Interdependence

G LO B A L I N T E R D E P E N D E N C E
PAPER NO. 1 AND THE NEED FOR

S O C I A L S T E WA R D S H I P
Laurie Ann Mazur & Susan E. Sechler
G L O B A L I N T E R D E P E N D E N C E I N I T I AT I V E
RBF
R OC K E F E L L E R B R OT H E R S F U N D
ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND
 Avenue of the Americas
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E-mail: [email protected]
World Wide Web: www.rbf.org
Copyright © , Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.

All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
5 PREFACE
9 INTRO DUCTION
13 I: THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE
19 II: THE RETRE AT FROM SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP
25 III: BUILDING SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP
33 CONCLUSION
34 NOTES
3 RO C K E F E LLE R B ROT H E R S F U N D
4 G LO B A L I N T E R D E P E N D E N C E
PREFACE
On October –, , at the Pocantico Conference Center of the

Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Fund joined with the World Bank to
host an unusual gathering of foundation executives, leaders of major
humanitarian and environmental NGOs (nongovernmental organiza-
tions), and officers of large multilateral institutions. The meeting was
entitled “Building a Constituency for Global Interdependence,” and its
agenda reflected a deep sense of shared concern about the apparent
waning of public and political support (in the United States but also in
other developed nations) for the policies, programs, and agencies of
cooperative international engagement. Despite considerable talk about
the globalization of the economy and the unifying effects of communi-
cations technology, there has been a growing and worrisome tendency
on the part of governments, the general public, and private funders to
withdraw or withhold their support from international development,
exchange, and capacity-building initiatives that reflect the reality and
implications of global interdependence. A serious lack of funding,
commitment, and vision—the resources on which effective cooperative
engagement depends—now threatens to undermine the capacity of
nations and peoples to collaborate in building a just and sustainable
global community.
The U.S. retreat from international cooperative engagement has been

widely reported. Once the world leader in aid to developing nations,
the United States now ranks at the bottom of the list of donor nations in
the percentage of gross national product devoted to foreign aid. In recent
years, the United States has also failed to honor its commitments to
such multilateral agencies as the United Nations and the International
Development Association (the branch of the World Bank that provides
low- and no-interest loans to the world’s poorest countries) and has shifted
its aid priorities, to a large extent, from long-term development assistance
to short-term disaster relief. But the origins and extent of this retreat are
poorly understood. Why, and among whom, is commitment diminishing?
Has commitment waned for all forms of international engagement, or only
for some? What can be done to reverse this trend? These questions were at
the heart of the October  Pocantico workshop.
In a lively and open discussion, participants reviewed what is known,

guessed, and still unknown about the nature and causes of reduced
support for cooperative engagement. The public’s lack of confidence in
public institutions, including governments and international agencies,
received extensive attention. NGO leaders then offered practical case
studies of constituency-building in their own areas of interest: health,
women’s rights, environmental conservation, humanitarian aid, and
emergency relief. Participants explored the potential differences between
constituency-building on behalf of specific issues or causes and constitu-
ency-building on behalf of cooperative engagement more generally. A
variety of strategies to bolster public and policymaker support for
international cooperation was proposed and vigorously debated, with an
emphasis not only on increasing financial support but also, and primarily,
on changing the climate of opinion. Central to this discussion was a
consideration of the need for renewed political leadership if the climate of
opinion is to be altered in any meaningful fashion. Implicitly and
occasionally explicitly, the gathering posed the question of how a group of
foundations, NGOs, and multilateral institutions might work
collaboratively, drawing on their respective and complementary strengths,
to help build a broader understanding of global interdependence and a
stronger commitment to cooperative engagement.
This meeting cannot be said to have produced a consensus, either on how

