Global Domination and the Desirability of Republican Freedom as a Global Political Ideal

Barbara Buckinx

Political Theory Project Dept of Political Science

Brown University Barbara_Buckinx@brown.edu

***DRAFT – Please do not cite or quote***

Today’s global actors – be they public global institutions, multinational corporations,

international non-governmental organizations, or states – have an unprecedented capacity

to affect the lives of individuals.1 Corporations such as Unilever and General Motors are

important global employers; Mercy Corps and other international non-governmental

organizations join and sometimes replace governments in responding to humanitarian

crises; and the United Nations and its agencies perform an array of global tasks ranging

from the establishment of peace-keeping missions to the sponsorship of public health

projects. I presume that individuals often have an interest in the outcome of their

encounters with global actors. After all, a corporation’s decision to locate a

manufacturing plant in one country rather than in another will matter a great deal to the

unemployed citizens of both. Similarly, the intended beneficiaries of humanitarian aid or

a peace-keeping mission have an obvious stake in the global actor’s chosen course of

action.

1 In this paper, I do not defend any particular view of the character of globalization. I follow the accounts of scholars such as David Held, who refers to the “stretching and deepening of social relations and institutions across space and time”, Anthony Giddens, who defines globalization as the “intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa”, and Ankie Hoogvelt, who describes the emergence of global virtual communities and shared phenomenal worlds. See D. Held, “The Transformation of Political Community: Rethinking democracy in the context of globalization”, in I. Shapiro & C. Hacker-Cordon, (Eds.), Democracy’s Edges. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp.84-111. P.92; A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford University Press, 1990. P.21; and A. Hoogvelt, Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The new political economy of development. Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

2

I do not deny that we frequently fare well when global actors intervene in our

lives. However, global actors sometimes wield such extensive power over us that our

encounters with them render us incapable of asserting control over our own choices. As I

see it, the problem occurs when the global actor in question is both powerful and

unconstrained in the exercise or potential exercise of that power. I am concerned with the

political injustice that is entailed by this loss of control, rather than with any putative link

between the absence of control, on the one hand, and substantive harms, such as poverty,

on the other.2 In this paper, I argue that some relationships between global actors and

individuals are characterized by a lack of freedom as non-domination in the neo-

republican sense. Using the example of toxic waste dumping by a multinational

corporation in Côte d’Ivoire, I describe how global domination can manifest itself, and I

argue that John Rawls and David Held – the most prominent exponents of the liberal and

cosmopolitan democratic approaches to global governance – fail to recognize its gravity.

Finally, I propose non-domination as a candidate for a global political ideal.

1. An Example of Pernicious Global Power: Toxic waste dumping in Côte d’Ivoire While domination also occurs in the domestic sphere, my focus here is on the problem of

domination in global politics. In order to explicate what domination looks like in a global

setting, let us briefly explore the following case, which implicated Dutch multinational

Trafigura Beheer NV in the dumping of toxic waste in Côte d’Ivoire.3 In the night of

August 19, 2006, four hundred metric tons of toxic waste was dumped in at least a dozen

2 It is plausible to suggest that individuals will be more vulnerable to substantive harms when they are not able to assert control over their own choices, but I do not make that argument here. 3 While this particular example focuses on domination by a multinational corporation, my account also applies to domination by not-for-profit private organizations, public global institutions, and states.

3

different locations around the city of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. Many of those who lived

close to the dumping sites suffered from health problems including breathing difficulties,

nausea and nosebleeds, and at least ten people died. 4 The waste was quickly traced to the

ship Probo Koala, which was leased by Trafigura, a multinational commodities trading

company based in the Netherlands.

The Probo Koala arrived in Abidjan from Amsterdam by way of Nigeria, Togo,

and Estonia. More than a month earlier, on July 2, 2006, a waste processing company in

the Netherlands had refused to accept the ship’s waste for the agreed-upon price because

of the waste’s toxicity. Trafigura deemed the new price too steep, and left Amsterdam for

Estonia with the waste still on board. According to a Dutch journalist who had access to

police records, an employee of Trafigura suggested in an email dated July 5, 2006, that

the ship should dump the waste in the ocean on its way to Lomé, Togo.5 Ultimately, this

did not happen, and an African subsidiary of the corporation contracted a local company

in Abidjan to dispose of the waste.6 Unfortunately for the victims in the affected

4 Trafigura continues to deny that the waste was toxic, but most Ivorian and Dutch sources claim that it was a highly toxic mixture of caustic soda and petrochemicals. See e.g. P. Bax & J. Dohmen, “Voor 15.500 euro wilde Tommy de klus wel klaren”, NRC Handelsblad, September 23, 2006. http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/article1726401.ece/Voor_15.500_euro_wilde_Tommy_de_klus_wel_klaren ; L. Polgreen & M. Simons, “Toxic Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast”, New York Times, October 2, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/africa/02ivory.html?scp=1&sq=global%20sludge&st=cse ; J. Trommelen, “Topman Trafigura vrijuit in zaak gifexport”, De Volkskrant, June 23, 2008. http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1034039.ece/Topman_Trafigura_vrijuit_in_zaak_gifexport 5 According to this source, the employee, Jorge Marrero, cautioned against dumping the waste ‘between Dover and the Baltic Sea’, and suggested it should instead happen ‘only after the ship has passed Dover on its way to Lomé’. See V. van der Boon, “Trafigura wilde gif Probo Koala op zee lozen”, Het Financieele Dagblad, June 24, 2008. http://www.fd.nl/artikel/9378327/trafigura-wilde-gif-probo-koala-zee-lozen ; and J. Trommelen, “Gifschandaal Trafigura geen incident”, De Volkskrant, June 28, 2008. http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1036189.ece/Gifschandaal_Trafigura_geen_incident This would have been a violation of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. See http://www.basel.int/text/con-e-rev.pdf . 6 The local company, Compagnie Tommy, was created around the time that the ship left the port of Amsterdam with the waste still on board. The authorities in Côte d’Ivoire state that Compagnie Tommy “had all appearances of a shell company created for the circumstance”. Quoted in L. Polgreen, “Neglect and Fraud Blamed for Toxic Dumping in Ivory Coast”, New York Times, November 24, 2006.

