The authority deficit by - Peter David
"The world has an authority deficit. Authority is draining away from international institutions, from the big world powers (including the superpower) and from the nation-state itself. And though other forces, such as religion, are surging into the places the state has vacated, religions—and especially Islam—have an authority deficit of their own. Less authority is not always a bad thing. Some would say it is just the corollary of a more equal distribution of power. But it makes the world less orderly, and therefore less safe.
The European Union has aspired to become a new source of supranational authority, at least within its own region. But since the voters of France and the Netherlands rejected the Union’s new constitution in 2005, the EU’s authority has slumped. Attempts to impose fiscal discipline and freer markets on recalcitrant members have lacked conviction, along with once brave talk of a common foreign and security policy.
The building blocks on which any international order has to stand are, of course, the nation-states. And therein lies a problem. The state itself is growing weaker in many parts of the world, and has collapsed completely in some. In the advanced capitalist world its authority is being eroded by globalisation and in the former communist world it is being eroded by the advance of capitalism. Even in China, where the Communist Party maintains its monopoly of power, orders issued from the centre are these days widely ignored by provinces and municipalities."
No comments:
Post a Comment