Hello again. In the last two videos, we concentrated on non-state actors. Multinational enterprises, financial corporations, and transnational advocacy groups as factors in the international system. In this video, I want to turn our attention back to the state. But in a formal organization where they share in making decisions and share in the consequences of those decisions. In a period of globalization when according to some commentators the power of the state is being eroded, groups of states across the globe are trying to consolidate their positions by closer cooperation. Efforts of greater international cohesion are all over the globe. From Asiani in Southeast Asia, Merkasol in Latin America, South Africa. I'm sure you can name many more. But the most ambitious and the most advanced of these is the European Union. It's extending its membership from six country in the 1950 to 28th today and it's expanding its remit from from the formation of custom union to wider concerns of economic and monitoring union as well as tackling social and security issues. So in this video let me use some example but we going to concentrate on the European Union. The European Union is supra-national. Supra meaning above the nation. The concept implies the surrender of national sovereignty over certain issues. The state can no longer be certain about shaping its policies. Thus European ministers can reach decisions by qualified majority voting and those decisions once taken and approved by the European Parliament, automatically take the force of law in each of the member states. And a final feature of the arrangement is that only the European Commission is entitled to make any proposals. It controls the setting of the agenda for discussions. The achievements of th EU are many. It's implemented a common market with no frontier barriers to trade, with shared regulations, with free movements of labor and capital. We'll call them common competition rules. It's constructed and partially dismantled the common agricultural policy, and it formed a currency union among some of its members. It has also helped the transformation of the former socialist countries of East Central Europe, and has nursed them towards full membership. It is much stronger in international trade and financial negotiations, and if each of these countries had acted independently. And perhaps most important of all it has curved nationalist protectionist tendencies in [INAUDIBLE] neighbor policies in the member states. Now not all of these achievements have been university popular but most have been completely unthinkable in the early 1950s when the first tentative steps toward European integration remain. And yet the European Union is not really loved. Now there's a nice concept from political science literature called input and output legitimacy. Output legitimacy means that citizens are happy because they're getting the public goods they want. And input legitimacy means that citizens are content because they feel that they've contributed towards the decisions being made. For a long time the EU has relied on output legitimacy, but especially after the Euro crises, citizens have begun to question some of the policies that are being made. And at this point, the absence of input legitimacy comes into play. But of course, you’d say the European citizen is involved in decision making, the ministers representing them in the European Union have all been elected in national elections. But this ideal of a mandated democracy is somewhat contrived and the citizens are also involved in the direct elections to the European Parliament. But that only managed to galvanize about 42% of the electorate entitled to vote, the lowest ever recorded. Much of the problem lies that the issues discussed by the European Parliament first of all the EU doesn't spend much money slightly over 1% of the union's GDP. And so the usual tax and spend issues that form the day to day business of politics is missing. And the European Parliament cannot easily bring down the government. I suppose the European commission, a body with one place reserved for a nominee of each member state. But if democratic control in democratic legitimacy is weak, who does make EU policy? Well most analysts would argue that the main players are the member states. And despite lurid headlines to the contrary, no one single large power determines the overall direction. For a long time, it was suggested that the French-German axis was necessary to get things done. Or more recently, that Germany has been the most powerful force. But there's little evidence of consistent domination by any power or group of powers. It's interesting that small states, or at least the academic studying smaller states seem to be quite in favor of the European Union. Certainly in comparison with the situation where they'd be exposed to big power politics in the context of bilateral negotiations. But let's stay with the question of who does make policy? Well the simple answer is the National Government and European Parliament agreeing together. And the European commission which prepares and presents the legislation. So if you want to influence policy, you should really approach all three institutions, preferably simultaneously. At first sight, the easiest to influence is the National Government, through the national press, through political parties and through the members of National Parliament. But itself this route is the least likely to bring any rewards since there are still 27 other states to get on side. So much better ways to approach the officials in the European Commission and get the bits of legislature in before it's even published. Levels of chemicals permitted, the banned substances, the safety stipulation, the exact concessions in trade negotiations. Try to get them all there before anyone can do anything about it. At the same time, you could tackle the European Parliament's specialist committees, established to examine fields of legislation. Parliament tends to vote in party blocks, so win one or two of those over, and your legislation is home and dry. There are 30,000 lobbyists active in Brussels. And the Commission works particularly closely with the business lobby. The director in charge of trade negotiations active right now, for example, in negotiation trade deals with India and the USA, works especially closely with big business. Many of the so called expert groups formed by the commission are top loaded with business representatives. Often with members' affiliation being deliberately misrepresented. An academic with ties to industry being labeled as independent, for example. Not surprisingly, corporate business interests are conspicuously over represented. In the expert groups called to consider taxation and customs union, and the group advising on enterprise and industry. As well as the group advising the secretary general, which guides the overall direction of policy. Well paid firms of lobbyists offered briefing papers to the members of the European parliament. And try to maintain links with those involved in scrutinizing different types of legislation. In all of these areas small or medium enterprises, trade unions, and civic advocacy groups are seriously under represented. And if we add to this the fact that monetary policy is settled by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and that is also under the sway and influence of financial interest. And you can see that we've really got a problem. So let's sum up. In this video we've looked particularly at the problems and achievements of super nationalities embodied in the European Union. We've exposed the problems of input and output legitimacy and we've questioned the disproportionate role of corporate interest and influencing policy. If we tie together what we've been discussing this week, then we can say the following, political economy is about relationship of the economy to politics and society and much of what it discusses is related to power. You don't have to be a revolutionary to be concerned about a situation that we've described these are issue that call for democratic control. They call for citizens to reassert their command over the society in which they live. And the lesson is really very simple, if you don't like the look of the world which we've configured do something positive about it however small. Try to change it. It is time for us all together to start to reconfigure the world.