4

neighborhoods of Abidjan, this local company simply dumped the waste instead of

treating it first.

While the details of this case are certainly harrowing –a baby is described as

being ‘covered with weeping sores’ and a child who must search a landfill for scrap metal

does so while highly toxic black sludge ‘coats his feet and legs’7 – the substantive

injustice of the toxic waste dumping is not the focus of this paper. Instead, I consider the

political injustice that is entailed in Trafigura’s actions, and the actions of corporations

and other global actors like it, and I focus on the obstacles that individuals may face

when they seek redress after they have fallen victim to pernicious global power.

2. Actual and Virtual Control

It is most likely not a coincidence that the Probo Koala dumped its waste in Abidjan

rather than in Amsterdam. The idea that a citizen in a Western country would one day

wake up to, quite literally, find highly toxic waste from a different continent on their

doorstep is almost absurd. Nevertheless, if it were to happen, one hopes that the

offending actors would face serious legal and political repercussions. Let us assume that

the inhabitants of Abidjan would similarly want to pursue legal action against all the

actors involved, including the multinational corporation. The members of this and any

other poor community are likely to face difficulties in their pursuit for justice that they

would not face if their adversary were an individual, a government agency, or a domestic

corporation. A multinational corporation is not only disproportionately powerful –

Trafigura, for instance, had a $45 billion turnover in 2006, and $600 million worth of

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/world/africa/24ivory.html?scp=6&sq=polgreen%20toxic%20waste&st=cse 7 See L. Polgreen & M. Simons, “Toxic Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast”, October 2, 2006.

5

industrial assets8 – but it is also not incorporated in the state of residence of its purported

victims, and it can attempt to thwart the legal proceedings in a variety of ways. The

corporation may use its overwhelming resources to intimidate witnesses or bribe local

officials. It may also successfully resist attempts to obtain the cessation of the activities

that led to the victimization, or prevent the establishment of a mechanism of oversight.

Crucially, unlike a purely domestic actor, a multinational corporation may also evade

legal repercussions by withdrawing from the region. Such a response may make it

difficult if not impossible for the members of the community to hold the corporation to

account. In any of the above scenarios, the corporation can be said to have taken away an

option that would otherwise have been available to the community’s members.9

In its simplest form, the imposition of control by one actor on another involves

an intervention which removes the victim’s ability to rightfully think that certain options

are at his or her disposal.10 An individual may, at the outset, be able to choose among

options x, y, and z on a topic that is of interest to her. However, when another agent

intervenes to take away or significantly modify option x, she will now have to choose

between options y and z, or among options y, z and x’, with x’ representing the modified

option.11 Whether she realizes it or not, in this scenario, she will no longer be able to

correctly hold the belief that option x is available to her. Regardless of whether the

offending agent uses manipulation, intimidation, coercion, or another means of obtaining

8 Trafigura Corporate Brochure, p.3. http://www.trafigura.com/pdf/TrafiguraCorporateBrochure.pdf 9 It is possible that the mere existence of a significant power imbalance between the two actors increased the odds of the dumping occurring in the first place. Indeed, if the corporation was aware of its power and the community’s likely inability to counter it effectively, it may not have had a sufficient economic or legal incentive to find a trustworthy local partner. 10 Pettit, P., “Republican Liberty: Three Axioms, Four Theorems”, in C. Laborde & J. Maynor, (Eds.), Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 11 Ibid.

6

the desired change in circumstances, the result for the individual is a loss of freedom; she

is subject to domination.

I believe that there is broad agreement among global governance scholars about

how such a loss of control ought to be described and evaluated. John Rawls and David

Held would agree with me that the individuals are in this case prevented from

determining their own course of action without interference by others, and that this is a

problem. My disagreement with Held and Rawls surfaces only when the case is modified,

and individuals are subjected to virtual, rather than actual, control. But before I turn to

this more contentious form of control, I must first describe the central tenets of their

liberal and cosmopolitan democratic approaches to global governance.

David Held is the most prominent proponent of the ‘political-institutional’

formulation of democratic cosmopolitanism.12 His cosmopolitan model of global

governance responds to the so-called new political reality or ‘global shift’ away from

statism and nationalism.13 It is characterized by its defense of self-determination, its

principles of social justice and non-coercion, and the (eventual) extension of citizenship

to “membership in all cross-cutting political communities”,14 local or global. Important

principles that embody the values of cosmopolitanism are the principles of equal worth

and dignity, active agency, personal responsibility and accountability, consent, collective

12 I follow Nadia Urbinati’s distinction between the ‘deliberative-discourse’ and the ‘political-institutional’ versions of democratic cosmopolitanism, which I believe captures the divide in the literature. Urbinati, N., “Can cosmopolitan democracy be democratic?”, in D. Archibugi, (Ed.), Debating Cosmopolitics. London: Verso, 2003, pp.67-85. P.70. 13 Held, D., Global Covenant: The social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. E.g. p.161. 14 Held, D., Democracy and the Global Order: From the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Polity Press, 1995. P.272.

