Bilderberg People

Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs

Ian Richardson, Andrew Kakabadse, Nada Kakabadse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136664649
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bilderberg People explores the hidden mechanisms of influence at work in the private world, and personal interactions, of the transnational power elite. It is not concerned with conspiracy theories; instead it is about certain fundamental forces that shape the world in which we live. These forces, with their power to bring about transitions in emotion and preference within, and beyond, the elite community have potentially profound implications for all of us.

Through exclusive interviews with attendees of the most prestigious of all informal transnational networks – Bilderberg – this book provides a unique insight into the networking habits and motivations of the world's most powerful people. Moreover, it demonstrates that elite consensus is not simply a product of collective common sense among the elite group; rather, it is a consequence of subtle power relationships within the elite circle. These relationships, which are embedded in the very fabric of elite institutions and interactions, result in a particular brand of enlightened thinking within the elite community.

This exciting new volume sheds light for the first time on the critical question of who runs the world and why they run it the way they do.

1

TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE TRANSNATIONAL POLICY ELITE

New York, May 3, 2010. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, a month-long meeting held every five years, gets underway at the United Nations Headquarters. The treaty, which began in 1970, has 189 signatories of which five – the United States, the former Soviet Union, the UK, France, and China – hold the vast majority of the global stockpile of 23,360 nuclear warheads.¹ Under the terms of the NPT, non-nuclear weapons states commit not to develop nuclear weapons of their own in return for an assurance from nuclear weapon NPT signatories that their arsenals will not be used against them. In addition, nuclear weapon states are committed to a decommissioning of their nuclear stockpiles over time. Three nuclear weapons states are not signatories of the NPT: India, Pakistan, and Israel, which is known to maintain a considerable cache of nuclear weapons but refuses to confirm or deny the existence of its programs. North Korea, which has tested, and announced that it possesses, nuclear weapon capacity, withdrew from the NPT in 2003. Iran, which for the time being at least maintains its seat at the NPT table, is believed to be within a few years of having its own nuclear weapons. Indeed, some believe Iran already possesses them. Increased tension among non-nuclear NPT states at the lack of meaningful disarmament progress demonstrated by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (its NPT nuclear weapon states) threatens to further destabilize the increasingly fragile nature of the agreement.² US officials enter the conference hopeful that a new defense strategy that lessens the centrality of nuclear weapons, and a recent arms reduction accord with Russia, will help to placate non-nuclear NPT signatories. On the opening day of the conference, Iran’s President, Mr Ahmadinejad, criticizes NPT nuclear weapon signatories and argues that their “production, stockpiling and qualitative improvement of nuclear armaments [ … ] now serves as a justification for the others to develop their own”.³ As he speaks, representatives of the US, UK and France walk out.

A curious aspect of world politics, if one takes the stated positions of individual governments as a starting point, is the downright implausibility of international consensus. After all, every government seeks to protect its own interests and the interests of its constituents and, unless gaining international consensus is viewed as a means of achieving these ends, they can otherwise be relied upon to pursue protectionist agendas. This, in many ways, is where we find ourselves in international relations today, with efforts at collective action consistently failing to transcend the demands of national interest. There are almost too many cases of this to mention; leaving aside the rather complex dynamics of the NPT, other obvious examples include the consistent wrangling of individual governments over the letter and spirit of EU/US arms embargoes of China; and the failure of the EU to deliver a coherent European energy policy, designed to reduce strategic dependency on external partners, at a time when individual European governments are busy pursuing bilateral deals with the largest existing provider of all, Russia.⁴ Is this, then, the reality of world politics? Do these seemingly insurmountable and structural obstacles to international cooperation mean that we’re destined to a future of anger, friction, and tension in world politics? Or are other forces at work – forces, largely unseen by us, capable of creating harmony where the visible mechanisms of state interaction cannot?

Despite the protectionist inclinations of states, and somewhat mysteriously perhaps, an enormous consensus in world affairs has emerged during the past fifty years. A consensus so powerful in its scope and persuasion that few in the global policy elite now even choose to question it. This consensus, of course, concerns the desirability and inevitability of economic globalization. It’s important to bear in mind, however, that obstacles to free trade and the free flow of global capital were, and are, no less significant than those confronting transcendental policy initiatives in the social and political arenas. It is simply that, in the case of economic interest, powerful motivating forces have succeeded in creating lasting conciliatory paths and binding agreements. So how, given the tendency of governments to be solely concerned with their own interests, could such a consensus have come about? Was it as natural and inevitable as it appears at first sight? Did national governments the world over simply fall into line out of a growing recognition of the benefits of free trade? Or were other forces at work that facilitated, and continue to facilitate, this particular historical arrangement? If so, what are these forces, and how do they fit into our understanding of more formal international relations activity? And, importantly, could they be the stimulus for more successful collective action in the global social and political domains?

