Abstract
Optimism is not necessarily a bad thing. Immanuel Kant’s 1795 call for a “federation of peoples” must have seemed overly idealistic to the realists of his day, but a little more than a century later, the League of Nations and then the United Nations were founded. Benjamin Barber is an optimistic idealist. He wants to transform existing international organizations by adding a congress of mayors that can bypass an ineffectual United Nations and work around the existing system of nation-states that Barber views as obsolete.
Benjamin Barber thinks in terms of world systems. He thinks that the nation-state as an organizing principle for government has failed. That it is run by leaders who are too ideological to compromise and consequently unable to resolve the pressing problems of our day. Problems which he defines as global warming, immigration and terrorism. For Barber, hope lies in the increasingly urban nature of our world. Mega cities have emerged in the global South, and according to the United Nations, 54% of the world’s population are now urban residents. Barber’s discussion of the implications of international urbanization is one of the strongest portions of his book. He views this new metropolitan majority as more responsive to environmental and political reforms than the previously dominant rural majority. He, however, is not blind to the negative aspects of the urbanization process. Foremost among the costs is increasing economic inequality associated with urbanization which risks creating a “planet of slums.” Currently, although only 6% of urban residents in the developed world live in slums, the figure for the cities in the developing world is an appalling 78%.
Barber is a fan of mayors. In both his book and TED talk, he argues that mayors are by their nature more pragmatic in their approaches to solving a common set of urban problems. Although concerned about problems with mayoral corruption, Barber views mayors as more popular, more democratic, and more effective than national leaders. Consequently, he is interested in political arrangements that give them more influence over environmental and domestic policies.
His proposal for a congress of mayors envisions a body of 300 mayors composed of 50 from the largest cities, 125 from cities with population between 500,000 and 10,000,000, and 125 from cities of less than 500,000, all of whom would be chosen by lot. The congress would meet triennially to share ideas for dealing with common problems. The congress could pass resolutions and if those resolutions were passed at least three times, they would become binding recommendations unless a community chose to opt out of the recommendations. In short, what he envisions is a quasi-confederation of metropolitan areas that would be more democratic than either the community of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or international corporations that now influence international policy and more effective than the nation-states in solving problems.
Barber is a political theorist who writes intriguingly about democracy. He, however, is not a scholar of urban affairs, and this is the great weakness of his book. He is either unaware of, or has chosen to ignore, almost all of the literature about mayors. He cites only a few of the most prominent older works on urban politics and ignores many of the concerns urban scholars such as Paul Peterson have about the ability of cities to resolve problems of economic inequality. He also ignores the implications of the lack of urban democracy inherent in the old phrase “you can’t fight city hall.”
There is an extensive literature on mayors. Historians’ city biographies contain ample information about the office. Political scientists and sociologists have produced numerous power studies that have analyzed urban politics in terms of elitist, pluralist, and, more recently, regime models. All of these models are somewhat skeptical of the extent to which urban democracy exists. The pluralist model views politics as primarily a contest between established interests that is close to, but not exactly, the same thing as democracy. The elitist model fundamentally rejects the notion that there is such a thing as urban democracy, whereas the regime model views urban politics as controlled by an alliance between politicians and business interests that again suggests something other than fully democratic arrangements.
Barber also pays too little attention to the problems inherent in selecting members of the mayoral congress by lot. Selection by lot will only be acceptable to those who are excluded if the congress is powerless. If the congress is able to make meaningful recommendations, it will have to persuade those who are not included to adopt its recommendations. Selection by lot is unlikely to be viewed as a legitimate method for picking members of a legislative body that can make binding recommendations.
What Barber gets right is the notion that acting collectively, mayors can work around some of the political road blocks to international cooperation. The work around, however, is unlikely to be the result of anything as formal as a legally sanctioned congress of mayors. Less formal gatherings where mayors share ideas, agree to individually implement regulations, and advocate policy changes in their respective nation-states are, however, capable of accomplishing a great deal. This is particularly true in the area of environmental legislation where cities have long had to mitigate environmental damage. Cities are the source of environmental pollution, and have the legal authority to regulate it and a public that is generally supportive of such regulations. All that they need to do is add regulation of greenhouse gases to their existing concerns about water and air pollution. Similarly, cities already possess many of the resources required to deal with criminal activity in general and require only a small change in focus to include terrorism and human trafficking on their agenda. Their ability to deal with the problems of immigration is less certain, however, because enforcement of this policy area more clearly belongs to national governments. Mayors may decline to cooperate with national authorities, but “sanctuary cities” have a rather bleak legal future. Most difficult of all, however, is the problem of economic inequality. Peterson is correct in arguing that competitive pressures and lack of legal control over urban financial resources severely limit the ability of most cities to ameliorate economic inequality. National and large regional governments are much better equipped to resolve such dilemmas. The larger the unit of government, the harder it is for individuals and business to avoid the costs of redistributive policies by moving across a municipal boundary while still enjoying the economic benefits of doing business with the central city.
Barber’s book also contains a number of brief profiles of mayors of major cities from around the world. These are a useful addition. Evidently, these profiles were selected to counter negative stereotypes of mayors. Unfortunately, they go too far in the opposite direction. More balanced analysis of the virtues and limitations of these mayors would have been helpful.
A somewhat unrelated, but interesting, chapter in the book examines the implications of “smart cities” that incorporate web technology in the governing process. Barber is fully aware of both the promises and problems presented by the new technologies. He values the opportunities created by those technologies for the diffusion of innovation and the potential for creating a more deliberative form of democracy. At the same time, he is concerned about their capacity to increase the coercive ability of government to monitor and control unconventional behavior.
Taken as a whole, the book and TED talk present intriguing ideas that can be used to stimulate debate and encourage collective action. Mayors are once again paid attention to and treated as significant political actors who have a role to play addressing larger environmental and social problems—all of which is useful, but unlikely to radically transform the international order. Idealism has its place, but also its limitations. Barber’s book is appropriate for both general and specialized audiences who are interested in political change and public policy.