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16 Governance: An Int'l J. Pol'y, Admin, & Institutions 1 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/gvnanlj16 and id is 1 raw text is: Special Issue: Deliberately Democratizing Multilateral Organization MARCO VERWEIJ* AND TIMOTHY E. JOSLING,** EDITORS In Economy and Society, Max Weber posits that bureaucracies that are not reined in by either democratic controls or market discipline will even- tually start to pursue public policies that are detrimental to those whose lives these policies should enable or improve. During the last ten years, a number of scholars, activists, parliamentarians, journalists and whistle- blowers have come to argue that Weber's hypothesis has often held up for the functioning of multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. At least, it appears that little democratic control or market discipline has been imposed on multilateral organizations. Moreover, critics from both the left and the right have severely criticized such multilateral policies as develop- ment lending, deregulation of financial markets, and structural adjustment programs. Yet it remains difficult to agree upon appropriate remedies. Many proposals-ranging from outright abolishment of large international organizations to the establishment of global parliaments at the United Nations-have been tabled, but little consensus reigns and various disad- vantages (as well as advantages) cling to each of these proposals. This special issue of Governance considers yet another way in which to make multilateral organizations more democratic and pluralistic: by making these organizations more deliberatively democratic. This introduction clar- ifies what is meant by deliberative decision-making and why it is worth- while to consider making multilateral organizations more deliberative. It also sets out the other contributions to the issue, which offer different jus- tifications for increased deliberation and discuss alternative forms in which multilateral organizations can be made more deliberatively democratic. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth by being exagger- ated into falsehood. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (115) *Max Planck Project Group on Common Goods **Stanford University Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2003 (pp. 1-21). © 2003 Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK. ISSN 0952-1895