7

decision-making about public matters through voting procedures, inclusiveness and

subsidiarity, avoidance of serious harm, and, lastly, sustainability.15

The two key normative underpinnings of his approach are the principles of self-

determination and autonomy, which help shape Held’s conception of the democratic

good. Autonomy is defined as “the capacity of human beings to reason self-consciously,

to be self-reflective and to be self-determining”,16 and by the principle of self-

determination, Held means the freedom of citizens to freely choose “the conditions of

their own association”. 17 As ‘deliberately determining’ beings, citizens are capable of

deliberating, choosing and acting upon different courses of action in public life. The

democratic form of government allows the members of the political community to

determine the direction and form of their polity.

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls describes the characteristics of a more

limited, liberal approach to global governance based on peoples or nations. 18 Inspired by

Kant’s model of a federation of states, Rawls proposes a society comprised of liberal and

‘decent hierarchical’ peoples, whose dealings with one another and with those outside of

the Society of Peoples are based on the Law of Peoples. Decent hierarchical peoples are

political communities whose members belong to particular groups, all of which are

represented in the legal system in a ‘decent consultation hierarchy’. A decent hierarchical

society adheres to peaceful conduct in the international sphere, and respects minimal

human rights and the due process of law, while its legal system reflects a ‘common good’

15 Held, D., “Law of States, Law of Peoples: Three models of sovereignty”, Legal Theory, 8(1), 2002, 1-44; Held, D., 2004, Appendix, p.171. 16 Held, D., 1995, p.146. 17 Held, D., 1995, p.145. 18 Rawls, J., The Law of Peoples with ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Rawls emphasizes peoples, not states, and in this sense his vision departs from the current configuration of the international system.

8

idea of justice.19 Although not all nations in the world are part of this Society of Peoples,

it is Rawls’ hope that more nations could eventually be induced to join.

Rather than approximating ‘globalized’ versions of his two principles of domestic

liberal justice,20 the principles of justice among peoples include the need to observe

treaties and the duty of non-intervention, and to respect other peoples as free,

independent, and equal. With the exception of the requirement to respect human rights,

the principles do not directly address the concerns and interests of individuals. Despite

his use of the word, Rawls then does not ‘extend’21 his conception of domestic justice so

much as use it as an analogy.

Although Rawls does not reflect on the disruptive influence of global economic

actors, there are several indications in The Law of Peoples that he would consider the loss

of control in the above case a cause for concern. The first principle of justice in the Law

of Peoples stipulates that peoples are “free and independent”,22 and, while Rawls

continues by stating that “their freedom and independence are to be respected by other

peoples”,23 not other global actors more generally, the inclusion of this principle does

underline the importance he attaches to non-interference. Second, Rawls is keenly

attuned to the difficulties that face a “burdened society”, which he would most likely

consider the impoverished community an example of. Irrespective of his understanding of

19 Rawls, J., 1999, pp. 64-67. 20 The two principles of justice, which Rawls proposes in A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism are the following: “1. Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value. 2. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (a) They are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and (b), they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.” Rawls, 1993, p.5-6. 21 Rawls, J., 1999, p.9. 22 Rawls, J., The Law of Peoples with The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. P.37. 23 Ibid.

9

the initial cause of the community’s poverty or the community’s responsibility for the

outcome of the legal case in this example,24 he would view the failure of the society’s

legal system as emblematic of a society that is unfortunately not (yet) well-ordered.

So far, Held, Rawls and I are in agreement. However, let us now consider the

following permutation of the example. Let us imagine that the community’s members

have just discovered the origin of the dumped waste, and that they are pondering whether

to take action against, among other actors, the multinational corporation. It is conceivable

that they may decide against initiating legal proceedings, or that they may abandon

proceedings after initiating them. The inhabitants are surely aware of the corporation’s

overwhelming power, and they may also have reason to believe that the corporation

would do all that is in its power to avoid having to provide redress. The corporation may

have made credible threats in the past, or it may have a track record of squashing protest.

It may, like Trafigura, have a subsidiary in the region. Such a company could threaten

redundancies. Recognizing that the corporation would bear down on them if they

attempted to hold it to account, the inhabitants of the community may refrain from action.

In this scenario, the corporation will not need to intimidate, manipulate or coerce the

victims of the health crisis it caused, because the specter of its power has proved

sufficient to prevent protest or legal action. The corporation can sit back as long as its

interests – in this case, the absence of repercussions for the toxic waste dumping – are

served.

Unlike Rawls and Held, I argue that what occurs in the first and second

permutations of the example should be understood as similar instances of alien control; it

24 In the event that the legal proceedings are derailed by the successful bribery of officials, Rawls’ focus on political culture and institutions might lead him to primarily target the officials for being easily corruptible, rather than the corporation for attempting to bribe them.

10

is actual control, in the first case, and virtual control, in the second.25 Regardless of

whether the inhabitants decide to pursue action against the corporation, they will not be

able to obtain redress, because the corporation has seen to it that this option is effectively

off the table. The question of whether this outcome was brought about with or without

actual interference is only a matter of secondary importance, since the lack of

interference in the second scenario does not in any way diminish the severity of the

restrictions on the inhabitants’ freedom.

