The Globalization and Development Reader: Perspectives on Development and Global Change, 2nd Edition

27 A New World Order (2004)

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Regulators: The New Diplomats

From my experience in these last six and half years, the minister of justice or the attorney general has become part of the international arena. When I first came into the office, not that many people came to visit. Now prime ministers and ministers of justice and security people come to visit all the time, and I am so glad to see them because they remind me of what a wonderful, wonderful institution democracy is, how hard we have to fight for it, and now how important it is that we join arms together and fight for it around the world.

United States Attorney General Janet Reno¹

The best evidence of the disaggregated state may be found in the logs of embassies around the world. The records from U.S. embassies, at least, show a steady procession of regulators visiting their foreign counterparts – from agencies and departments regulating financial markets, competition policy, environmental protection, agriculture, and all the other domains of the modern regulatory state.² Finances also tell the tale: foreign affairs budgets for regulatory agencies have increased dramatically across the board, even as the State Department’s budget has shrunk.³

This disaggregation extends all the way to the top. The executive branch – “the government” in parliamentary systems – is traditionally and formally charged with the conduct of foreign policy. Where nations speak with one voice, the executive is supposed ...