Given Bolton's record, it's not surprising that the US mark-up is being characterized as a Bolton special:
- John Bolton is doing exactly what his critics expected of him. He is sticking it to the world. . .hard and nasty. (Steve Clemons sitting in for Josh Marshall at TPM)
- John Bolton is the perfect messenger for the blunt challenge Washington has thrown down to the international consensus. (Guardian)
- America's controversial new ambassador to the United Nations is seeking to shred an agreement on strengthening the world body and fighting poverty intended to be the highlight of a 60th anniversary summit next month. In the extraordinary intervention, John Bolton has sought to roll back proposed UN commitments on aid to developing countries, combating global warming and nuclear disarmament. (The Independent)
- While Bolton ludicrously talks about seeking a "strong consensus," the objective is rather obvious: strong dissensus all around. [Hence, talking about the merits of this or that proposal totally misses the point. The proposed changes are tactical fig leaves fog sabotage.] (Stygius)
John Bolton wants to escape the cage that's been built around him. Thus we see him emphatically trying to inject himself into a reform process that is already well underway, one controlled by those within a Bush Administration that have deliberately (and pragmatically) excluded him in the interests of UN reform.
I've taken a quick scan through the mark-up (pdf) provided via Steve Clemons. And I've looked with somewhat greater care at the development sections that seem to have provoked quite a bit of comment, especially the deletion of language regarding the Millennium Development Goals. I have quite a different take on the draft and the US position.
I was indeed shocked and dismayed, but not by the majority of US comments. Rather, I was flabbergasted that whoever has been shepherding the document through the bureaucratic process had thought that a draft at this late date, which had so many items that directly contradicted long-standing US positions -- including on topics that had just received world-wide attention at the Gleneagles G-8 summit -- had the remotest chance of survival.
Let's focus first on process. The Guardian offers two possible explanations for this state of affairs.
The US delegation says it was raising its objections informally at meetings to discuss the draft, and was forced to circulate its blunt list of deletions and additions only after those objections were ignored.Let's be clear, folks. A large number of the proposed changes would require no, I repeat, no political guidance from Washington. They are no-brainers, pure and simple, for anyone representing the US in international fora. Many are on points where representatives from other countries familiar with the issues would know good and well that the draft language was a non-starter for the US. Not just for the Bush Administration, but for prior administrations or for a considerable majority of the US Congress.
The account provided by European officials at the UN explains the late timing of this intervention by turmoil inside the US foreign policy establishment. For the first seven months of this year, as the draft was being hammered out, the US had no full permanent representative at the UN. John Danforth retired in January, and the White House's attention was focused on persuading the Senate to confirm John Bolton. A career diplomat, Anne Patterson, led the delegation in the interim, but reportedly received little political guidance from Washington.
When Mr Bolton arrived this month, finally forced in by the president with a temporary executive appointment, the change was dramatic. The leadership shifted from a non-political diplomat to one of the most ideological and partisan US permanent representatives in recent history.
The explanation offered by the US delegation, as reported by the Guardian, is plausible. The account provided to the Guardian by "European officials at the UN" is not. Unless, that is, what the officials meant when they said "little political guidance" was that State told Anne Patterson not to throw a public tizzy-fit until Bolton arrived on the scene.
Now for some substantive comments. Let's leave to one side the absolutely clear-cut non-negotiable US positions on hot-button issues -- such as Kyoto and the ICC -- where the positions in the draft were not couched in terms that could conceivably obtain US endorsement. Let's just focus on the development and poverty agenda, where it's already clear from the press comments that the proposed US changes will be viewed by some (especially NGOs and undoubtedly many developing countries) as backtracking on some sort of grand global consensus.
Some of the proposed additions or deletions are undeniably chippy -- the US substituting its preferred formulation that publicizes its own programs or philosophies rather than use more generic language that would incorporate a wider variety of approaches that have broad support in the development community. A wordsmith would have few difficulties coming up with language that is widely acceptable to both the US and the original drafters in many of those cases. Some of the changes are stylistic -- toning down the sweeping generalities and grandiose sentiments but more accurately reflecting the reality of what the document represents and is likely to achieve in practical terms (e.g., "all" is invariably struck; "recognize" and "resolve" are often substituted for "agree" and "commit"). Even after the US' proposed amendments, however, it's a pretty ambitious laundry list of hopes and dreams.