The case of Trafigura can arguably not be fully understood without this second

category of control. To a certain extent, the Ivorian government was capable of pursuing

redress on behalf of its citizens. It organized an investigation into the dumping, and it

even accused Trafigura of creating the local company, Tommy, as a shell company.26 It

also imprisoned two company officials when they visited Côte d’Ivoire in the aftermath

of the crisis. However, while a criminal case is outstanding against the local company,

the Ivorian government decided to settle with Trafigura. The settlement, of approximately

$200 million, does not include an admission of corporate liability, and it precludes further

financial claims by the Ivorian government against the company. It is arguably also

premature, since the long-term health effects of the waste dumping are not yet known.

Many of the victims received around $500 each, but the United Nations estimates that a

total of 100,000 individuals were ultimately affected. Some of the recipients of

compensation have complained that it does not cover their medical bills or lost

25 Pettit, P., 2007. 26 See footnote 6.

11

earnings.27 The Netherlands, by contrast, will try its criminal case against Trafigura later

this month.

The difference between the Ivorian government’s attitude towards the local

company, on the one hand, and its treatment of Trafigura, on the other, suggests that the

government may have ‘held back’ in dealing with the multinational corporation. From the

little that is known about the case, it does not appear that overt coercion, manipulation, or

intimidation played a large role. It is more likely instead that the government may have

been wary to fight an apparently ruthless corporation whose contractor thought nothing of

dumping highly toxic waste in residential areas. It may also have considered its

dependence on the corporation’s contribution to the Ivorian economy. While the Ivorian

government was certainly not completely cowed in the face of the corporation’s power,

the disadvantageous settlement suggests that it may have been under the virtual control of

the corporation to at least to a certain extent.

Two further permutations of the example will help to clarify the difference

between the approaches of Rawls and Held, on the one hand, and mine, on the other. Let

us say that, in the third scenario, the inhabitants have opted to proceed with a legal case

against the multinational corporation. The corporation considers its options, and decides

to ‘go along’ with a legal investigation, while secretly giving itself the license to

withdraw from the legal process and from the country should the proceedings go down a

path that it finds unacceptable. While maintaining a façade of cooperation, the

corporation starts to meticulously and surreptitiously prepare for a possible pull-out. Let

27 J. James, “Ivory Coast’s forgotten acrid waste”, BBC News, August 19, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7570269.stm ; “Ivory Coast’s toxic waste trial to start September 29”, Agence France Presse, September 2, 2008. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6ymzxgEJmrQy0oUsjX2sxTnQV3A

12

us assume that the corporation would be capable of executing this plan successfully. In

the fourth, very similar, scenario, the corporation does not make any plans to disrupt the

legal process, but it balks when the court directs it to provide redress, and it only then

resolves to avoid the order by withdrawing its operations from the country. In both cases,

the community’s members will only be made aware of the control that the corporation

has over them if they elect the option that the corporation disagrees with. Only in that

eventuality will the community find out that the option of redress was always unavailable

to them.

At first glance, Trafigura does not seem to have pursued either of these strategies.

However, it is possible that the Ivorian government’s decision to settle was a genuine

one, born out of a concern for the well-being of the affected individuals, and that the

government therefore just happened to choose the option that was also favored by the

corporation. In that case, the corporation might have revealed its dominating power once

the state changed its mind and decided to wait for the court’s ruling.

While Held and Rawls may find fault with the corporation’s surreptitious plan of

action in the third scenario, they will find it more difficult to articulate what, if anything,

is wrong with the fourth scenario prior to the court’s order, that is, before the corporation

decides not to comply with it. After all, the corporation is cooperating fully and it does

not, at this stage, have any intention – articulated publicly or behind closed doors – of

ignoring the court’s ruling. From the perspective of neo-republican theory, however, the

inhabitants are under the virtual control of the corporation even before the corporation

rejects the legal judgment. The problem is that, even in the fourth scenario, the progress

of the legal case is orderly only as a matter of accident, and the community’s members

13

are able to attempt to seek redress only as a matter of accident. Ultimately, however, the

process still escapes the control of the community.

Neither Rawls nor Held would consider the virtual control of the second and

fourth cases comparable in magnitude to the interference in the first case. The fourth

example seems to escape Rawls’ attention altogether, and Held would most likely need to

import a secondary value, of respect, perhaps, in order to articulate why virtual control is

as objectionable as actual control.28 While I am not opposed per se to using a plurality of

concepts to describe a complex problem of political injustice, I believe that actual and

virtual alien control should be treated, and described, similarly. It is a distinct advantage

of neo-republican thought that it has conceptual room for non-actual, virtual control in its

supreme political ideal of freedom as non-domination.

3. Non-Domination and the Neo-Republican Tradition of Thought

The conception of freedom that lies at the center of my approach to global governance

can be traced to ancient Rome. Roman republicanism, which subsequently flourished in

the Italian city-states and the Dutch republic, and at the time of the English Civil War and

the ‘commonwealthmen’,29 posits that the citizen, unlike the slave, is free because he is

not in potestate domini, or subject to the power of a lord or master. This freedom of the

citizen, freedom as non-domination, can be safeguarded only to the extent that the

government remains focused on the common good or res publica. A constitution which

aims at achieving precisely this is thus required. The Roman republican tradition suggests

28 See Held’s reference to “respect for the equal and legitimate rights of others to pursue their own projects and life plans”, which ultimately relies on the principle of autonomy. Held, D., 1995, p.228. 29 See e.g. Viroli, M., Republicanism, transl. A. Shugaar, New York: Hill and Wang, 2001; Skinner, Q., Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Baron, H., In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.