to define the problem or on how to try to solve it. The discussions at
Pocantico did, however, illuminate the need for more nuanced informa-
tion about the beliefs and perceptions of Americans regarding their
country’s role in an interdependent world, and about the efforts that are
already under way by NGOs and other organizations to educate various
audiences about the challenges and opportunities presented by global
interdependence. Above all, the meeting illuminated the need for a new
conceptual framework for cooperative engagement in the post-Cold War
era—a framework that would not only guide U.S. foreign policy and
galvanize political leadership on behalf of international engagement, but
also inform broad public education efforts on global issues and encourage
greater public involvement and trust in the cooperative engagement
process. These are needs that a collaboration of concerned foundations,
NGOs, and multilateral institutions might well seek to address by
engaging in some shared thinking and by developing some shared
resources. It is this possibility which is now being explored—through
informal conversations and meetings of a smaller working group — by the
participants in the October  workshop.
The paper that follows draws in part on the rich array of ideas voiced at
Pocantico to describe one possible and persuasive new framework for
cooperative engagement. It begins by explaining the need for cooperation
if interdependent nations are to advance their common interests in three
areas: economic growth; military security; and what the authors call social
stewardship, which involves the promotion of health, social stability, and
human potential. The United States, the authors argue, has fallen far
behind in this last arena. The second section of the paper traces the
history of political and public support for social stewardship and discusses
its current falling-off. In so doing, the paper provides valuable new
information on American attitudes toward cooperative engagement
generally and social stewardship in particular, suggesting that the con-
stituency-building challenge is a complex one, involving not so much a
lack of awareness about global issues, but rather the low priority assigned
to those issues and the absence of a compelling policy context in which to
address them. The third section begins to lay out messages and methods
(including reform of the vehicles for cooperative engagement) that might
help generate a renewed commitment to social stewardship among
policymakers and opinion leaders, key constituencies, and the general
public. Finally, the authors argue for a model of cooperative engagement
in which social stewardship, economic growth, and military security are
seen as mutually reinforcing expressions of American interests and values.
In its effort to articulate the importance of social stewardship and locate

it in an overall framework for international involvement, and in its
emphasis on the need for leadership as well as constituency if support for
cooperative engagement is to be increased, this paper can certainly be
seen as an outgrowth of the October  Pocantico meeting. Many of its
particulars, though, have been drawn or developed from other sources
and subsequent discussions. In presenting this essay to the public, then,
the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the World Bank are not reporting on a
particular workshop. Instead, we seek to convey something of the
underlying concern and conviction that brought a diverse and sometimes
divergent group of organizations together around a single issue; to offer a
first example of the kinds of information and resources such a group
might work together to provide; and to help spark a much larger conver-
sation about the purpose, principles, and agents of American engagement
overseas.
Colin G. Campbell
President
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Mark Malloch Brown

Vice President, External Affairs
World Bank
INTRO DUCTION
In a world made smaller by global commerce and communication,

cooperative engagement among nations is more possible — and more
necessary — than ever before.
“Cooperative engagement,” in this context, refers to the complex of

policies, programs, treaties, investments, and regimes by which nations
collaborate to advance common interests. Those interests fall into three
broad categories: military security, economic growth and trade, and what
might be called social stewardship — the promotion of health, social
stability, and human potential. The United States is the world leader in
efforts to ensure military security and has intensified efforts to open
international markets and foster economic growth. But, as this paper will
elaborate, the United States has fallen far behind in the realm of social
stewardship.
The term “social stewardship” is, admittedly, an awkward one. In public

discourse, “stewardship” is most often used to describe the responsible
use of natural resources—resource use that meets the needs of current
generations without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs. But intergenerational concern should extend to the
social realm as well. To meet the needs of current and future generations,
it is also necessary to act as good stewards of human resources. Accord-
ingly, social stewardship includes not only the careful use of natural
resources, but also long-range efforts to improve public health, such as
immunization and nutrition programs, basic sanitation, and reproductive
health care. It includes efforts to promote greater social stability by
fostering democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and more equitable
distribution of resources. And it includes investments in human poten-
tial, such as public education and micro-credit initiatives. The package of
objectives that we call “social stewardship” is closely related to the
objectives of “human development,” “social development,” and “human
security.” In the international sphere, these objectives are now mostly
pursued through bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, although many
other private- and public-sector actors contribute to social stewardship.
Social stewardship is increasingly recognized as a component of na-

