International Organizations - Essay Example

? International Organizations and Section # of INTRODUCTION The ever-increasing globalization in the contemporary times has given way to the development and acceptance of supranational bodies- which are known to extend beyond and transcend the existing influence held by separate sovereign nation states (Answers.com, 2011). The spread and influence of these organizations is growing at an unprecedented level, whether people of the member states like it or not, this form of cooperation has become the modern face of globalization and interconnectivity between states throughout the world. Many believe that their penetration in the politics is spreading like an epidemic, and governments are forced to succumb to the demands of these supranational bodies. There are a staggering number of supranational bodies present across continents, one of the most widely known supranational bodies developed for collaboration and cooperation between the European countries is called the ‘European Union’, popularly referred to as the EU (Alexander1, 2011). This paper attempts to highlight upon the European Union with regards to its decision making process, since the decision making process of a supranational body is an intricate process involving numerous actors and covering the span of global politics, therefore it cannot be accepted at face value, it needs to be broken down and analyzed in detail for proper understanding and comprehension. Hence, this paper initially highlights the two types of decision making in the supranational entities, namely ‘federal’ and ‘intergovernmental’ decision making, then draws comparison between them. Furthermore, since the focus of this paper centers around the EU, therefore it has been briefly described and its decision making process has been briefly highlighted. In addition, an entire section of the essay has been devoted to an in-depth analysis of the European Union’s decision making procedure, and whether it is federal or intergovernmental, further extending to shed light onto the allocation of power to the various parties in this organization. FEDERAL VS. INTERGOVERNMENTAL DECISION MAKING PROCESS When a union is established between a numbers of states, then it consists of the national governments of these member states along with some form of supranational institution which has influence over the decisions being enacted. These member states abide by some form of governing constitution which enforces certain rules upon them, adherence to these rules is mandatory for being a part of the union, in order to maintain discipline and control. This constitutional framework of the union is established on the basis of some Treaties among all the member states. Once the union has been established, and the constitution been made, then remains the question of power and decision making. It is necessary for the members to agree upon the type of decision making under consideration, since it will serve as the basis for all decisions to follow. There are two most prominent forms of governance with regards to supranational bodies such as the EU, United Nation, and NAFTA etc.: Intergovernmental form of Decision Making: this form of decision making provides sovereignty to the member states, under this type the decisions are reached with consensus amongst the sovereign governments of the member states, and the supranational body exists to coordinate the successful execution of the unanimous decisions. Federal form of Decision Making: this is a type which gives the supranational body more individualistic power over the member states, since it calls for the submission of some rights by the member-states’ governments to the union, which makes decision which is binding upon the member nations. The intergovernmental form of decision making regards the union as an international body, which is separate from the governments of the member states, whereas the federal form of decision making regards the union as a federation, which comprises of various nations which are partially self-governed or regions which are united under the banner of a ‘federal’ or central government which has vested some of the rights of the nations which were previously sovereign. In a federation, the self governing position of the member nations is constitutionally established, and it is not liable to any unilateral alterations made by the central government, hence it is not a single-power form of government. This form of governance or the constitutional framework present in a federation is referred to as ‘federalism’, and it is diametrically opposite to the ‘unitary state government’ type. A unitary state government is usually the type of governance which comprises of only a single, centralized and a singular national tier of government, whereas a federation is a collaboration of multiple state governments and has representatives from the member states that are responsible for the decision making. However, when this is looked into detail, it can sometimes be misleading, since there are some forms of unitary state governments which also include one or more self-governing regions, however the difference between this type of unitary state and federation is that in the former the autonomous status held by the self-governing regions is at the expense of the central government and can therefore be unilaterally revoked, whereas in the latter, the government is brought into existence by a general agreement between states which were previously independent, this is not the case in the unitary state government, in which self governing regions come into being through a process of devolution mostly, in which a centralized state agrees to provide autonomy to a certain region which was initially only a subordinate previously (Turnovec, 2009, 1-2). DESCRIPTION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) The European Union is a very unique and special form of cooperation in the political and economic sphere between 27 European nations. It is responsible for delivering to the continent peace, stability, growth and welfare, improved lifestyles, the introduction of a single European currency called the ‘Euro’, and the establishment of Europe-wide market for trade in goods and services, also capital, among the Member states with the ease of trading within one country, and all this has successfully been provided for half a century. The European Union was a supranational body created after the Second Great War. Initially it was established to develop economic cooperation, in order to avoid conflict and foster cooperation because countries which trade with each other and are thus economically interdependent. From then onwards, the EU has progressed to become a huge single market, which operates with the exchange of a single currency, the Euro, which is a common currency of the EU member states. The EU was basically created to serve pure economic purposes, however with time it has evolved into a multi-faceted organization that covers various aspects, from developmental aid campaigns to environment protection and preservation policies. The EU today