Trevor A. Manuel

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We are obliged to accept that the development of globalisation is a given. As the author George Monbiot reminds us, ‘Everything has been globalised except our Consent . . . Democracy alone has been confined to the nation state. It stands at our national border, suitcase in hand, without a passport.’
Persuasive as Monbiot’s imagery is, he tends towards a rather fatalistic view of the role of the nation state within a globalising world. Within the same broad theme, Roberto Mangabeira Unger argues rather differently. He suggests that we (as society or a nation state) should refuse to accept the view that globalisation is there on a take-it-or-leave basis and that all we can do is have more or less of it on its own terms.
He proposes that we should work together with other powers sharing the same vision to reform global economic arrangements and to reshape world political realities. Unger’s arguments are far more agreeable. What we have to do though, is to revisit the basic precepts of governance itself. Much of the role of the modern state and its intergovernmental relations is the product of the ravages of the Second World War. On the one hand, there was the definition of the responsibility of the state to its citizens. William Bever- idge in a 1942 report to the British Government on proposals to rebuild the country after the war, highlighted the ‘five giant evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness’ and thus laid the basis for the modern welfare state. Few could argue against the place of these challenges and the associated recognition of fundamental human values as central to the purpose and objectives of democratic governments. Here in South Africa, we adopted a Constitution some 54 years after the Beveridge Report that states at the heart of its preamble

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to –
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is protected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person;
Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

Let me assume that most democratic governments accept, with some variation in form and articulation, the values espoused in our Constitution. It is also important to recognise that our Constitution has been developed and will no doubt be further extended through a swathe of legislation, that the Executive is held accountable to a legislature and that legislation is subjected to review by a series of courts, with the Constitutional Court at its apex. So, both the values and the checks and balances are tested for compliance. This is the heart of the functioning of our democracy.