Андрей Кортунов выступил на встрече Многостороннего диалога по проблемам современного мира

7 - 8 ноября в Пекине Китайский центр современных мировых исследований в партнерстве с Комитетом китайского энергетического фонда (China Energy Fund Committee) и Китайским фондом мира и сотрудничества провели очередную встречу Многостороннего диалога по проблемам современного мира (Contemporary World Multilateral Dialogue 2013). На экспертной встрече выступил генеральный директор РСМД Андрей Кортунов, который сделал доклад на тему возможных направлений многосторонних усилий по повышению эффективности глобального и регионального управления.

7 - 8 ноября в Пекине Китайский центр современных мировых исследований (China Center for Contemporary World Studies) в партнерстве с Комитетом китайского энергетического фонда (China Energy Fund Committee) и Китайским фондом мира и сотрудничества (China Foundation for Peace and Development) провели очередную встречу Многостороннего диалога по проблемам современного мира (Contemporary World Multilateral Dialogue 2013).

Многосторонний диалог представляет собой экспертную встречу высокого уровня по вопросам текущих проблем развития мировой политики, роли Китая в системе международных отношений, механизмов предотвращения и урегулирования глобальных и регинальных кризисов, путей повышения эффективности глобального управления. Общая тема Многостороннего диалога в 2013 г. была обозначена как «Глобальные тренды и Китай в следующем десятилетии»; ведущие международные эксперты обсужали вероятные последствия усиления Китая на фоне происходящей трансформации системы международных отношений, новые вызовы, стоящие перед Китаем в сфере экономики, политики и безопасности.

На экспертной встрече выступил генеральный директор РСМД Андрей Кортунов, который сделал доклад на тему возможных направлений многосторонних усилий по повышению эффективности глобального и регионального управления. Во время работы Многостороннего диалога Андрей Кортунов также провел консультации с президентом Китайского центра современных мировых исследований, заместителем руководителя Международного отдела ЦК КПК Ю Хонгжуном (Yu Hongjun) по вопросам реализации совместного проекта Центра, РСМД и американского фонда «Инициатива по сокращению ядерной угрозы» (Nuclear Threat Initiative). Трехсторонний проект предусматривает сравнительный анализ представлений о вероятных угрозах безопасности Китая, России и США, поиск взаимоприемлемых направлений сотрудничества трех стран в обеспечении региональной и глобальной стабильности.

Доклад «Dealing with intra- and Inter-national governance deficit: the fusion politics of tomorrow»

If I were to limit myself to only one dilemma of the global politics in the coming decade, I would single out the dilemma of governance. On the one hand, our common needs to enhance governance at both intra- and international levels go up, on the other – our abilities to provide this governance go down. The gap between what we all need and what we can afford is widening and this gap can affect all of us in years to come.

Why do we need to enhance governance? The answer is evident. Our civilization is becoming more complex and more fragile at the same time. The level of regional and global interdependence grows literally year after year. All of us depend more and more on decisions that are made somewhere overseas, on trends and events that we cannot control and sometimes find hard even to predict. The old rules of the game and the old international mechanisms designed and constructed mostly in the middle of the previous century demonstrate their limitations. We keep accumulating problems and crises, which we fail to resolve or even to manage. The growing volatility of the global politics might become a serious impediment to the global development and prosperity.

So why are we unable to enhance governance? Why all the brilliant plans to reform the United Nations, to modernize international law, to build new multilateral regional and global institutions have not been successful? I think the answer to this question requires a little bit more thinking, but let me offer a couple of plausible explanations. First, economic interdependence is not an antidote to political nationalism. On the contrary, today we see an almost universal rise of nationalistic sentiments and an obsession with national sovereignty. In a way, it is a natural reaction to the rapid globalization that we’ve witnessed after the end of the Cold War. The wide spread public frustrations with the effects of globalizations are exploited by conservative, traditionalist, in some cases – even radical political groups and parties. Nationalism sets limits on what we can do together (and East Asia is a very graphic example of these limitations).

At the same time, I believe that today we see what I would call an almost universal institutional fatigue. The general public is very much disappointed with the performance of many international organizations – their red tape and wastefulness, corruption and inefficiency. It would be quite a challenge to convince our respective constituencies that they should support and fund a new cohort of international bureaucrats, who are so detached from ordinary voters and taxpayers. Look, for example, at the common European skepticism of the efficiency and wisdom of EU bureaucrats sitting in Brussels. In other words, the idea of enhancing global and regional governance lacks the needed credibility and public appeal.