But if we take a large step back from the specific clauses and look at the overall thrust of the draft, it's easy to see why the US viewed it as troubling, to say the least. The draft is a major attempt to shift responsibility for defining and overseeing the development/poverty agenda, and controlling the resources for that agenda, from the current system of bilateral aid politics and multilateral institutions (especially the IMF and the World Bank) to New York. The alleged "backtracking" by Bolton on the MDGs should be seen in this context.
The draft for the UN Summit, before the US started whacking away with a red pen, covered a whole host of topics that are currently being debated within the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO (and occasionally the G-8, G-22 etc) -- such as debt relief and what it will mean for the capital structure of the lending institutions, changes in the architecture of the international financial system, coordination of national development and poverty reduction strategies with bilateral and multilateral assistance, improving the mechanics of aid delivery, the big Doha Round agenda. No one who included these issues in the draft for the UN Summit could have expected that these complex topics -- which have been discussed non-stop for years, with progress made incrementally, and which will be discussed for years to come -- could be brought profitably into the UN Summit process.
The proposed draft can only be fully understood if you've got a feel for the sort of debates represented by Jeffrey Sachs' gargantuan scheme to "end poverty in our lifetime." The scheme was set forth in a special report overseen by Sachs for Kofi Annan earlier this year that's an "action plan" for the MDGs. I am extremely uncomfortable with the entire Sachs approach, which is far too top-down (in the sense of planning, not necessarily implementation, and rapid scalability), too focused on box-car dollars, and much too heavy on actions directed at eliminating "poverty" rather than integrating more of the poor into a long-term positive-feedback process that promotes sustainable economic development. Caveat -- Sachs does have lots of interesting diagnoses of problems and specific ideas for ways to make drastic improvements in peoples' lives, his recent book is worth a quick read, and some of the specific chapters and Task Force reports that are components in the grand UN scheme are full of good insights.
It is my personal opinion -- and apparently the position of the US government -- that the world doesn't need more grandiose schemes. But it is not simply a matter of opinion that there is a complete absence of a "global consensus" on development and poverty reduction which the US (or Bolton) is purportedly opposing. In fact, it's an absolute canard to suggest that such a consensus exists. Surely the recent debates spawned by the attention to assistance in Africa at the recent G-8 summit should have made that clear to one and all. Reasonable people who are passionately committed to development and poverty reduction have major differences about what sorts of assistance or actions by developed countries are effective and desirable.
But in addition to my allergy to a development philosophy that's excessively "planned," overly concerned with fund-raising, and focused heavily on "poverty" per se, the biggest problem I have with Sachs' proposals is that it would put the UN in the driver's seat. As most fights over institutional arrangements, the Sachs proposal isn't framed as New York-centric in so many words. But the reality of the institutional agenda is plain to discern for anyone with experience in institutional battles when (1) the driving goals/metrics are "owned" by the UN (the MDGs), (2) the "coordinating" mechanisms are ten-year national development plans tied to the achievement of the UN-owned goals, (3) UN Country Teams are responsible for ensuring "coordination" of both bilateral and multilateral assistance, and (4) the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank) and regional development banks are supposed to derive much of their agendas from the MDGs. The Sachs' report's ten recommendations for transforming aid -- although accurately identifying several legitimate issues -- together if adopted would produce a major institutional power shift under the technocratic guise of clearer objectives and better coordination. The indicative, not mandatory, aspirational benchmarks that were the MDGs have become the vehicle for a nice little power struggle.
A shift in center of gravity from the specialized international financial institutions (IFIs) towards the UN in New York may appear to be attractive for a lot of NGOs, who think they'll be able to more readily influence the agenda and ensure "accountability" of the development institutions. It's also superficially attractive to developing countries that have less voice within the board rooms of the IFIs, where the donor countries have the greatest power, and the particular developmental flavor-of-the-year in the donor capitals will often have more influence on the type and timing of assistance than needs as perceived by recipients of that assistance. Indeed, the entire issue of inadequate voice of less-developed countries within international organizations, and the erosion of legitimacy of those organizations due to inadequate voice, is a very real concern.