In many ways, globalization and its accompanying ideology is a unique development. It provides both the focus and backdrop to many of the processes of consensus formation that take place in international politics. It simultaneously represents the crowning achievement of international consensus-formation activity and the ideological framework within which further forms of international consensus are forged. It is, at once, the product of considerable economic power play within the global political arena and a discreet determinant of power in ongoing forms of international consensus formation. It has become, in a sense, both the means and the end of international political consensus. But, while its role is incredibly important to our understanding of collective action in world affairs today, we should not confuse its overarching presence with the substance or purpose of consensus-formation activity. In order to analyze this, we need to understand the people and organizations at the heart of international consensus formation and, crucially, this means that we look beyond the formal activity of our governments.

International politics and the rise of transnationalism

In recent years, there’s been a growing awareness that the traditional view of international relations, where interplay between states is very much the focus of attention, is rather inadequate. The lack of a worldwide regulatory framework, the emergence of multinational entities, the flow of global capital, advances in technology and communications, and the role of multi-stakeholder collaboration have all called into question the relevance of the state model to emerging forms of global governance. The effects of globalization, in particular, have not only increased the number of organizations that exist beyond immediate state sovereignty or regulatory control, but have also created unfathomable degrees of complexity and interdependence between global politics and markets. Consider, for instance, the massive increase in foreign exchange reserves held by individual states as a direct consequence of globalization. Investment of these reserves in foreign assets – via state-owned corporations or through instruments such as sovereign wealth funds – represent stakes taken by one state in the economic activities of another. Over the past twenty years, global cross-border investments have increased at a higher rate than the global trade in goods and services, which itself represented more than twice the growth of global GDP.⁵ Between 1999 and 2004 alone, the increase in foreign net investment grew by around 175 percent.⁶ Investments of this kind, while representing an obvious consequence of global market activity, have the capacity to fundamentally alter the basis of political negotiations between states. This has led to political tensions in countries as diverse as the United States and Germany, where control of strategic industry sectors has become an increasingly sensitive issue. At the G20’s Pittsburgh Summit in September 2009, and very much a comment on China’s trade surplus, the UK’s Prime Minister Brown noted that there were $7 trillion of global foreign exchange reserves that were “not necessarily being used in a constructive way.”⁷ An increasingly charged debate within the G20, global trade differences are seen as necessitating a rebalancing of the world’s economies by shrinking surpluses in countries such as China while attempting to boost savings in debt-laden nations like the USA.⁸

At a time of great uncertainty and insecurity, therefore, the actions of states remain central to our understanding of world politics, but such activity depends, to a much greater extent than ever before, on activities and participants that exist well beyond any conception of state-based formality or legitimacy. In recognition of this development, the concept of transnationalism has evolved in recent decades to distinguish parallel, collaborative, and often informal forms of global governance activity from that of state-oriented international relations. The description of transnational, however, is often used interchangeably with terms such as international and global, which leads to confusion – a confusion that’s particularly evident when one looks into the role of elites in world politics, the key theme of this book. If we’re to understand properly the significance of elite networks in world affairs, it’s vital that the distinction between the three terms is properly understood. Only then can we identify the specific nature and function of elite interactions and situate them within the context of ongoing, simultaneous, and interrelated forms of world politics. And only then can we hope to get close to understanding the political, and societal, impacts of such activity.

Transnational political activities are distinct from international ones because, while they cross international borders, they do not derive their power and authority from the state.⁹ Transnational politics is frequently comprised of non-state and state actors who, together, rely on alternative – and more informal – claims to authority and legitimacy than that of state sovereignty. Both transnational and international political activities differ from global ones, which are concerned with the more focused processes of globalization, specifically, those things that lead to the creation of a global borderless economy.¹⁰ And, while transnational and international political activities have undoubtedly been instrumental in the development of globalization, the scope of international and transnational political activity is broader, in principle certainly, than the purely economic interests of globalization. These forms of activity are nonetheless interrelated, forming an ambiguous web of political enterprise where participants are frequently to be found flitting seamlessly between interconnected and parallel policy domains. This does lead to a blurring of the distinctions between these types of activity, but unpicking them, and viewing them in isolation, is necessary if we’re to tackle fundamental issues related to authority, legitimacy, and accountability in world politics. Something that’s essential because, as things currently stand, we’re presented with a conspicuous absence of each.