tional — and global — security. With the end of the Cold War, there is
a growing understanding of non-military threats to peace and social
stability. Intranational problems, such as resource scarcities and wide
gaps between rich and poor, have the potential to destabilize nations
and even precipitate military aggression. Successful social stewardship
efforts can address intranational problems before they metastasize into
larger threats.
Social stewardship is also valued as a building block of economic growth.

Certainly, people who are healthy and educated are better prepared to
seize economic opportunity than those who are sick, malnourished, or
illiterate. A clear illustration of the economic benefits of social steward-
ship can be found in Costa Rica, where U.S. development assistance
helped the government to provide basic health care, safe drinking water,
and free primary and secondary education to all of its citizens. These
efforts reaped impressive gains: adult literacy rates in Costa Rica are now
at  percent, and infant mortality dropped from sixty-two deaths per
one thousand births in  to thirteen in , which is close to the level
in most industrialized countries. Investments in human well-being have
catalyzed strong economic growth—Costa Rica’s per capita income is
now among the highest in Latin America—and reduced dependence on
foreign assistance. Indeed, in  Costa Rica “graduated” from receiving
U.S. foreign aid.
And social stewardship has a moral value that cannot be quantified.

Our moral and religious traditions teach us to care for the poor, the
marginalized, the “least among us.” Embedded in this teaching is a
recognition of the dignity and worth of each human being. Social
stewardship is an expression of our common humanity and of the value
we place on each human life.
Still, the strategic, economic, and moral importance of social stewardship

is not yet reflected in the U.S. budget (the most visible, but not the only
meaningful measure of commitment). In fact, social stewardship now
consumes a smaller share of international spending than at any time in
the last thirty years. Since , U.S. defense spending has fallen by 
percent in constant  dollars, while non-military international
spending, including social stewardship, plummeted by  percent.
Bilateral development assistance (more commonly known as “foreign

aid”) has sustained the deepest cuts. The United States, for decades the
largest aid donor, is now in fourth place behind Japan, France, and
Germany. Real spending on development assistance peaked at  billion
(in  dollars) in , when the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe was
in full stride. Spending has fallen steadily since then, with steeper drops in
recent years, to  billion in . The U.S. ratio of official development
assistance (ODA) to Gross National Product (GNP) is now at its lowest
level since . Indeed, the United States devotes a smaller percentage of
national income to development assistance than nearly any other devel-
oped nation—less than one-tenth of one percent (. percent), compared
to . percent for the Danes, . percent for the Swedes, . percent for
the French, and . percent for the Germans. Even in absolute terms, if
we exclude U.S. aid to Israel and Egypt, the United States—with 
million people—spends less on development assistance than Denmark, a
nation of five million.
The United States has also reduced its contributions to multilateral aid
efforts. In recent years, the United States has not fully honored its
commitments to United Nations agencies and peacekeeping activities,
nor to the International Development Association (IDA), the branch of
the World Bank that provides low- or no-interest loans to the poorest of
the world’s countries. Although there is a movement under way to pay
those accumulated debts, it is not clear what the outcome will be.
Deeper cuts may be in store for U.S. funding of bilateral and multilateral
agencies. Until recently, defense spending and non-military international
spending were linked together as “privileged” accounts within the
discretionary budget, meaning that they both enjoyed some protection
from budget-cutting pressures. But in recent years, the linkage has been
broken. Non-military international spending is now part of a broad “non-
defense discretionary” category. This means that international spend-
ing—diplomacy, support for multilateral organizations, and bilateral
development assistance—must compete for funds with domestic pro-
grams such as education, health care, and prisons. Given the stronger
constituencies for domestic programs—and the lack of understanding
about the impact of international problems on domestic well-being—
policymakers often choose to cut international programs instead.
Political and budgetary constraints combine to limit U.S. support for