14

that particular institutions – such as those prevalent in the Roman republic – are well

suited to be part of a constitution which requires the polity to focus on the common

good.30

Neo-republican scholars such as Pettit similarly characterize a person as free

when she is not exposed to the ability on anyone else’s part to interfere on an arbitrary

basis, and with impunity, in her decision-making.31 Bohman refers to it as “rule by

another, one who is able to prescribe the terms of cooperation”, and, unlike Pettit,

emphasizes its normative content, describing political domination as the “arbitrary use of

normative powers”.32 In neo-republican thought, a person who is subject to domination

lacks freedom regardless of whether actual interference takes place. Instead, what is

crucial is the capacity on the part of the dominating agent to interfere in the manner

described above. Interference is problematic only to the extent that it is arbitrary, because

in this case, the interfering agent is “not forced to track the interests and ideas of those

who suffer the interference”.33 Non-arbitrary power is political power that is exercised in

accordance with a set of fair procedures, which support ideals such as the free and equal

status of individuals.34

Domination is a relational concept – it is expressed in terms of one agent’s

relationship to another – and a social one – the agents tend to understand whether they are

dominated by the other. It is also a matter of degree rather than an all-or-none concept; a

30 Pettit, P., Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. P.284. 31 Pettit, P., 1997. P.25. See also Maynor, J.W., Republicanism in the Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003. Pp.13-30, and Skinner, Q., 1998. 32 Bohman, J., Democracy across Borders: From Demos to Demoi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. P.9. 33 Pettit, P., 1997, p.272. 34 This is what Henry Richardson terms the ‘liberal’ understanding of nonarbitrariness. See Richardson, H.S., Democratic Autonomy: Public reasoning about the ends of policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. P.37.

15

person may have a greater or lesser capacity to interfere arbitrarily in another’s choices,

he may have a capacity to interfere more or less arbitrarily, and he may have a capacity to

interfere arbitrarily in a larger or smaller set of choices that are more or less important to

the victim.35

Power can be exercised by private or public actors. It is private power or

dominium when exercised by private individuals, groups or organizations in society, and

public power or imperium when it refers to the power of the state. Private dominating

power can be exercised by powerful elites, corporations, or associations in civil life. As

the embodiment of the people, the republican state aims to restrain the dominating power

of such actors and lessen its citizens’ vulnerability to power of this kind. The republican

state is indispensable because it exercises publicly controlled power, a form of power

which serves to counteract domination and secure liberty. In the context of the state, a

private agent’s capacity for domination can be diminished or eliminated with, for

instance, the aid of a constitutional regime of law that affirms the equal status of all

citizens. However, the state must take care not to become an instrument of domination

itself. While it is understood that the state may need to interfere in the lives of its citizens

– through imposed taxation or regulation more generally – it must take into account the

interests of its citizens when doing so. Machiavelli and some of his contemporaries

stressed the importance of placing limitations on governmental authority – by

constitutional measures as well as legal norms.36

35 Pettit, P., “The Domination Complaint”, in M. Williams and S. Macedo, (Eds.), Nomos XLVI: Political Exclusion and Domination, 2005, pp. 118-163. P.94. 36 Machiavelli, N., Discourses on Livy, trans. H. Mansfield and N. Tarcov. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. II.2.

16

Non-arbitrary law plays a crucial role in restraining the power of private as well

as public actors. Law is interfering but non-dominating as long as it is formulated by the

people in a constitutional republic. When, in The Commonwealth of Oceana, Harrington

argues against Hobbes’ conception of freedom and his thoughts on government, he

emphasizes the importance of the rule of law as a check on arbitrary power. In a famous

passage, he states that the citizens of the republic of Lucca are, contrary to Hobbes’

assertion, more free than the inhabitants of Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman

Empire, because they are free ‘by the laws of Lucca’.37

As the unit which secures non-domination, the publicly controlled republican

state has three distinct types of functions. It aims to protect citizens from threats and to

empower them by enhancing their independence and protecting them against domination.

The former may be achieved through the criminal justice system, and the latter by

providing essential services such as medical treatment. In order to protect the liberty of

all citizens, the state must also regulate the economic and other activity of powerful

individuals and groups within society. When it operates with a view to the common good

of its citizens, the republican state does not cause the freedom of its citizens; it constitutes

it. The recognition that they are members of a republican state with well-functioning

institutions enables citizens to rightly conclude that they enjoy freedom from domination.

4. Globalizing Republicanism

Republican scholars, contemporary and historical, agree that freedom as non-domination

is best pursued through a republican state, a unit of governance which is robust and

37 Harrington, J., The Commonwealth of Oceana, and, A System of Politics, ed. by J.G.A. Pocock. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992 [1656].