Robert Keohane addresses the issue of "accountability" of the IFIs in a provocative article in the most recent issue of the Harvard International Review (Kennedy School) that focuses on "defining power" in international relations. Keohane's topic is "Abuse of Power: Assessing Accountability in World Politics." Unfortunately, the issue is not yet online. Here's some of the bit on multilateral organizations, which are the frequent object of wrath and scorn as "unaccountable," especially by NGOs.
Consider the entities conventionally held accountable on a transnational basis. The most prominent, judging from demonstrations, press coverage, and even scholarly articles are major inter-governmental organizations concerned with economic globalization: the European Union, World Bank IMF, and WTO. Champions of "more accountability" make these organizations major targets, which certainly have deficiencies in accountability and certainly do not meet the standards of accountability for the best-functioning democracies of our era. But ironically, these entities seem to be relatively accountable compared with other key global actors.
These economic institutions are internally accountable to states on the basis of authorization and support. States must create them and continue to fund them. Externally significant accountability gaps exist. Indeed, many poor people affected by the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO lack any ability to hold the organizations accountable. Nevertheless, there is a vaguely held notion that these people should have some say in what the organizations do -- that the "voice of the poor," in the World Bank's words, should be heard. Many feel, then that these organizations should be externally as well as internally accountable.
Various NGOs purporting to speak for and promote principles that help affected people gain legitimacy on the basis of this widespread belief. One result of the endeavors is that the decision-making process of many multilateral organizations have become remarkably transparent. Indeed, in transparency they now compare well to the decision-making processes of most governments, even some democratic ones. When their process are not transparent, the chief source of non-transparency is governmental pressure for confidentiality.
But the decentralization and discord characteristic of world politics mean that these organizations cannot keep secrets very well. ... Leaders then spend much of their time answering charges that are made against their organizations, and seeking to persuade constituencies that the organizations are actually constructive, responsive, and legitimate.
These organizations are therefore anything but "out-of-control bureaucracies" accountable to no one. Indeed the real problem appears quite different. A large number of would-be principals, led by a variety of NGOs, demand accountability. But the NGOs are weak compared with governments, to which these organizations are chiefly accountable. When they lose the battle due to their institutionally weak positions, NGOs condemn the organizations as "unaccountable." [emph supplied]
Keohane doesn't directly raise the other accountability question at the heart of many debates over the roles of NGOs and the newly-fashionable "civil society" organizations -- who elected them? This is a critical issue, because advocacy groups by their very nature are not effective vehicles for accommodating conflicting interests. The "accountability" problem presented by NGOs themselves may be equally applicable to governments of developing countries in which the interests of substantial portions of a country's population may be poorly represented in the political system. But that particular accountability challenge is not central to those who would hope to use the UN to shift the power equation within the world of development assistance, since state sovereignty is a core principle of the UN system.
The "accountability" wars are not some minor skirmish. Sebastian Mallaby, in a September 2004 Foreign Policy article (sub req'd) took on the potential negative effects of NGOs on the developmental effectiveness of the multilateral institutions. This was a major theme in Mallaby's recent biography of James D Wolfensohn, in which a recurring critique of Wolfensohn's tenure as President of the World Bank was that he tried too hard to meet the insatiable agendas of NGOs. I would agree, while noting that in the process, Wolfensohn did help institutionalize a far more transparent process of considering a range of impacts of the Bank's projects on interests -- whether poor or indigenous peoples, minorities, or the environment -- that are often poorly represented in the political systems of developing countries. Listening to the "voices of the poor" and focusing on "pro-poor" ways of implementing reforms or building new projects has been "mainstreamed" in World Bank practice. Wolfensohn's emphasis on meaningful local partnerships was also a useful corrective for an institution renown for its arrogance. A similar sensitivity to a broader agenda of interests is belatedly beginning to be felt at the IMF, in part a recognition of the excessively narrow approach to macroeconomic adjustment that the Fund pursued in the Asia crisis, as critiqued most famously by Joseph Stiglitz. Heterodox policy approaches are also finding far more congenial homes within both institutions over the past decade. So these institutions can and do reform and reinvent themselves as they learn from experience and as the world changes around them.