bilateral and multilateral aid efforts. But social stewardship requires
more than cash; it also requires a commitment to cooperative engage-
ment with other nations. In international fora the United States still
tends to assume a hegemonic role, which may undercut cooperative
partnerships. For example, the United States has unilaterally called for
changes in the United Nations system and threatened to withdraw
support if those conditions are not met. “The U.S. knows how to be
the team captain, and it knows how to sit on the bench,” says Jessica
Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment, “but it’s not very
good at being a team player.”
The United States has also shifted its aid priorities from long-term
development assistance to short-term disaster relief. The shift away
from social stewardship may be short-sighted; long-term aid can help
poor countries prevent crises by developing their economies and social
infrastructure, which can obviate the need for expensive disaster relief.
“American policy,” according to a recent report by the Overseas Devel-
opment Council, “is, in effect, borrowing peace from the future to deal
with crises in the present.”
• • •
On October –, , the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the World
Bank co-hosted a meeting of foundation executives, leaders of major
humanitarian and environmental NGOs (nongovernmental organiza-
tions), and officers of large multilateral institutions, who gathered to
discuss the apparent waning of America’s commitment to social steward-
ship and what might be done about it. This meeting, entitled “Building a
Constituency for Global Interdependence,” took place at the Fund’s
Pocantico Conference Center. The meeting was inspired, in part, by the
RBF’s longstanding interest in the theme of global interdependence and
its recent grantmaking experience in a world where the rapid pace of
globalization is blurring the distinctions between domestic and interna-
tional concerns. For the World Bank, sponsorship of the meeting
reflected an institutional mandate to foster cooperative engagement, as
well as a renewed commitment to program reform and to collaboration
with foundations and nongovernmental organizations.
At the Pocantico meeting, participants agreed that the United States has
made a sharp retreat from some forms of social stewardship—notably
bilateral and multilateral development assistance efforts. But the Pocantico
participants raised several questions about which there was less certainty.
For example, does the retreat from development assistance signify a broader
retreat from social stewardship? Is it possible to achieve social stewardship
through other means, such as a greater reliance on market mechanisms?
What is driving the current retreat, and how might it be reversed?
In the pages that follow, these questions are explored and others are
raised. Section I, “The Challenge of Global Interdependence,” explores
the need for cooperative engagement to solve the problems and seize the
opportunities presented by globalization. Section II, “The Retreat from
Social Stewardship,” reviews the history of political support for interna-
tional social stewardship and the reasons for the current retreat. Section
III, “Building Support for Social Stewardship,” puts forth a three-part
framework for approaching the challenge of rebuilding support.
The authors of this paper, in an attempt to reflect and expand upon the views
of the Pocantico participants, have drawn a few preliminary conclusions.
First, it is clear that bilateral and multilateral development assistance is a
necessary, but not sufficient, component of social stewardship. Second, while
it is important to rebuild support for these traditional mechanisms of
stewardship, it is also necessary to develop new ways to harness the transfor-
mative powers of globalization to improve human well-being. Third and most
important, it is essential to promote a renewed national dialogue about the
goals and methods of U.S. engagement with other nations.
I THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE
We live in an era of stark contrasts. The global economy produces wealth

on a previously unimaginable scale—gross world product has grown by
more than  percent since —yet the absolute number of people in
poverty continues to rise, and the chasm between rich and poor is
widening in many countries. With the end of the Cold War, the threat
of nuclear annihilation has diminished, yet bloody civil conflicts erupt
with frightening frequency and intensity. Medical science has conquered
diseases that plagued humanity for millennia, yet millions die each year
because they lack basic sanitation, nutrition, and health care. Our
capacity to shape the environment to meet human needs has brought
comfort and convenience to many, as well as unforeseen side effects—
climate change, species loss, soil erosion, water shortages—that may
threaten the planet’s ability to sustain life itself.
The world is both expanding and contracting: expanding with the rapid
growth of the human population and economy; contracting as the forces
of globalization draw more tightly the bonds that connect us. An increas-
ingly global marketplace is redrawing the map of alliances, forging new
ties of economic, political, and social interdependence among people and
nations.
Interdependence Calls for International Problem-Solving