17

independent. The relevance of republican thought to matters of global governance may

therefore not be immediately apparent. There are, however, both prudential and

normative reasons for thinking of non-domination in global terms. First, due to the

influence of global actors, the state can no longer reliably secure non-domination

domestically. Certain characteristics of the current global context threaten to severely

disrupt the ability of the republican state to secure a condition of non-domination for its

citizens. Many decisions taken globally affect citizens locally, and global decision-

making – in its various guises – often places individuals, groups and even states in a

position of vulnerability. Although, traditionally, personal liberty could be adequately

protected by state institutions, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the state to

safeguard liberty within it. Hence, a prudential argument exists in favor of extending non-

domination beyond the state.38

The application of the republican ideal of non-domination to the global sphere is

also warranted from a normative standpoint. Indeed, a strong case can be made that,

rather than pertaining solely to the republican state, non-domination ought to be

understood instead as a global political standard. Given the extent of global

interdependence, and the similarities in experiences of individuals around the world, it is

not possible to defend the importance of republican liberty for one group and deny its

importance to another. The recent changes in the global political structure necessitate a

re-evaluation of the myriad ways in which domination among states, groups within states,

and individuals can occur, with the reach and influence of multinational corporations

38 For a similar argument, see Slaughter, S., Liberty Beyond Neo-Liberalism: A republican critique of liberal governance in a globalizing age. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. P.256.

18

serving as an example of dominating private power at the global level, and unaccountable

and powerful global institutions exemplifying dominating global imperium.

Although the potential for the cross-border domination of one state and people

by another is not a new phenomenon, as the case of the Roman republic illustrates, the

current process of globalization gives republicans grounds for concern. As global

interconnectedness has increased, so has inequality and vulnerability to domination. The

gap between the world’s richest and poorest quintiles has risen from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 73

to 1 in 1997.39 In 2005, the ratio of the income between the richest and the poorest 10%

was 103 to 1.40 In addition, the wealth of private global actors, notably large corporations,

dwarfs that of some states. Material, socio-economic inequality is especially problematic

because of its potential for domination of the poor by the rich. The impacts of

globalization are experienced unequally by different political communities, and this new

vulnerability threatens not only the well-being of the global poor and the traditionally

disadvantaged groups in Western society, but also the very capacity of free and

independent political decision-making, leaving even the most privileged individuals at

the mercy of political and economic forces that are beyond their control.41 It thus makes

intuitive sense to accord non-domination a political role in a global order plagued by

problems of vulnerability.

39 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1999. New York, NY: Human Development Report Office, 1999, p.3. 40 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2005. New York, NY: Human Development Report Office, 2005, p.38. 41 Bohman, J., “Republican cosmopolitanism”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 12(3), 2004, 336-352. P.337.

19

In recent years, several scholars – James Bohman, Steven Slaughter, Philip Pettit,

and Lawrence Quill – have articulated neo-republican theories of global governance.42

Like mine, their accounts also center on the ideal of non-domination, but that is where

our approaches diverge. Bohman envisions a transnational democratic ideal based on

overlapping dêmoi, where individuals achieve their “normative status of membership in

the human political community”.43 Quill urges citizens to “recognize the fragility of

political power and to choose to act on a number of different spatial levels, in order to

influence or restrain that power”,44 and prioritizes their education as ‘cosmorepublican’

citizens over the development of global institutions. Because Pettit develops a republican

Law of Peoples, he reserves a larger role for the state than the other republicans do, and

he, like Rawls, differentiates between functional – benign or malign – and dysfunctional

states. Slaughter’s account resembles mine most closely, but he focuses almost

exclusively on the problem of domination in the economic realm.

I believe that Bohman’s inclusion of a ‘republican cosmopolitan’ conception of

human rights,45 marks an unfortunate departure from the traditional way that republican

thought views rights, and that both Bohman and Quill overstate the impact of

globalization on a range of issues and conceptions, namely, (the subject of) democracy,46

political education,47 and citizenship.48 I disagree with Slaughter’s emphasis on economic

42 Bohman, J., Democracy Across Borders: From dêmos to dêmoi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007; Pettit, P., “A Republican Law of Peoples”, Forthcoming in European Journal of Political Theory; Quill, L., Liberty After Liberalism: Civic republicanism in a global age. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Slaughter, S., 2005. 43 Bohman, J., 2007. P.132. 44 Quill, L., 2006. P.151. 45 See Bohman, J., 2007. 46 Idem. 47 See Quill, L., 2007. 48 Ibid. Interesting applications of republican thought to substantive matters in global politics include Michael Barnett’s republican conception of peace-building, Waldemar Hanasz’ exploration of global

20

domination,49 and, unlike Pettit, I do not believe that matters of global governance should

first be discussed exclusively among – and pertaining to – republican or democratic

states.50 I discuss these objections in turn.

While the human rights that are outlined in the UN Charter may have gained

broad acceptance, I believe that it is a mistake to put as much emphasis as Bohman does

on a conception of human rights. This is the case for two reasons. First, the kind of

domination that takes place without actual interference – in other words, virtual control –

cannot easily be expressed in terms of a violation of rights, and an emphasis on rights

may lead to a neglect of virtual control. Second, rights traditions usually envision the

formal implementation of rights through law. However, the rights that might be generated

by the ideal of non-domination are likely to extend beyond what the law can provide.

