International Institutions and the Challenge of Globalization
Dr. Michael Joseph Roberto
Assistant Professor of History
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
The faculty development seminar in Brussels was a wonderful blend of education and enjoyment, a truly complete experience. The academic presentations, cultural excursions, accommodations and dining, social activities, and opportunities to freely roam various parts of the city contributed to a balanced mix of the serious and the casual. From intense discussions between presenters and participants during meetings, to the friendly relations clearly evident in our outings and informal gatherings, the seminar proved to be an extremely rich experience. Our CIEE hosts, Dr. Michelangelo van Meerten and Mr. Daniel Riley, planned a full schedule of lectures and meetings by several scholars and experts. They also coordinated visits to museums, a first-rate concert, excursions to The Hague and Bruges, and sumptuous dining that made for a memorable eight days. They are both to be commended for their tireless efforts, especially since this was their initial launching of the seminar.
Seminar participants were provided with several highly qualified presenters, who spoke on a variety of issues relating to the process of globalization and its impact on European society and its institutions. We learned a great deal about the structure and functions of the European Union and received valuable information about major issues facing contemporary Europeans; among the most significant involving trade and economic conditions, security, monetary policy, immigration, and the environment. Each presenter focused on a particular aspect of globalization, treating that aspect from the standpoint of past and present impact. However, common to all their discussions was the central role of the European Union. Thus participants had the opportunity to learn about the European Union from a number of vantage points and perspectives. It also was fortuitous to hold the seminar in Brussels, the capital city of the European Union, as it came shortly after recent national referenda on the proposed European Constitution. From the presenters and also in the European press, participants had an opportunity to hear and read about different interpretations of why French and Dutch voters had only weeks earlier rejected the proposed constitution. Several presenters suggested that the “no votes” did not represent opposition to European-wide governance but instead to the neo-liberal economic policies of elites across Europe, who the majority of French and Dutch voters may have blamed for rising unemployment in their respective nations.
The seminar’s fifteen participants, all from colleges and universities in the United States, were given valuable insights about the way Americans and Europeans perceive and respond to different aspects of globalization. As presenter Jarrod Wiener suggested at the opening session, French and Dutch citizens who voted against the proposed constitution were exhibiting the same fears of many U.S. citizens about the process and results of globalization. Like Americans, Wiener said, Europeans are equally wary of a fate that depends on decisions made elsewhere, particularly as these decisions affect the market and its impact on employment, economic stability, and national security. Subsequent presenters returned to this theme, though often suggesting that Europeans generally have a better understanding of these problems due to the relative stability of European social democracy. Open to the fact that some postwar institutions may be anachronistic, Europeans are seeking new ways to govern without sacrificing policies that have established and maintained minimal norms and standards necessary for quality of life.
All the presenters demonstrated how globalization brings many new challenges to European policymakers that require bold initiatives in governance. Member states of the European Union steadily have transferred external trade and monetary policies to the European Parliament. The EP has also become pivotal for ongoing struggles in member states for more democratic control over environmental rights. We learned that despite their concerns over some policies and practices of the EU, European citizens generally support EU environmental policies and initiatives because environmental struggles are often resolved in their favor. This is due to the fact that European law has jurisdiction over national or federal law in many areas of environmental protection. Considering that European law does not adhere to the general principle of economic growth as an end in itself, citizens have the power to actively participate in a decision-making process that balances economic growth with environmental protection.
These and other issues will be considered in my courses at North Carolina A&T State University. I took extensive notes at each session on governance, trade policies, immigration, security matters, and European foreign policy concerns. Much of this material I will use this year in lectures and as topics for class discussion. I am also scheduled to give a talk on the European Union to a faculty-student group in September. Most intriguing to me were the theoretical and conceptual discussions that took place both inside and outside our sessions: for example, the concept of a new type of regionalism in Europe and how it might serve twenty-first century Europeans economically and politically in their competition with the United States and the rising economic power of China and India; or the extent to which European political life retains established forms of social democracy just as some Europeans seek to redefine socialism in theory and practice. I was also struck by the degree to which the European Union is a paradoxical unity: On the one hand, elites in most countries seem increasingly to favor “liberalized markets” and free-trade, while at the same time continuing to maintain certain features of welfare capitalism. As one presenter stated emphatically, the EU is designed to serve the general interest, which implies a fundamental respect for democratic principles and rights. Ironically, a supranational institution safeguards decentralized European culture focusing on participatory democracy. This reality should not be lost on American students, who seem to have quite different views on democracy as the victim of “big government” in the United States.