Shifting the development agenda from the IFIs in Washington to the to-be-created UN development apparatus in New York is the last thing that should be embraced if aid effectiveness is a priority. Although considerable progress has been made in making UNDP a more dynamic and efficient UN agency, no one would confuse its experience, expertise, or intellectual leadership with the IFIs. There may indeed be a need for expanding the UN's own development capacity within Country Teams that deal with a host of closely intertwined development issues in the political, social and economic areas. There is certainly a need to reduce the number of separate aid organizations that governments in developing countries must deal with. And coordination to avoid overlapping and conflicting projects is always an objective. But assigning a coordinating role, and having the MDGs drive the development agendas, is a recipe for a bureaucratic nightmare. The objective of UN reform is to get the UN to focus on the things it does well, or that no one else can do, and reorganize its bureaucracy to address those tasks. Not to add on new tasks that are already in the reasonably capable hand of other institutions.
Setting to one side whether a shift in apparent power and influence over the development agenda would benefit the poor in developing countries, such a shift would be a Pyrrhic victory. Keohane's conclusion applies equally to NGOs and developing countries who demand more "accountability" from the multilateral institutions:
Certainly some real benefits could result from making the WTO and the IMF more accountable to a wider range of interests and values. However, we should be alert to the prospect that the political result of such a shift would be a reduction of states' interests in such organizations. If states get less benefit from international institutions, they will be less willing to provide resources and to accept demands on them., through these institutions, for accountability. The ultimate result of such well-meaning moves, therefore, could be a weakening of the accountability, limited as it is, that multilateralism imposes on powerful states. Those who believe in accountability as a way of limiting abuses of power should work to build support within powerful, rich countries for acceptance of more effective and legitimate multilateral governance to achieve human purposes, and for the increased external accountability that is likely to follow.
Agreeing with US criticisms of the UN draft on development doesn't mean that I support the Bush Administration's approach to foreign assistance (or the Bush Administration's policy on many of the other controversial items in the UN draft such as arms control). There are a host of changes I would like to see in US policy toward foreign assistance writ large, especially but not exclusively as pursued by the Bush Administration. Among a long list of things I'd like to see changed by the Bush Administration (recognizing that these are not necessarily unique to either the Bush Administration or to Republicans) -- an insistence on an extremely limited set of tools that fit their ideological biases; a defense in every possible circumstance of intellectual property concerns of US multinationals; a predeliction for bilateral over multilateral approaches (and the leverage/blackmail that often entails); the habit of setting priorities or attaching conditions to aid that please narrow vocal domestic constituencies (especially ethnic diasporas and religious groups); the inability to build lasting coalitions in Congress for long-term programs and international organizations; and their trumpeting of grand "innovative" schemes that promise billions and deliver nada. Unfortunately, not only is the Bush Administration unlikely to change its approach to foreign assistance significantly, even if it were willing to adopt the changes outlined in the draft UN Summit document, those changes wouldn't be for the better.
Unfortunately for the US' diplomatic position, Ambassador Bolton is the wrong person to be making the case for how and why the UN Summit draft needs to be changed. Stygius makes an excellent point -- the draft UN document as it currently stands is exactly the wrong sort of document for a major summit.
From the sound of it, a 39-page declaration of resolutions strikes me as utterly insane, drowning all of the urgent priorities in a sea of diplomatic ejaculation; but the immediate point is that waiting until just before a conference starts before deluging everyone else with proposed changes is a tactical maneuver to castrate the entire project before it even starts.
And that's the problem the US now has with Bolton in this position, because everyone assumes that he's simply engaging in obstructionist tactics. His reputation is such that he has little credibility presenting the American criticisms of what is claimed to represent a broad international consensus, even though such a consensus is bogus.
It is far too easy for those who would like to see the US squirm to make the US look bad via Bolton. I won't go so far as to say that those managing the drafting process at the UN set him (and the US) up with malice aforethought, but the more paranoid could make a case for that, since the inevitable result is going to be a great deal of finger-pointing and blame-casting. And who do you think the rest of the world is going to believe -- John Bolton and George Bush? Riiiiight...
A follow-up post on this story, how it's being played out in the press, and speculation about the role of the UK, here.
cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism
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