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Globalization and Democracy 211

the appointment of the UN Secretary - General, the election of judges to
the International Court of Justice, and the admission of a new member
to the UN (Monbiot, 2004 : 68 – 72; Archibugi, 1995 ).
The procedures for reaching agreements in the institutions of economic
global governance are similarly skewed to benefi t the wealthiest states.

The World Bank, set up to finance investment projects, and the IMF,
which is supposed to provide a framework for international trade by
lending money to countries with balance - of - payments problems, both
adopt the procedures of share - holding companies, weighting votes accord-
ing to the investment stakes of different states. This means that, even in
terms of formal procedures, a small number of wealthy states (those that
make up the G8) control most of the votes in these Organizations. In
addition, the US appoints the President of the World Bank, and the
European Union chooses the Managing Director of the IMF (Monbiot,
2004 : 153 – 4; Tonkiss, 2005 : 61 – 70). In comparison, the WTO tradition-
ally reaches agreement by consensus, and where that is not possible,
voting is organized on the basis of membership: one vote, one state. In
practice, Susan George argues, consensus means that the US, Canada,
Japan, and the European Union agree on a policy and the others fall into
line (George, 2004 : 60). The G8 is a different kind of organization: a
forum for the leaders of Western states with the largest economies, it tries
to build consensus on world economic policy. It has no standing organiza-
tion and its decisions are not formally binding on its members in the same
way as those of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO.
What emerges, then, from this brief look at the formal procedures
of Inter - Governmental Organizations is that there is a strong weighting
towards states with historically over - developed economies: the over -
developed are also over - represented in IGOs. There have been many sug-
gestions for democratizing the UN and institutions of economic governance,
including rotating membership of the UN Security Council, making the
General Assembly more representative, adding another assembly to the
UN system where individuals would be represented rather than states,
and giving developing countries special borrowing rights from the IMF
(see Archibugi, 1995 ; Archibugi, Held, and Kohler, 1998 ; Monbiot,
2004 ).
Amongst the simplest of these suggestions is that NGOs should have
more involvement in debating and in decision - making in international
political institutions, on the grounds that they bring new perspectives,
expertise, and advocacy for justice into otherwise state - centric discus-
sions. Some NGOs have consultative status already in some IGOs; they
have been involved in the Economic and Social Council in the UN, for