Interdependence means that global trends have greater effects at the local
level. As more producers and consumers are linked to the worldwide
economic grid, more communities are affected by events beyond their
borders. For example, as farmers complete the transition from self-
provisioning to production for export, their markets (and profits) grow.
But so does their vulnerability to price shifts. At the same time, many
governments have abandoned costly price supports (which encourage
market inefficiency and poor land use practices), so farmers have less
protection from the vicissitudes of the market.
Interdependence also means that what appear to be local problems can

have international causes and effects. For example, the proximate causes
of Mexico’s  peso crisis were local: budget deficits, hidden inflation,
the destabilizing Chiapas rebellion, and the assassination of a prominent
politician. But its underlying causes were, in a sense, global: a result of
Mexico’s foreign debt and disadvantaged position in the world economy.
And repercussions of the crisis were felt far beyond the Mexican border:
the United States, Canada, and other nations risked billions to protect
their own economies from the peso’s slide.
In an interdependent world, environmental degradation, disease, terror-

ism, and organized crime do not respect national borders. So, to solve
local problems, it is often necessary to think and act globally. To protect
their forests from acid rain, Canadians must work with the United States
to address industrial pollution in the American Midwest. To stop the
spread of AIDS and other diseases, health officials must grapple with
political and economic chaos in Africa, which provides a fertile breeding
ground for globe-trotting microbes. To prevent climate changes that
threaten agriculture and ecosystems worldwide, environmentalists must
influence patterns of energy use and transportation in the industrialized
world as well as in the developing countries, which will produce the lion’s
share of carbon dioxide emissions in the next century.
For Americans, prosperity and quality of life are increasingly entwined

with conditions in other countries. Exports account for an increasing
share of our nation’s economic growth, and developing countries are
among the fastest-growing markets for U.S. products. This means that
more U.S. jobs depend on purchasing power and political stability
overseas. These are generally high-paying jobs: industries that produce
goods for export pay wages that are  percent above the national aver-
age. Imports benefit Americans, too, by stocking our stores with
inexpensive goods that keep the cost of living down.
But strengthened economic ties with developing nations impel us to

consider the moral and practical implications of our new trading relation-
ships. What does it mean to trade with nations that pay workers much
less than American workers receive, and that have lower standards for
worker protection and human rights? It means, for example, that Ameri-
can children play with inexpensive soccer balls stitched together by their
peers in Pakistani sweatshops. Recently, consumer revulsion has
prompted boycotts and other efforts to improve working conditions in
developing countries. But some charge that boycotts are misguided: by
purchasing products from developing countries, they say, it may be
possible to foster growth that will ultimately lead to better working
conditions.
And the practical implications of trade with developing countries may

include job insecurity and lower wages for young and less-skilled
American workers. The actual economic effects are relatively small, but
they are politically significant. Most economists agree that trade with
developing countries accounts for only about  percent of wage
declines among less-skilled workers; the remainder is due to a host of
factors, including technological changes and the dwindling strength of
unions. Still, over the last two decades, about  percent of U.S.
manufacturing jobs have been lost as corporations moved operations
overseas to cut labor costs, and salaries of less-skilled workers have
declined steadily. As a result, many Americans remain wary of eco-
nomic ties with developing nations, and there is ample evidence that
protectionist impulses are gathering force.
Should we, then, decline to trade with nations whose labor standards are
lower than ours? Should we shield American workers from wage declines
through protectionist measures? The integration of developing-country
workers into the world economy may indeed depress wages for less-
skilled workers everywhere. However, the costs of not integrating those
workers could be even higher: a widening gap between the world’s rich
and poor, political instability, and an incalculable waste of human
potential. The challenge is to find mechanisms that can raise global
standards for both wages and working conditions, while preserving and
creating as many jobs as possible. This is a formidable but important task.
Interdependence Presents Opportunities

