Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter Princeton University Dean Envisions New World Order by John Shaw Several years ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter saw a glimpse of the worldís emerging political structure at an unusual place: Rockefeller Center in New York City. Slaughter, now the dean of Princeton Universityís Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, was strolling through Manhattan when she came upon the statute of Atlas in Rockefeller Center. She noticed that the globe hoisted by Atlas is crisscrossed by a web. This, she decided, is an excellent metaphor for the worldís political system, which is increasingly connected by networks that link the private, nonprofit and government sectors. ìIt took me forever to figure out the right visual image for what Iíve been thinking and writing about,î she said in an interview with The Washington Diplomat. ìThen it hit me as I was looking at the Atlas statue that this was what I was describing: a globe with a web of networks.î One of the most respected international law scholars and foreign policy analysts in the United States, Slaughter is intrigued by the proliferation of networks, esp ecially those that link governments and even units of governments. Friendly and engaging, methodical and precise, Slaughter has recently published the book ìA New World Order,î which is the culmination of a decade of study about government networks and global governance. Slaughter believes the traditional notion of the world political system comprising independent, autonomous nations that interact primarily during formal meetings of foreign ministers and heads of state is anachronistic. Instead, she sees a world in which government officialsóincluding judges, legislators, financial regulators and law enforcement investigatorsóexchange information and coordinate activities across national borders to confront transnational problems and to implement international transactions. These networks are needed in a world in which terrorists, arms dealers and drug traffickers also operate through global networks. ìWe have this mental map of national governments here and the international system here as separate and apart,î she said. ìWe know itís not true. Itís like Columbus and the flat earth.î Slaughter said government networks are popping up everywhere. In the world of finance, for example, networks of finance ministers and central bankers have taken the lead in responding to national and regional financial crises, often under the auspices of the Group of Eight (G-8) or the G-20. She noted the emergence of an informal network called the Financial Stability Forum, which is composed of national leaders who meet under the auspices of the G-20, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. In the environmental realm, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Dutch counterpart founded the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement to discuss global environmental concerns. There are also, the professor said, ìdense networksî of national judges who interact regularly and exchange articles, ideas and rulings. Slaughter supports using government networks as the foundation for broader policy networks that include international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, corporations and other interested actors. ìGovernment networks are not alternatives to international organizations. They are very useful complements to international organizations. Government networks are a key feature of world order in the 21st century, but they are underappreciated and underutilized to address the central problems of global governance,î she said. ìTo see these networks requires a conceptual shift. We should stop imagining the international system as a system of unitary states subject to rules created by international institutions that are apart from or above these states.î Slaughter said it is useful to think about a network of governments, with all of the different institutions that perform the basic functions of governmentólegislation, adjudication, implementationóinteracting with each other domestically and also with their foreign and supranational counterparts. Countries still exist in this world, she said, but they are ìdisaggregated.î They relate to each other not only through the Foreign Service, but also through regulatory, judicial and legislative channels. ìSeeing the world through the lenses of disaggregated rather than unitary states allows leaders, policymakers, analysts or simply concerned citizens to see features of the global political system that were previously hidden,î Slaughter said, adding, ìA world of government networks working alongside and even within traditional international organizations should be attractive to the United States.î Slaughter believes that a world of mature government networks would be a more effective and potentially more just world order than either what exists today or a world government in which a set of global institutions preside above nation-states, enforcing global rules. In a networked world order, primary political authority would remain at the national level except in those cases where national governments explicitly delegated their authority to supranational institutions. ìGovernment networks can offer a flexible and relatively fast way to conduct the business of global governance, coordinating and even harmonizing national government action while initiating and monitoring different solutions to global problems,î Slaughter explained. She described a number of examples of horizontal government networks that are links among their counterpart national officials across borders. Far less frequent but no less important are vertical networks between national government officials and their supranational counterparts. These require the relatively rare decision by states to delegate their sovereignty to an institution above them with real power. The European Union, in Slaughterís view, has created some very important vertical networks. She is particularly intrigued by the relationship between the European Court of Justice and the various national courts that implement its rulings. Slaughter said she is pleased that her ideas have generated a vigorous debate in the academic and governmental communities and have challenged people to view the worldís political structure differently. ìThe thing Iím proudest of is that people who read my book say they read the newspapers differently, they see the world differently.î Slaughter said some analysts have argued that the networks she describes are little more than talking shops that have little impact on the world of high politics. Other analysts, she said, have made the opposite observation. They warn that these networks represent a kind of global conspiracy that should be feared. ìItís the image of offshore technocrats running the world without accountability,î she said. ìBut these networks are out there and it makes sense to pay attention to them. They will grow at an increasingly rapid rate. They will be important even if we do nothing. But thatís a reactive posture. To be proactive, we should use these networks to address really important problems. There is no better place to start than fighting terrorism.î For example, Slaughter suggests making full use of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Launderingóa network of finance ministers and other financial regulators pursuing money launderers and financers of terror. Slaughter said that a world order self-consciously generated out of horizontal and vertical government networks could create a genuine global rule of law without centralized global institutions and could engage, educate, support and constrain government officials in every nation. Slaughter, 45, has written or co-edited four books and more than 50 articles for legal and scholarly journals. Her teaching and research have focused on global governance, the politics of international tribunals, and interdisciplinary analyses of international legal issues, and she is a frequent commentator on various international-related issues. Slaughter is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She recently served as president of the American Society of International Law. Her article, ìThe Real New World Order,î was published in the 75th anniversary edition of Foreign Affairs and presented her ideas on global governance to an influential audience of practitioners and scholars. She graduated magna cum laude fro m Princeton in 1980 with a certificate in European cultural studies. She studied at Oxford University, where she received her masterís degree and doctorate in international relations, and she earned a law degree from Harvard in 1985. Slaughter was a professor of law and international relations at the University of Chicago Law School from 1990 to 1994. She then taught at Harvard Law School, serving as the director of graduate and international legal studies. She was the founder and faculty director of the Harvard Colloquium on International Affairs. Diane Orentlicher, a law professor at American Universityís Washington College of Law, praises Slaughter as an important analyst. ìSheís at the top of her game in a remarkable range of professional arenas. She would be on anyoneís list of top scholars in the fields of international law and foreign policy, and her reputation is global,î Orentlicher said. ìOutside the academy, Anne-Marie is a leading voice on the urgent foreign policy issues of the day, from the role of the United Nations in the 21st century to the terms of U.S. engagement in Iraq. While her views are informed by a pragmatic grasp of world affairs, theyíre shaped by a passionate commitment to principleóand invariably expressed with persuasive eloquence,î Orentlicher added. Slaughter was named dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton in the fall of 2002. She also teaches at the Wilson School. Slaughter said she is intrigued by ìthe big challenge of training the diplomats of the 21st century.î Diplomacy has changed dramatically since the 1960s, she argues, and graduate schools must help their students develop a wider range of skills so they can move between various sectors. ìThey need the skills to be in the private and nonprofit sectors as well as the public sector,î she said. ìDiplomats are not a declining profession. We need diplomats. I think it would be great if we had more integration of traditional diplomatic training with the training you get in traditional domestic areas.î John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.