Robert Keohane’s essay, “Abuse of Power: Assessing Accountability in World Politics” (Summer, 2005), is temperate, yet thought-provoking, particularly with regards to his comments on the World Trade Organization (WTO). Keohane separates the issues relating to “internal accountability” from those of “external accountability.” For most analytic purposes, this is a sensible distinction, but I would argue that when assessing the history of the WTO there are direct links and that problems of external accountability often are complicated by problems stemming from a lack of internal accountability.

Keohane acknowledges this connection in part when he quotes political scientist David Held as pointing out that the “external accountability problem may be even greater as a result of democracy: ‘arrogance has been reinforced by the claim of the political elites to derive their support from that most virtuous of source of power—the demos.’” (Readers, however, should note Held’s invidious turn of phrase that gives a pejorative construct to the demos as “that most virtuous source of power” exploited by “political elites.” A more benign interpretation would key upon the legitimacy emanating from a strongly functioning demos.)

In earlier research, Keohane (writing with Harvard Professor Joseph Nye) has described the early history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and WTO as a “club system,” staffed and run by a small group of trade bureaucrats in each country. The system worked well for over three decades after the creation of the GATT in 1945—primarily because trade negotiations overwhelmingly consisted of external tariff deliberations that interested only a relatively small group of commercial exporters and importers. Beginning with the Tokyo Round, but emerging with full impact in the Uruguay Round, trade negotiations extended to issues far beyond national borders and deep into hitherto domestic policy and politics—health and safety issues, national regulatory systems for financial services, telecommunications, aviation, intellectual property, as well as agricultural and other subsidies. This broadening and deepening of GATT/WTO substantive authority brought many other interest groups into the process and challenged the ability of trade bureaucracies to manage the trade negotiating and ratification system. It also presented potentially intractable problems for national parliaments and elected officials.

Increasingly, we see the difficulties presented by these changes as trade negotiators juggle trade priorities with the economic, social, and cultural goals and interests represented by constituent groups and their supporters in the US Congress. As examples, note the tension over allowing the temporary movement of labor between countries—pitting the trade committees in Congress against adamant committees responsible for US immigration policy. Or the struggle to craft international tax policy—where the recent WTO FSC case that the United States lost resulted in translating an alleged US$5 billion subsidy to US exporting industries into a US$145 billion boondoggle for all of US industry. The challenges are likely to become more acute as WTO members turn more and more to the dispute settlement system to test rules governing domestic policies.

Reflecting the current difficulties of bringing WTO trade rounds to a successful conclusion, some have called for a continuous legislative (rulemaking) process to be established. Unfortunately, this would only compound and deepen the problem of “internal accountability” by isolating international trade negotiations from vital domestic underpinnings. There are no easy solutions to these challenges, but they should be accorded high priority as WTO member states plan for the future of the organization.

Additionally, as this is written in the wake of the French electorate rejecting the EU constitution, I cannot refrain from noting further that issues of accountability stand at the center of that outcome. European political elites have consistently reacted with disdain and often scorn at calls for a more open, democratically accountable process in furthering the European project. In explaining his No vote, one young French voter stated: “I found the constitution unreadable…[They tried to make] Europe happen too fast.” Like the WTO, the European Union must find a better way to connect legitimate national goals and interests—which still form the central framework for political discourse—with the transnational functions of multilateral organizations.