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Anne-Marie Slaughter, is the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is presently on leave, serving as Director of Policy Planning for[…]
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Anne-Marie Slaughter describes how international organizations are changing

Slaughter: So, there’s also a whole set of informal institutions that have grown up over the past 30 years really as a function of globalization itself that are networks of national government officials, [with the] Central Bankers have been talking to each other for 30, 40 years.  Securities Commissioners, insurance supervisors, any trust officials, environmental officials, even judges and to some extent legislators are talking to their counterparts abroad.  So, instead of some vast international bureaucracy, what you’ve got are these networks of national government officials who are talking to each other just like corporate officials are, or if you’re in a non-governmental organization, you know all your counterparts around the world.  And those institutions are, they exist, they have been meeting for many years, but we’re not using them in any productive way.  We’re not recognizing the existence of a global financial network and saying, now, wait a minute, let’s connect that to the IMF.  Let’s connect that to the G7, G8 or the G20 and let’s have some formal institutions that are more representative of the world, but let’s hook them on to these informal institutions that can move quickly, that have access to the people on the ground and every nation in the world and let’s figure out how to use those networks so that they’re not just talking to each other, they’re actually coordinating policy and implementing new ideas.


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