to Raise Living Standards
Of course, opportunities as well as challenges now transcend national
boundaries. In a globalized economy, capital moves more freely among
nations. This quickening flow of resources offers an extraordinary
opportunity to improve human well-being, especially in the impoverished
countries of the developing world. Since private flows of capital now
dwarf the spending of bilateral aid agencies and multilateral organiza-
tions, many believe that markets, not governments, will hasten develop-
ment and raise the quality of life worldwide.
The shift from public to private investment has been dramatic. A decade
ago, most capital flows to developing countries were in the form of loans
or aid from official development institutions, supplemented by a trickle
of private investment. That trickle has become a flood: private capital
flows to developing countries rose from  billion in  to  billion
in . Then, after a steep drop-off in the s (when Mexico defaulted
on its bank loans, and other debtor nations threatened to follow suit),
private investment in developing countries rebounded to an unprec-
edented  billion in , and now accounts for four-fifths of total
capital flows to those countries.
Ideas also move more freely in an interdependent world. Global trade has
been accompanied by a parallel expansion of communications technolo-
gies. Today, people throughout the world are linked by a dense network
of fiber-optic cables and are bathed in the common glow of an increas-
ingly global popular culture. The worldwide commerce in ideas offers the
potential to improve the quality of political and economic life by univer-
salizing higher standards for human rights, democracy, and environmental
protection. For example, communications technologies—notably the
electronic information systems that connect computer users across the
globe—can serve as powerful tools of democratic reform. They can be
used to spark dialogue among advocates, challenge the hierarchical
control of information, and expose oppression and corruption. These
technologies have helped nongovernmental organizations from the
industrialized and developing countries form partnerships to raise
international norms on a wide variety of issues, from environmental
protection to women’s rights.
The cross-pollination of cultures can also bring an end to age-old

practices of oppression and discrimination. The censure of the global
community (together with a strong indigenous human rights movement)
helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. Other practices, such as
female genital mutilation in North Africa and dowry murders in India,
may ultimately wither in the glare of the international spotlight.
But the transformative process of globalization is still in its early stages.

While private investment has lifted many into the ranks of the middle class
and sparked a revolution of rising expectations, it has not produced
appreciable benefits for most of the world’s poor. According to the World
Bank, three-quarters of developing-country investment goes to just a dozen
countries, while the poorest countries—which are home to  percent of
the developing world’s population—received just  percent of all private
investment. In those countries, one billion people live on the knife edge of
survival, lacking basic nutrition, sanitation, and health care. Even within
countries experiencing rapid economic growth, gains are often distributed
so unevenly that they do not benefit the majority of people.
Why do the benefits of global trade “trickle down” in some cases, but not
in others? Government policy is key: where governments are committed
to equal opportunity—especially for women—and invest in domestic
social stewardship programs like education and public health, economic
gains are usually more widely distributed. Conversely, the poorest
countries are often saddled with governments that are corrupt and
unresponsive to the needs of their people. This raises thorny questions
for U.S. trade policy and cooperative engagement more generally. Should
the United States attempt to use its economic leverage to promote good
government in the developing countries? If so, how can this be done
without challenging the sovereignty of other nations?
Currently, there is vigorous debate in foreign-policy circles about the