Problems of authority, legitimacy, and accountability have sparked a defence of transnationalism in recent years that is rooted in ideas of collaboration and partnership in world politics. Subscribing to the view that complex world problems demand collaborative responses if they’re ever to be tackled effectively, the emphasis has shifted away from the need to demonstrate political legitimacy, in a form any of us would recognize, to a rhetorical legitimacy based on principles of maturity, pragmatism, and cooperation. Principles so compelling, and seemingly reasonable, that they divert attention from a critical lack of substance at the heart of transnational governance. And, what’s more, principles that have the discreet effect of marginalizing critics who, by definition, are made to appear unprogressive and dangerously isolationist. In short, the question of formal legitimacy in world politics has been successfully, and conveniently, dodged. In its place exists a logic based upon the need for immediate and transcendental cooperation – a logic that, out of necessity, trumps the more parochial niceties of formal political structures, constituencies, and authorities. Indeed, so the thinking goes, to be held back by a respect for state-based structures that continue to fail the collective action test in world politics would be to resign ourselves a future of doomed diplomacy and, in all probability, war.

Given the pervasiveness of this logic in transnational policy circles, it is not entirely surprising that there should be a widely accepted belief, among transnational policy elites, in the need for more discreet channels of policy communication and formation. After all, long-term solutions to complex global problems cannot come from the intransigence of stated positions or the power play of brokered international deals. Neither can new forms of thinking and the capacity for consensus be developed when everyone is being held to account. Instead, logic dictates, what is required is more informal and less transparent arenas in which actors can speak plainly, and communicate freely, without fear of their constituents’ wrath. Transparency is limited therefore to those who are “in the room” and, for those who remain outside, it must out of necessity be obscured. The critical challenge is in obscuring what needs to be obscured long enough for those participating to make use of it. Thus, as the informal sphere grows, and a wide range of consensuses form, the role of the policy actor subtly broadens from the negotiation of terms of engagement with other actors to the massaging of respective constituencies into positions of compliance.

To enlightened members of the transnational policy elite, irrespective of whether they subscribe to the concept of one world government or just “thicker” solidarity between international states, the structural legacy of states in international relations must be somehow harmonized with the greater good of emergent transnational consensus before more effective forms of international law and governance can be implemented. Seen through the lens of political transnationalism, the state system – and its protectionist agendas – represents the biggest single hindrance to the resolution of world problems. But it is undoubtedly a legacy that must be managed responsibly if the desirable outcome of greater economic, political, and social alignment – under international law – is to take place. And so it is, at the beginning of the new millennia, that infant structures of global governance, the basis of a new world order if you like, are being crafted by transnational policy elites that are largely unknown to us, unaccountable to us and, crucially, unseen by us.

Perpetual peace and liberal interventionism

Back-channel diplomacy is, of course, nothing new to those involved in international policymaking. Without it, it’s reasonable to suggest that we’d have lived through a far more insecure and perilous world during the past sixty years than that which we’ve experienced. Certainly, it’s difficult to imagine how the far-reaching multilateral agreements concerning international trade and capital regimes could ever have been brought about without discreet and informal channels of communication. But how much do we really know about these activities? Are they simply smoothing away the brittle edges of an otherwise intransigent, state-based system of international relations, or do they represent something, in governance terms, that has moved beyond this? If, for instance, we look at the impenetrable and surreptitious quality of the club-like¹¹ policy networks that underpin this activity, we see an entire political ecosystem that is closed to outsiders and increasingly beyond the influence and control of participating governments. The effective functioning of these policy networks may well depend upon the participation of state actors, but the emergence of powerful non-state participants has had the effect of changing the priorities, as well as the composition, of these communities.

The logic that underpins this development is now so pervasive within, and beyond, these policy communities that it is now seen as an aspirational goal, rather than subversion, of democratic principles. Take, for instance, the Global Leadership Fellows program run by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which seeks to identify and groom the “next generation of world leaders”.¹² The WEF suggests that this select group of individuals will feel equally at home in the public and private sectors, a skill set it believes becomes increasingly important as the traditional, and well defined, line between the two sectors becomes ever more opaque. In order to be successful, the WEF unap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Authors’ note
• Authors’ biographies
• Introduction
• 1. Transnationalism and the transnational policy elite
• 2. Legitimacy in world politics
• 3. Collaboration and partnership
• 4. Consensus and world affairs
• 5. The seductive lure of elite membership
• 6. Elite networks in world affairs
• 7. The consequences of elite consensus
• Conclusion: Making sense of elite power and consensus
• Notes
• Index