Globalization of Crises and/or the Crisis of Globalization
195Congress.^23 Other global institutions, however, act according to a
significantly different set of principles, but continue to operate whereby
the vast majority of the world's population is excluded from the formal
decision making process, and sometimes they even do not have
representatives in them.
For example, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is a global
institution that is responsible for the efficient establishment of regulatory
standards in the world. From the very beginning it has been very exclusive
in terms of acceptance in membership. In the few decades of its existence,
it has not expanded its constitutional team in order to provide an adequate
formal representation of developing countries. During this period, nothing
has changed in the membership of the Board, though countries like Japan,
France, and Germany experienced a relative decline in the positions of
their largest banks, while countries such as China and Brazil saw relative
growth.^24 This meant that until and after the global financial crisis, many
countries remained without any formal representation in the Basel
Committee, although some of them have a more significant role in the
global banking framework than many of those within the Committee.^25
In the area of security, the problem is the fact that the U.S.A. has the
largest military expenses. Then comes: France, Great Britain, China, and
Russia. Most military expenses go toward large sophisticated weapons
systems designed for an eventual world war in the future. Although France
and Britain have played an active and constructive role in UN missions,
they are now facing difficult decisions about whether to move towards
new types of security concepts or extensions of design and the purchase of
large systems such as aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons.
In the area of environment, where several countries have the right to
vote, the dominant players are trying to provide sufficient negotiating
power to secure themselves against the possibility that the global
agreement could contain provisions that could go against them in
economic terms. It is characteristic of the agreements that they do not have
accurate long-term quantifiable goals, and, most importantly, there is no
established mechanism which says how a signed agreement becomes
legally binding. Large emitters–the U.S.A, China, India and the European
Union countries–will continue to be in a position to work the old way,
(^23) Broz, “Congressional Voting on Funding the International Financial
Institutions,“ 351-374.
(^24) See: Held and Young, Parallel Worlds: the governance of global risk, finance,
security and the environment.
(^25) Germain, “Globalising Accountability within the International Organization of
Credit: Financial Governance and the Public Sphere,“ 217-242.