Saskia Sassen has a good essay in the latest issue of Dissent regarding globalization and the expansion of executive power in liberal democracies.
She makes the case that the globalization literature tends to focus on whether the state as a whole is made stronger or weaker by globalization. She calls for parsing units of power within the state and evaluating their relative strength vis-a-vis globalization. She reports on new work she’s doing that suggests the rise of trade and finance related agencies, the rise of cross border collaboration, the rise of the IMF and WTO and the increasing deregulatory climate for trade around the world has led to increased executive power.
These findings are in step with what what Post-Fordist theorists have been saying since the 1990’s. The central claim of many of these theorists is that the state would not fall away but that it would have to become a more flexible state to adapt to quickly changing conditions (i.e. global financial crises) Logically, executives are more flexible and adaptable than legislatures because they are not deliberative bodies and are not consensus based.
She’s right to assert that this expansion of the executive erodes citizen power. There are few mechanisms to make executives accountable. My hope is that the generative capacities of the internet make it easier for the electorate to be engaged by more conveniently providing access to political information. There are some rumblings about the Obama administration’s delay in making information about it’s inner workings accessible to the public. But..it’s hard to generate mass public outrage over the lack of citizen briefing books.
Comments 1
Mike Tobin — March 5, 2009
When looking at globalization, I do not see how it could make the state weaker. The key aspect is creating a public policy and an executive policy that we are all able to agree on. Agreeing on it is not the same accepting it as your own, but simply coming to some sort decision that we as a whole society are able to look at and be comfortable with, whether or not we politically agree with the direction.
If this globalization is starting to increase the executive power, there is definitely an issue here. The more power the government gets, obviously the less power the people get. I do believe in democracy and would have to say that it is clearly the best form of government in relation to the rest of the world, however, the executive power needs to be limited. When someone or a group of people get too much power, rarely will there be a positive outcome in favor of the society being governed. Therefore, the information from the Obama administration needs to not only be available, but made aware to the public as reachable resource. If information is able to be hidden from the publics eye simply because no one knows about it, that power can turn the wrong direction very quickly. Not to say that I don't have confidence in the Obama administration, but just merely being realistic in the fact that they are all human. Without accountability from outside sources, it is easy to fall onto a path that is invisibly destructive before it's too late to turn back.