprotected work, the adoption of this Declaration demonstrates a common commitment to build a world based on social justice."

The Declaration provides for regular review by the ILO of the components of decent work, which are now codified as inseparable and inter-related. It comprises, in particular, many paragraphs confirming the mandate for the ILO - deriving from its Constitution - to examine all economic, financial and trade policies, since they all affect employment. It is clearly the ILO's role to evaluate those employment effects in order to place employment and decent work at the heart of economic policies. Achieving this will require the ILO to make a strong and effective impact on the activities and policies proposed by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.

Other parts of the Declaration emphasise gender and non-discrimination, and call for a new package of international labour standards to be promoted everywhere, in particular the "governance" standards, covering tripartism, employment policy and labour inspection, in addition to the core labour standards. Freedom of Association and Collective bargaining are now formally codified as the enabling rights for the realisation of Decent Work for all. Governments are put on notice to put in place effective country programmes in order to attain decent work. The role of the ILO in achieving the extension of social security to all is emphasised, as well as a basic income for all in need, a minimum living wage and safe and healthy working conditions. A follow-up implementation plan is to be discussed at the next ILO Governing Body meeting in November 2008.

Global democracy as a realistic perspective of foreign policy

Global public policies increasingly affect the lives of people around the world. From trade agreements to a new treaty on climate change, from UN sanctions against Iran's nuclear program to peacekeeping in Darfur, global public policy has become too important to bypass the democratic process. That’s the starting point of a new book by Didier Jacobs, Global Democracy: The Struggle for Political and Civil Rights in the 21st Century. The author is special advisor to the President of Oxfam America. The book's bumper-sticker version is: “One person, one vote for global public policy decisions!”

The book develops that slogan as:
* A long-term vision for foreign policy to promote peace and prosperity, with a time horizon of several decades.
* A vision that can be achieved through incremental steps; the struggle for global democracy is already under way. The book is relevant to today's foreign policy debates. For example, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani, endorses the book's cornerstone medium-term proposal: opening NATO membership to any countries in the world that meet “minimum standards of good governance, military readiness, and global responsibility.”
* A vision that fits the trends of shifting power in world affairs: rising power of the “global middle class” (e.g., Brazil, Russia, India, China); pressure from the so-called “anti-globalization movement” gathering those who feel disenfranchised; and the ideological dominance of the “global upper class”: global democracy is all about civil and political rights – the creed of Americans and Europeans.

The first part of the book is geared to political scientists. It challenges the “global governance” literature, which oversells the merits of “transparency, accountability and participation” to fix the “democratic deficit” of global public policy. Participatory democracy is a complement, not a substitute, of representative democracy. The book proposes a rigorous analytical framework to think of democracy in the international context. The second part of the book is geared to practitioners of international affairs – government officials, think-tank researchers, NGO activists, journalists etc. With numerous illustrations of current events, it argues that global democracy is both realistic and desirable to tackle the 21st century's global challenges in the areas of peace, human rights, economic development, and the environment. The book positions global democracy as an alternative foreign policy doctrine, superior to “realism'” “neo-conservatism”, or “internationalism”. For more information on the book click >>> here.

Pankaj Ghemawat: The world is not flat

In an important book Harvard economist Dani Rodrik asked some years ago: “Has Globalization Gone Too Far?” Not that far as many globalization enthusiasts and also globalization critics do argue, Pankaj Ghemawat would possibly respond to the question. In a new book, Redefining Global Strategy, Ghemawat who is Professor in Barcelona and Harvard says the world is not flat as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote. Businesses that don’t take into account specific political, cultural, and economic differences are set up to fail. Countering the conventional wisdom about globalization, Ghemawat argues that the world is actually “semiglobalized”. In the video below he explains why.