Finally, to enhance governance we need a long term strategy. It’s a not a goal that could be attained overnight. But political systems in the modern world are constructed in such a way that they do not reward strategic thinking. Most politicians in mature democracies cannot afford the luxury of long term planning; their time horizons are extremely narrow and their dependence on the last public opinion poll is sometimes frightening. Being so dependent on fluctuations of public moods, a state leader can hardly seldom qualify as great strategists (China might be an exception from this general rule).

Of course, there are other important complicating factors that prevent us from addressing the issue of governance in a systemic way. One of them is the rapidly changing balance of powers between traditional great powers and emerging centers of economic and military might. Another one is the revolutionary development of new communication technologies that, along with many positive results, has increased potential for intra-national and inter-national instabilities. Yet another source of instability is the shortage of essential natural resources that is looming on the horizon.

I would be immodest to say that I have the golden clue to the problem of governance. But I am sure that the solution has a lot to do with our understanding of policy and politics, which till now remain quite archaic, one-dimensional and outdated. Let me submit for your consideration an outline of what I call the fusion politics of tomorrow. It is not a radical departure from the political practice of today, but rather an attempt to summarize the innovative trends that we see already manifesting themselves in many specific inter-national and intra-national situations.

As we know, fusion means and art or a process of melting together two or more components, which are distinctly different from each other. There is thermonuclear fusion in physics, for instance. Or fusion cuisine that mixes European and Asian dishes. In music fusion stands from blending two or more styles such as jazz and funk. I think that in politics the principle of fusion should be applied at three levels: at the level of identifying problems, selecting the right instruments and building coalitions of stakeholders for resolving the problems.

In terms of problem defining most of state leaders follow three parallel tracks: national security, economic growth and human development. However, the three tracks, as a rule, run parallel to each other; the three sets of issues are managed by different agencies, the three budget lines do not intersect, experts tend to focus on just one dimension of state policies. But as we all know, such compartmentalization of state policies is a recipe for a disaster: by emphasizing national security over economic growth you can win a war but lose the peace, by putting an emphasis on economic growth to the detriment of social equality you may end up with a revolution. We need to fuse the three dimensions of state policies into an integrated approach to problems we face.

In terms of selecting the right instruments we also have a number of assorted tools to handle inter-national and intra-national problems, but these tools do not constitute a complete set. There are well established and well endowed institutions like NATO that are desperately looking for a new mission, but avoid any real challenges. There are ad hoc coalitions that come and go, have no internationally recognized mandates and take no responsibilities for the consequences of their actions. There are international regimes that are brought to life by specific needs of participating parties and regulate very incremental areas of global of regional politics. As a result, we see a lot of duplication, institutional rivalries, mutual suspicions and the lack of consistency. What we need, is an institutional fusion, which will allow us to restore the global pyramid of governance with the United Nations at the top, regional security and development institutions at the second layer, with ad hoc coalitions and international regimes assisting and complimenting multilateral institutions.

Finally, we have to fuse various types of stakeholders in approaching international problems. Today we often see an evident disconnect between stare policies on the one hand, and aspirations of the private sector on the other. There are examples of successful private – public partnerships in dealing with specific situations, but these examples are not in plenty. Likewise, there is an urgent need to integrate civil society institutions into the international decision making and decision implementation. Until now many state leaders grossly underestimate the potential of these institutions regarding them as an irritant, if not an obstacle in approaching matters of both inter-national and intra-national governance. By doing so, they deprive themselves of a very powerful political ally capable of complimenting and enhancing efforts undertaken at the state level. Of course, working with non-state actors in not easy and might be even frustrating, but there is simply no alternative if we are indeed committed to approach the problem of governance in a responsible way.

Finally, let me say a couple of words about China. In my view, this country might play a leading role in resolving the problem of governance. It has resources that other major powers lack. It is has flexibility, because it is not constrained by membership in outdated international alliances. It has the capacity for a long term planning, which nowadays is not typical for national governments. It has experience of the public and the private sectors working together in various parts of the world. And, most importantly, China needs the enhanced governance at the inter-national and intra-national level as a precondition for its own development and prosperity for years to come. Therefore, it is destined to become a deal maker, not only a deal taker in many fundamental issues related to global governance.