Polyarchies, competitive oligarchies or inclusive hegemonies? A comparison of 23 global intergovernmental organizations based on Robert Dahl’s political theory

Does the appointment of secretariesgeneral to lead global bureaucracies correlate with international power sharing? A longitudinal assessment based on empirical evidence from 1945 to 2016

“…This paper shows that GIGOs may serve as important microcosms for the observation of general trends and patterns in international politics. The distribution of SGs is a proxy variable to the ongoing debate on the polyarchization of the international system (Lopes 2016), in view of the salience of these posts as instruments for states to intervene in global decision-making processes. From an interstate perspective (Marchetti 2008) -which posits that democratic potentials should increase as the distribution of SG positions would deconcentrate -this paper identified greater possibilities for global democracy from 1945 to 2016, since the US and Western European countries partially retreated from GIGOs' secretariats, making room for the participation of countries from other regions.…”

“…Furthermore, this paper analyzes GIGOs subsequently to World War II (WWII). The international order prior to this conflict featured a substantial exclusion of populations and territories from global institutions, notably the African and Asian continents, because of the conditions of colonial dependency (Kennedy 2007), and the excluding character of some international values and norms that differentiated 'civilized' and 'non-civilized' nations, as shown in articles 22 from the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919) and 38.3 of the Statute from the Permanent Court of International Justice (1920) (Lopes 2012). The international order after 1945, despite the continuance of colonial conditions in the first decades, and some weighted representation, such as in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, has liberal foundations, including the protection of individual liberties and the promotion of multilateralism, which Ruggie (1982) dubbed 'embedded liberalism.…”

“…For this paper, the issue of democratization in international relations, notably in IOs, focuses on the pluralization of governmental demands within the institutional level, leaning towards a more intergovernmental approach. Therefore, democratization means the continuous process of polyarchization in terms of participation and contestation inside international decision-making structures (Lopes 2016).…”

Organizações Internacionais e Políticas Públicas Nacionais

“…Como nos mostram Belém Lopes (2016), Tallberg et al (2016), entre outros, organizações internacionais que lidam com temas relacionados ao soft law 13 tendem a ser mais democráticas, ao passo que aquelas que lidam com o hard law costumam se utilizar de procedimentos mais autoritários. Apesar do ceticismo em relação à democracia no âmbito das OIs, percebido, até mesmo, entre os burocratas dessas organizações, consideramos que uma OI pode ser relativamente democrática quando existe a capacidade de incluir diferentes atores (estatais e não-estatais) e de lhes dar voz (Dahl 2001;Belém Lopes 2016) 14 . Do ponto de vista da inclusão, há nas OIs comumente critérios que excluam atores não-estatais, por exemplo.…”

“…14 Para este artigo, consideramos os critérios de democracia aplicados às OIs já estudados por autores como: de Tallberg et al (2016); Belém Lopes (2016); Koremenos (2016).…”