India points the way to new global realities

WORLD VIEW:'THE GLOBAL governance structure needs to be more democratic and more representative of all the people of the world, with a greater voice for the developing countries." The president of India, Shrimati Pratibha Devisingh Patil, made this case at a conference in Mumbai last week, organised by the country's leading think tank, the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG).

As she argued, "United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions were set up in the post-second World War period in the 1940s as a reflection of the then world. That world has changed and these institutions must also change to reflect the realities of the contemporary world. New players, who can contribute solutions to global problems, should be accommodated."

Her remarks captured the spirit of this international gathering very well, on the theme of "Responsibility to the Future - Business, Peace and Sustainability". The energy and intelligence a resurgent India brings to these issues is a refreshing change from the tired pessimism of much western commentary.

The SFG's incisive report, entitled "An Inclusive World, in which the West, Islam and the Rest Have a Stake", (available on its website) spells this out. It is essentially a liberal vision, with perspectives from the global south. That often gives a different twist on the clash of civilisations and the war on terror beloved of US policy.

Its nuanced overview of political violence and terrorism, ranging from the Middle East to Africa, Afghanistan, India, south Asia, Europe and Latin America, should be required reading for western policymakers. It insists that terrorism and extremism are problems of humanity, not of any particular religion or region. And it suggests that exclusion arising from relative economic, social and political deprivation best explains recruitment to violent movements.

Next week's meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised states in Japan will once again highlight the archaic structure of global governance institutions. China, India, Brazil and Russia will join the group but are not present as equal partners. Associates of the SFG argue that a core group of about 20 states should be involved, with a much greater participation from the emerging south of the world.

Such a group would have the capacity and legitimacy to broker agreements - whether on climate change, energy, macroeconomics or political violence. This is seen as complementary to the United Nations - much broader than the Security Council, but sufficiently small to allow political leaders get to know one another personally, understand their mutual problems, negotiate and then seek wider ratification.

That the period of US primacy is coming to an end is taken for granted by most participants in this discussion. Whether it is replaced by multipolarity, fragmentation or the eventual emergence of new superpowers is not yet clear - and it is better to draw up alternative scenarios than to attempt predictions.

These international changes are the essential setting for the European Union's efforts to streamline its foreign policy, security and defence structures in the Lisbon Treaty. They received scant attention during the referendum campaign, when much of the debate was distorted by facile talk of militarisation and neo-imperialism from the No side, claims not rebutted properly by treaty supporters.

In fact, the EU is seen as a positive model of multilateral regional integration to manage globalisation from the Asian perspective, insofar as it is understood at all. Unless the EU asserts itself now during this time of geopolitical shift it will be marginalised, inevitably affecting European political and economic interests. One of the participants in this conference spoke of jobs being Bangalored. Mumbai's colossal scale, vibrant economy, teeming population of 16 million and deep inequalities make it a paradigm of an emerging world city demanding a greater voice.

The critique of established western policy goes deeper than geographical imbalance. Kishore Mahbubani, an academic from Singapore, argues in a new book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, that the West assumes it is the source of solutions to the world's key problems. In fact, the West is also a major source of them. Partly as a result of its growing insecurity, it has become increasingly incompetent in its handling of key global problems. Policy impasses on the Middle East, nuclear non-proliferation, world trade, global warming and social justice bear out his case. Fresh perspectives on these issues from Asia and the global south can help break these impasses. A similar case is made by the new Indian foreign policy magazine India and Global Affairs (www.igamag.com).

Summing up the conference's discussions, Sundeep Waslekar, president of the SFG, put reform of global governance at the top of his list. He lamented the minuscule investment in peace compared to armaments, suggesting a new international fund should be created to foster it. Funding of ways to encourage sustainability is also needed.

Other participants proposed a multiply sourced and multilaterally-governed sovereign fund to tackle climate change. Steve Killelea, an Australian philanthropist who funded the development of a global peace index launched last year, put a compelling case for a world social transfer mechanism taking 2 per cent from the richest people in the world who own 50 per cent of its resources to the poorest as a way of modifying population increase.

So there is a strong case for giving Asians a greater role in international policymaking.

pgillespie@irish-times.ie