is a body which vehemently promotes human rights and advocates democracy, and it has successfully developed the most ambitious emission reduction targets in order to prevent environmental degradation which is bringing about climatic changes. EU has also made travelling and trades an easier process due to the abolition of border controls between the member states, also making it less cumbersome for people to reside and work in another EU country (Europa, 2011). In light of all these characteristics the European Union is regarded as the most successful form of supranational body of contemporary times, which has evolved overtime in a manner that suits its members and increases the level of cooperation amongst them, making the union a forefront for the European nations, under the banner of which all the 27 member states can interact with the remaining world from a single standpoint (Kirste, 2007). IS THE EU'S DECISION-MAKING PROCESS BEST CHARACTERIZED AS FEDERAL OR INTERGOVERNMENTAL? - A DETAILED ANALYSIS The European Union was not initially formed as a Federation, however after half a century of existence it has institutionally evolved in a manner such that today it possesses some of the attributes of a federal state. This cannot override the fact that its central government is very weak as compared to those of other federations, and its member states are recognized as sovereign states under the international law. Therefore, the EU is regarded as a form of a supra-national body that the world has never witnessed before; it is thus an unprecedented form of collaboration between states of a continent for political and economic purposes. The EU is responsible for important decisions on behalf of its members, such as trade, monetary union, agriculture and other primary industries, and in current times around 60 percent of the legislations passed in the member states has been originated in the union’s institution. Regardless of this submission of decision making rights to the union, the member states reserve the right to act independently in matters of foreign policy and country defense issues, which are crucial to the sovereignty of a state. The nations also have the right to decide other critical policy areas such as criminal justice and the taxation system. The Treaty of Lisbon proposed as a guiding constitution grants the member states with the right to leave the union, however simultaneously it provides the union a greater control over many key policy areas. The EU today is regarded as a ‘legal personality’ and therefore it has powers which were initially only attributed to it as a representative entity on behalf of its members. Hence it is extremely difficult to decide upon one form of governing or decision making process which the EU employs, since it occupies a place somewhere between a ‘federation’ and an ‘intergovernmental organization’. Thus it is critical to the study to analyze the decision making process in detail (Turnovec, 2009, 2). The European Union’s decision making system is one of its most important structural components which are a reflection of its diversity, which extends over an entire continent and 27 nations in particular. This system is an amalgamation of federal and intergovernmental decision methods, since it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the status of the union as an intergovernmental organization because the intergovernmental methods have proven to be inadequate, in terms of the organization’s democracy and general progress. Hence, resorting to a federal model in many scenarios was inevitable for the body. The discussion about the decision making of the EU mainly centers on the perspectives of democracy and legitimacy. According to the federal model, it can be seen that the EU has importance at least equal to an individual member state level, hence it is sufficient for the operation of a democratic system; therefore both styles of representative democracy, namely presidential style and parliamentarian model, have been proposed for the EU. This would require the scrapping away of formerly maintained separation of powers between the institutions of the union. The old intergovernmental model was seen to be a continuous problem, in light of the union’s effectiveness and the equality of the member states. The purely intergovernmental form is problematic, since its decisions are mostly compromise based, they tend to meet the demands of all the nation states which are the members of the union, and in this process, it settles on the lowest common denominator, which might and mostly is not the most efficient and effective decision, therefore the originally developed purely intergovernmental model could no longer be applied in the contemporary times. This requires immediate reassessment of the union’s decision making process in a manner that it allows for fair representation of its member states, and also not compromise on the quality of the decisions being taken. This could be done when the allocation of power to the member states is analyzed (Tiilikainen and Widgren, 2002, 63-65; Ash, 2002; Carls and Naughton 2002). ALLOCATION OF POWER IN THE DECISION MAKING An important question which needs to be answered when we analyze the decision making process of a supranational entity is the allocation of the power amongst its members, in a way which makes it both fair and proportionate in terms of representation. In order to address this concern, the regional dimension (member states or the regions) and the institutional dimension (Commission, Council, and European Parliament) are included. The principle which would be applied is a constitutional matter. The nature of the union determines the allocation of power between the different member states, it can be analyzed through two different models: one is the union of sovereign nation states which are independent, this is the purely intergovernmental model, and the second is the federal form which comprises of the various types of federal models (Tiilikainen and Widgren, 2002, 66). In the first model, which is purely intergovernmental, there arises no need to mark a distinction between two member states, since being a member state is the most rudimentary composition this structure. Thus if all members are allotted one vote each in the Council of Ministers and the decisions enacted required a unanimous consent through voting from the member states, then the EU would be regarded as a purely intergovernmental body. Initially, and traditionally, the EU’s key decision making part was the Council of Ministers, which was framed in accordance with the intergovernmental model, and had unanimous decision making based on one vote each for the member states, however from 1980 onwards, the EU has witnessed the development of the European Parliament, which was also given a majorly official stance in the union’s decision making (European Parliament, 2011). Voting in the council now is weighted based on representation accorded to different member states based on certain criterion with regards to the population and size of a nation state, wherein Germany, Great Britain, and