by Norman Girvan
Abstract: This paper discusses lessons for the regional progressive movement of the 2007-2008 campaign of Caricom civil society to secure public review and government renegotiation of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA. To this end it highlights the role of ideology, power, governance and politics. It argues that the EPA institutionalises a relationship of asymmetrical power with the European Union based on the principles of neoliberal globalisation; and that it was secured through the manipulation of ‘divide and conquer’ and ‘carrot and stick’ strategies together with an ideologically driven framework for the negotiations, that portrayed neoliberal policies as being automatically conducive to development., The protest movement succeeded in exposing the agreement to public scrutiny and debate and, helped to secure insertion of a mandatory review clause in the final agreement. It failed to obtain a complete renegotiation of the EPA:, the reasons include the absence of a strong regional political base and organisational capability, the amorphous character of Cariforum/Caricom governance; and the, enormous external and internal pressures exerted on governments to sign what had been negotiated. Three techniques employed in the EPA process are highlighted: ‘technification’ of the negotiation process as an instrument of mystification and political exclusion; ‘sweetification’ of the presumed benefits of the EPA in order to facilitate political acceptance; and ‘treatyfication’ of the outcome of the negotiations in order, to bind present and future government policies. These techniques may have salience in the politics of trade agreements in other countries and regions. The paper concludes by summarising lessons in the light of the possibility of modifying the EPA in the future and of upcoming negotiations with other trading partners involving issues similar to those that were contentious in the EPA.
Thanks for this timely piece. It seems as if the main thing that is within the people’s control is to make efforts to break down the technical language and outline the real effects of any proposed trade agreement in a form that can be understood by all. You cited the anti- FTAA and the Haitian Stop-EPA examples as measures that were successful in disseminating information clearly.
Maybe a study analyzing those and other successful campaigns, and proposing ways to counter “technification” and make the documents accessible within a Caribbean context is in order? Of course I remember you saying that the actual EPA document was only available to the public very late in the game, which obviously doesn’t help that process.
A good suggestion–I hope someone will take it up.
It strikes me that its not only in trade agreements that ‘technification ‘ is employed as a means of circumventing democratic control. A much more topical example is in the complex world of high finance and the discussion–or lack of it–that has accompanied the multi-trillion dollar bailouts of the banks in the U.S. and other industrialised countries. Check out for example the following passage from a recent article by William Greider in the Nation (13/7/09; pp. 7-8) on “Obama’s False Financial Reform“:
As someone who has been around this subject for three decades, I came to understand that the power of financial titans and their friends at the Fed depends crucially on public ignorance. Most elected representatives and senators are just as clueless as their constituents. This is not entirely their fault. The system is designed to encourage deference to murky power. In our present crisis, people and politicians are naturally bewildered by the complexities. If they knew more about how the system works, they might be able to see that most of Obama’s reforms are insubstantial gestures, not actual remedies.
Does this sound similar to the EPA story?
One might suggest that ‘technification’ is a general phenomenon in contemporary capitalist society and applies accross a wide range of public poilcy issues. Perhaps it is one of the principal ways in which capital holds power while people play the substantively meaningless games of democracy–elections, leadership contests, approvals ratings, etc–and the public at large is continually distacted by a media that feeds them an endless diet of celebrity scandals, political imbroglios, terror attacks, crime, epidemics, numbers killed in one way or another and starving Third World people preyed on by corrupt Third World dictators; and so on. Hence trillion dollar bailouts that enrich the very people who were responsible for the worst economic crisis in 70 years are engineered under the very noses of an anxious and confused public and approved by their ‘democratically elected’ representatives.
I am pretty sure there must be others who would have noticed this phenomenon and theorised about it and any pointers to the literature would be welcome.
I think both the above comments have good points. The technical obfuscation of policy (economic, financial, banking, legal, accounting, auditing, IT, etc) is certainly a very big problem now. But it is not only of the general public and legislators, but experts themselves in the very fields of finance, banking, finance, economics, etc, as well as the government regulators are at a loss. It becomes even more complex when it is invisible as the practitioners are “merely” exploiting gaps and loopholes in existing laws, regulations and procedures. I read the other day that the US Federal regulators had examined Madoff’s operations five times and could not find anything wrong ! The majority of bankers in the US and Europe did not have a clue about what was going on in the mortgage market, the quality of the investments, and the securitization of the operations. High profile financial names were usually good enough for endorsing investment worthiness. Serious thought needs to given as how this problem can be addressed. Evidently, for one thing, consumer organizations and NGOs have to brought into the regulatory process before any laws and regulations are signed off on.