Other measures, such as social pressure or the building of coalitions of the weak, are

likely to be necessary in order to reduce the vulnerability of individuals to domination. I

also believe that Bohman and Quill overstate the scope and depth of the transformation of

the global political ‘space’. This diagnosis of the current global order leads Bohman to

focus on the question of the transformation of the demos or the subject of democracy, and

it directs Quill to the topic of education for global republican citizenship. Somewhat

similarly, Slaughter’s concern with economic domination results in a lack of attention for

other kinds of domination, by actors as varied as states, global institutions, and non-

governmental organizations.

republican citizenship, and Iris Marion Young’s republican conception of self-determination. Barnett, M.N., “Building a Republican Peace: Building states after war”, International Security 30(4), 2006, 87-112; Hanasz, W., “Toward Global Republican Citizenship?”, Social Philosophy and Policy, 23(1), 2006, 282-302; Young, I.M., “Self-Determination as Non-Domination: Ideals applied to Palestine/Israel”, Ethnicities, 5(2), 2005, 139-159. 49 See Slaughter, S., 2005. 50 See Pettit, P., Forthcoming.

21

My disagreement with Pettit lies with his decision to follow Rawls’ sequencing

in The Law of Peoples; in other words, his decision to focus initially on the relationships

among republican or democratic states only. The question that neo-republican thought

addresses asks how it is possible to guarantee the liberty of all citizens – in the context of

a republican state and by way of particular policies. A global republicanism must

similarly concern itself with the enjoyment of non-domination by individuals. If the

domination of individuals is indeed a serious problem in global politics, and the ultimate

unit of moral concern is the individual – two statements with which Pettit seems to be in

agreement – there must be a presumption in favor of the inclusion of states that do not

meet republican standards. Restrictions on membership in a global regime or global

institutions may be justified in certain cases, but they must be justified by reference to the

impact of this exclusion on the citizens of the affected state. Only when it is apparent that

the inclusion of a particular state will increase the total amount of domination – domestic

and global – that its citizens are subjected to, should that state be refused membership. It

is at least logically plausible to suggest that, in a subset of cases, the membership of such

a state in a global regime or institution will lead to a decrease in the vulnerability of its

citizens to global domination – even if the level of domination by the state itself remains

constant. Participation in a fair trade regime may, for instance, reduce citizens’

vulnerability to domination by global economic actors even as the domestic state

continues to deny its citizens equal access to competition for political office. In other

words, depending on how domestic and global domination interact, membership may

result in a net benefit for the citizens of even a very oppressive state. I do not deny that

some states may need to be excluded from institutions or regimes. Crucially, however,

22

such a determination can only be made on a case-by-case basis, after careful

consideration of the particular circumstances, and domination or its absence must be the

only relevant criterion.

5. Non-Domination as a Global Political Ideal

It will be clear by now that I intend for the relevance of domination to extend beyond the

diagnosis of a certain problem in global politics, as described in the first section. I also

propose non-domination as a strong candidate for a global political ideal. I argue that the

global ideal of non-domination is desirable because it captures something in which

citizens have a clear avowed or readily avowed interest, and because it is also

discursively admissible, and capable of subsuming other ideals within it.51 Finally, it has

the potential for broad cross-cultural appeal.

First, the ideal of non-domination is ‘discursively admissible’, because it is

“admissible as a relevant consideration in any open discursive discussion of how things

are and should be organized in society”.52 The constraint of discursive admissibility is

designed to rule out those considerations which irreducibly advance the interests of only

part of the population. Statements which include a plural ‘we’, which does not refer to the

population as a whole, and cannot be interpreted as such, are not ‘discursively

admissible’. The challenge where a global and not a domestic political ideal is concerned

is that the appropriate addressee of claims is not society but the totality of actors in global

politics. One concern may then be that the constraint appears to rule out claims which are

specific to particular domestic publics, but which we would normally consider

51 Cf. Pettit, P., “The Domination Complaint”, in M.S. Williams & S. Macedo, Nomox XLVI, Political Exclusion and Domination. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2005, p.88. 52 Pettit, P., 2005, p.90.

23

appropriate in the context of domestic decision-making. However, this does not seem to

pose a real difficulty for the consideration of non-domination, or indeed any other

candidate, as a global political ideal. Surely only a certain type of discursive forum will

deal with matters of global concern. Much of politics will still take place at the state

level, and claims which are ‘irreducibly relativized’ to the society as a whole will then

not be considered relativized at all. Of course, it certainly does seem proper to rule as

discursively inadmissible partial, nation-based claims when these affect the interests of a

wider constituency – after all, the domination of one state by another is a form of

domination which global governance institutions ought to seek to address.

Non-domination is also a significant complaint, as it is a concern of primary

importance. A person who is dominated will be deprived of the freedom of thought and

of choice, and he or she will be constrained in his or her thoughts and actions by the

specter of the dominating party. While many other important ideals will also be

significant and discursively admissible, non-domination is especially appealing because it

can address other complaints within it – complaints which are also seen as falling within

the responsibility of politics to address. Pettit suggests that values such as equality and

community can be subsumed under the domination complaint. I contend that two of the

most promising values that pertain to global governance, accountability as used by Ruth

Grant and Robert Keohane,53 and Andrew Kuper’s responsiveness,54 can similarly be

addressed when domination is addressed. I discuss these four political values in turn.

53 Grant, R.W., and Keohane, R.O, “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics”, American Political Science Review, 99(1), 2005, 29-43. 54 Kuper, A., Democracy Beyond Borders: Justice and representation in global institutions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.