France are the top most ranked nations with greatest votes as compared to other nations. Any decision requires a majority of votes and thus has converted the purely intergovernmental style into a partially parliamentary method. In other words, it can be assessed with due consideration that the European Union has managed to create a hybrid form of decision making through a breakdown in the power allocation structure, such that it has brought in aspects of federalism through a parliamentarian system in the Council of Ministers, such that the relative population sizes of the European nation states are represented in the council. The weightage developed in the power allocation helps to account for the differences in the population size of the nations which are represented in the union; it also pursues the equality of the different nations in the EU’s decision making process, making it a fairly represented union rather than a one vote each model (Tiilikainen and Widgren, 2002, 66-68; Sutter, 2000). The question remains that who decides what is fair and just form of deciding how much votes should each nation state be allotted, since equality of votes would not be justified because nations differ in land size, population structure and size, and development level. Therefore, it is necessary that the weightage system must be developed on a basis which provides fair representation to the member countries of the European Union. Hence due to this reason, even after the Treaty of Nice was initiated, which gave members representation on basis of population, the votes still are not directly proportional to the size of the population of a country, and often at times it is stated that some smaller nations are being overrepresented in the union. It is a commonly misinterpreted that the EU can have a completely pure direct proportion between number of votes and the population size of a European nation, this is because of the two-tier nature of the union, wherein the member states first elect their own governments, which then meet in the Council of Ministers, thus the idea of one vote per person residing in the member states of the European Union is nothing but a notion that is unworkable, therefore the voting system is neither purely federal nor purely intergovernmental, but an amalgamation of both the models has been created in order to ensure a smooth decision making process which is acceptable to all the member states. The method of weighting the nation states and granting them representative votes has undergone structural changes over time, changing from population based voting, to simple dual majority and further to tripe majority, this shows that weightage continues to be granted in the decision making of the EU, however the basis of calculation of each member’s representation is subject to change, as a better method is discovered, it is implemented (Tiilikainen and Widgren, 2002, 66-68; Keleman, 2007). CONCLUSION European Union is a an entity which has influenced the ways in which the European nations interact with each other, and how they collaborate in order to develop one single entity in face of the rest of the world. The success of the EU over 50 years of its life with regards to the spheres it covers is commendable; it started off as a mere economic cooperation union and extended to develop into a widely known multifaceted organization which covers political, social, developmental, environmental and international affairs on behalf of its member states. The EU’s decision making process is an intricately woven net which has undergone a lot of amendments and alterations overtime. Initially it was created with the aspiration of being a single entity which would represent Europe through representation of sovereign and independent states, and be a purely intergovernmental institution, however with time and constraints it was discovered that this approach is highly inadequate, and in order to be a single entity which agrees ion unanimous decisions within a limited time frame, it is necessary that the member states give up some of their rights to a representatively elected European Parliament, within the Council of Ministers, who then decide upon different matters which would be binding upon the nation states. Along with this federal form of decision making by the union, the partially sovereign states also reserve the right to decide upon key policy issues for their independent nation, and decisions concerning such issues tend to be purely intergovernmental, since the states do not have to give up their rights to the European Parliament. Hence, it can be rightly concluded that the European Union’s decision making process is neither completely federal nor completely intergovernmental, but it has formed an unprecedented form of decision making process which is an amalgamation of the aforementioned traditionally acclaimed forms of decision making, such that its decisions prove to be conducive for its member nations on a whole. References Alexander1 (2011) How influential in Global Politics are supranational bodies such as the United Nations?. Available from http://www.talkingpolitics.co.uk/How-influential-in-Global-Politics-are-supranational-bodies-such-as-the-United-Nations_(Alexander1) [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Answers.com (2011) Supranational. Available from http://www.answers.com/topic/supranational [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Ash. T (2002) The EU's Future: The Federalism/Intergovernmentalism Debate. Available from http://www.bigissueground.com/politics/ash-eufuture.shtml [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Carls. A and Naughton. M (2002) ‘Functionalism and Federalism in the European Union’. Available from http://www.cpjustice.org/content/functionalism-and-federalism-european-union [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Europa (2011) Basic Information on the European Union. Available from http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/index_en.htm [Accessed June 12th, 2011] European Parliament (2011) Welcome to the European Parliament. Available from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do;jsessionid=FDCD35EDD9BA991C5439726C3D02EDD6.node2?id=146 [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Keleman. D (2007) ‘Built to Last? The Durability of EU Federalism’. Available from http://aei.pitt.edu/7932/1/kelemen-r-07a.pdf [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Kirste. B (2007) European Union. Available from http://userpage.chemie.fu-berlin.de/adressen/eu.html [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Sutter. M (2000) ‘Fair Allocation and Re-Weighting of Votes and Voting Power in the EU before and after the Next Enlargement’. Journal of Theoretical Politics October 2000 vol. 12 no. 4 433-449 Tiilikainen. T and Widgren. M (2002) ‘Decision-making in the EU: A Small State Perspective’. Available from http://www.etla.fi/files/914_FES_02_4_decision_making.pdf [Accessed June 12th, 2011] Turnovec. F (2009) ‘How much of Federalism in the European Union’. IES Working Paper, 19/2009, IES FSV. Charles University Read More