[Note: Peter's comments are on my essay "˜Technification, Sweetification, Treatyfication"™ published in the Journal Interventions Vol 12(1) 100-111. (2010). They are for the most part equally relevant to the slighlty longer version of the same paper, which is posted here as "The Caribbean EPA Affair: Lessons for the Progressive Movement".]
Norman,
While I find myself agreeing with most of your essay, I think that the emphasis on technification, sweetification and treatyfication in your title and your conclusion, and referring to them as a ” syndrome”, distract a bit from the real issues involved in the EU-Cariforum EPA and its negotiation. The real issues, in my opinion, are those that you mention in your abstract, i.e.:
1. the unequal power relationship between the EU and Cariforum;
2. the paradigm of neoliberal globalization;
3. the amorphous structure of regional governance;
4. the organizational and ideological weaknesses of the regional progressive movement.
I would have preferred it if your conclusion had focused more on these four issues and less on technification, sweetification and treatyfication.
I think that technification, sweetification and treatyfication are not problematic and objectionable in themselves. It is generally considered normal and acceptable for someone to try to sweetify (exaggerate the benefits of) something that he/she is trying to sell to someone else. There is also nothing wrong with treaties in themselves, in fact, isn”™t it a good thing that 5-yearly reviews were in the end included (treatyfied) into the EPA and thereby became mandatory?
The real problem is the underlying paradigm of capitalism. Capitalism is basically an immoral system that operates under what Fidel Castro likes to call the law of the jungle: the most powerful party merits to prevail over weaker parties and it is acceptable that the powerful party uses his/her advantages to the fullest in attempting to prevail.
This is the paradigm that forms the economic basis for the EPA and moreover formed the political basis for the negotiation process leading up to the EPA. That is, the principles of capitalism not only apply to the economic content of the EPA, but also applied to the political negotiation process. Those principles say that it”™s O.K. for experienced, large, strong and stable firms to outwit and outcompete inexperienced, small, weak and vulnerable firms. Those principles also say that it”™s O.K. for large and rich states and regional economic blocks, with a well-equipped supportive apparatus of experts, to outwit and outnegotiate small and poor states and regional economic blocks that are backed up by expertise of only limited range and depth.
It is only within this context, i.e., in the context of negotiations between parties that are unequal in power and in the context of the (immoral) capitalist paradigm (the law of the jungle), that technification, sweetification and treatyfication, and tactics such as “˜divide and conquer”™, “˜carrot and stick”™, ” blatant bullyism, bribery, cajolery, deception, intellectual dishonesty and plain bluff” become the accepted but problematic rules of the game.
The solutions that you propose in your conclusion, i.e., technical demystification, popular education and political organization, while certainly very necessary, are not in themselves sufficient for addressing the power differential between the EU and Cariforum or for countering the implicit and explicit acceptance of the capitalist paradigm by both negotiating parties. The persistent neocolonial role played by “˜our own”™ CRNM and by some elements of “˜our own”™ private sector, over and above the demystification, education and organization attempted by the regional progressive movement, is a case in point.
Peter
Dear Norman,
I read the paper and I think that you’ve done a great analysis; As program Director of the Advocacy program for an Alternative Integration at PAPDA, I coordinated the National coalition STOP EPA in Haiti; I wrote all the drafts of the documents published by CSO (STOP EPA) against the EPA. So, I can say that you’re right in your comments and resume about.
You can find all those documents and much more on our site, http://www.papda.org
Now, after the catastrophic earthquake of January 12, 2010, for the next 6 months, we are arming a Campaign about a “moratory” for at least 5 years on all the trade agreements signed by Haiti; so that the country can redefine his national policies and decide what should be his position at the international level.
That’s one of many objectives we have to work on the field of trade liberalization and integration process. We think that we are in a period that could be favorable for that, as we are in elections period. We have to pressure also all the candidates to engage about a revision of those agreement, in particular the EPA.
We hope that we’ll have all supports of our international partners to bring those reinvindications to the international and regional institutions.
Another Haiti is Possible.
Ricot Jean Pierre
PAPDA