24

First, non-domination provides for a certain equality, namely, the equal capacity

to command the attention and respect of others. As discussed above, non-domination is a

relational concept, which means that one person’s ability to be free from domination

depends not on their absolute level of power but on the level of power that they enjoy

relative to the power of other actors. An increase in non-domination in one situation will

not lead to a decrease elsewhere. This last point is worth emphasizing. The current

political discourse on globalization often draws attention to the global equalization of

conditions of employment or technology, and to the material sacrifices that such an

equalization may eventually entail for citizens in Western countries. An increase in the

enjoyment of non-domination in non-Western parts of the world, however, comes with no

sacrifices in the enjoyment of non-domination in the West.

As for the value of community, non-domination is enjoyed in society, and its

communal aspect implies that non-domination cannot be enjoyed without the others “in

every salient class you belong – including, in the last analysis, others in the society as a

whole”.55 In the global context, this implies that even a wealthy person in a weak state

cannot avoid domination completely as long as that person’s state is dominated by other

actors. He or she will be recognized by others as a citizen of that state, and it will be more

difficult for him or her to command authority and respect than for a similarly placed

citizen of a more powerful state. If steps are taken to reduce domination, this will at the

same time be a statement of respect for the peoples and cultures that are part of it.

Third, the task of reducing domination cannot be addressed adequately in the

absence of a concerted effort to improve the accountability of various global actors to

those they affect. As a procedural criterion for global governance, accountability has 55 Pettit, P., 2005, p.112.

25

recently received a sizeable amount of attention.56 As Grant and Keohane use the term,

accountability “implies that some actors have the right to hold other actors to a set of

standards, to judge whether they have fulfilled their responsibilities in light of these

standards, and to impose sanctions if they determine that these responsibilities have not

been met.”57 In the case of democratic accountability, individuals can hold power-holders

to account by participating in electoral politics, or by entrusting power to those in

government.58 In the global context, it is more difficult to determine who can hold whom

to account, and to which set of standards.59 However, it is difficult to imagine how

individuals might be able to secure their freedom from domination in the absence of

mechanisms of accountability. First, such mechanisms would help determine whether the

actors that ought to refrain from dominating individuals have done so, and whether the

institutions that ought to shield them from domination have provided adequate protection.

Second, accountability mechanisms would allow for the imposition of a penalty when

actors fall short.

Fourth, the ideal of non-domination also subsumes within it the democratic

ideal of responsiveness, as articulated by Kuper. Defining responsiveness as a

“systematic causal connection between citizens having certain interests and views (on the

one hand) and such interests and views being identified and pursued by their political

system (on the other)”,60 Kuper argues that it can be enhanced by establishing new, non-

56 E.g., Ferejohn, J., “Accountability in a Global Context”, IILJ Working Paper 2007/5 (Global Administrative Law Series), New York University, http://www.iilj.org/working%20papers/documents/2007-5.Ferejohn.web_000.pdf; Grant, R.W., and Keohane, R.O., 2005; Rubenstein, J., “Accountability in an Unequal World”, Journal of Politics, 69(3), 2007, 616-632; 57 Grant, R.W., and Keohane, R.O., 2005, p.29. 58 Ibid., p.31. 59 The ideal of non-domination can provide an answer to the second question. 60 Kuper, A., 2004, pp. 4-5.

26

statist, formal institutions, by incorporating non-state actors in global governance

structures, and by delineating a ‘charter’ of relevant obligations in international law. He

aims to provide individuals with new institutions and legal norms that would increase

their political influence. It seems clear that, if the institutions of the global political order

were more responsive, they would also be better at identifying and advancing the interest

of individuals in non-domination. Increased responsiveness would thus entail an

improvement in the capacity of political institutions to act as guarantors of political

liberty.

Finally, a political ideal that seeks to apply to the global context must also have

broad, cross-cultural appeal. To a certain extent, this requirement is addressed by the

third constraint of desirability, as any ideal which can address other significant ideals

within it is likely to have wide appeal, but it does not overlap with it entirely, and bears

special mentioning. There are two reasons for believing that non-domination may have

the necessary appeal. First, since non-Western states tend to be among the most

vulnerable in the current global system, they would most likely have the most to gain

from the promotion of non-domination as the primary ideal in global politics. In addition

to this strategic reason, an appeal to non-domination may also resonate well with the

experiences of their citizens. The resistance of some Asians to Western influence, even

the largely benign human rights regimes, can arguably be attributed in part to their

memories of colonial rule.61 Similarly, Chidi Anselm Odinkalu has argued that many

61 O. Yasuaki, “Toward an Intercivilizational Approach to Human Rights”, in J. Bauer & D. Bell, Eds., The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights. Cambridge University Press, 1999. P.106.

27

Africans reject human rights language because the Western organizations that promote

such rights ‘think locally and act globally’ rather than the other way around.62

While dominating global actors sometimes interfere with the decision-making

processes of others in an open manner, at other times, global actors dominate individuals

in the absence of any visible manifestations thereof. The latter category of domination

risks being overlooked by scholars from the Western world. This is the case because

citizens in the Western world simply have less experience with overbearing and

threatening corporations, organizations, or states. As discussed above, non-domination is

a social concept, in the sense that the weaker actor tends to know that they are dominated

by the stronger one, and our relative lack of experience with virtual control may blind us

to its prevalence. In the second, third, and fourth permutations of my earlier example, the

members of the community may be pleased to discover that their discomfort with the

control that the corporation has over their lives is acknowledged not just as valid, but as a

concern of primary importance.

62 C.A. Odinkalu, “Why More Africans Don’t Use Human Rights Language”, Human Rights Dialogue, 2(1), 1999.