larger purposes of U.S. trade policy. During the Cold War, the U.S.
deployed trade sanctions and rewards in the effort to contain Soviet
Communism. This meant that the interests of individual businesses were
sometimes sacrificed to the larger national interest. For example, during
the grain embargo of the late s, agribusiness sustained major losses,
albeit involuntarily, in order to punish the Soviets for the invasion of
Afghanistan. Today, in the absence of overarching strategic objectives, the
interests of U.S.-based companies are given greater priority. Indeed, U.S.
trade policy now seeks primarily to secure market access in foreign
countries, even those that engage in questionable conduct. Proponents of
this approach, termed “commercial diplomacy,” believe that unfettered
trade alone will promote peace by fostering economic interdependence,
and that growth will help democratize authoritarian states through
improved living standards and contact with open societies.
Most analysts agree that robust trade and investment are essential to
global prosperity and stability. But critics from both sides of the political
spectrum charge that current U.S. trade policy places short-term business
advantage ahead of long-term strategic and moral interests. Others
question whether “commercial diplomacy” will bring about democratiza-
tion. Current conditions in Singapore and China (and the recent
histories of South Korea and Chile) suggest that brisk economic growth
and authoritarianism can coexist. Indeed, Lee Kuan Yew, the former
prime minister of Singapore, has argued that authoritarianism is a
necessary precondition for economic growth. The relationship between
economic growth and the pursuit of broader social goals — such as
human rights and equity—is complex and has generated considerable
debate. The substance and outcome of this debate will have far-reaching
implications for the future of cooperative engagement.
Another debate is raging over the potential impact of standards for global
commerce. Multilateral trade organizations are now working to “level the
playing field” for commerce by articulating international standards for
consumer, labor, and environmental protection. But those standards are
typically less stringent than the laws of the United States and other G-
countries. Furthermore, because trade standards are set by small groups of
officials who are effectively insulated from the democratic process, they
raise many troubling questions. Who sets the standards for global
commerce, and at what level? How can we ensure that those standards are
in accordance with public values as well as private-sector interests? How
can trade organizations become more transparent and accountable?
• • •
National interests are increasingly bound up with international concerns,

and cooperation among nations is necessary to advance human well-being
in an interdependent world. There is no turning back from international
engagement: our nation’s vital interests overseas prohibit a retreat into
isolationism. As a recent report by the Overseas Development Council
concludes:
In the end, the principal issue for U.S. foreign policy is not
whether the United States will be engaged in the world but
the terms of that engagement: whether it will exercise an
effective voice in crafting the rules, norms, and structures that
will govern the evolving system, and whether U.S. policy will
attend to more than the short-term bottom line.
The “terms of engagement” for international affairs will, to a large extent,

determine the prospects for peace, prosperity, and human well-being in
the next century. What might the terms be? What purposes and prin-
ciples should guide international relations? Which combination of
military security, economic growth, and social stewardship will best
advance human well-being in an era of global interdependence? And,
what is our nation’s role in international cooperative engagement? Is it
enough to ensure military security and economic growth, or do our values
and interests compel us to act as social stewards as well?
These questions deserve wide and rigorous public debate, but that debate
is not taking place. Instead, without public input, the United States has
retreated from its long-standing commitment to many institutions of
social stewardship. If cooperative engagement is to serve the public
interest, then international policy choices must be made with meaningful
participation by the American people and with leadership that is in-
formed by an understanding of the practical realities of global interdepen-
dence. And those choices must be guided by moral principles that reflect
our nation’s values as well as its interests.
II THE RETREAT FROM SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP
Containment As a Rationale for Social Stewardship

To understand declining political support for bilateral and multilateral
development agencies, it is helpful to review the history of that support.
In the United States, support for those institutions is a product of the
Cold War years, when containment of Soviet Communism was the
overarching rationale for U.S. foreign policy. During that era, the United
States implemented the Marshall plan, helped create and fund the United
Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund), and launched the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID).
Public support for these institutions did not materialize quickly or

spontaneously. In the early years of the Cold War, President Truman, in
concert with policymakers and other opinion leaders, persuaded Ameri-
cans that Soviet Communism posed a profound threat to national
interests and that social and economic investments overseas would help
contain that threat by diminishing the appeal of Communism in poor
and war-torn nations. Truman and his contemporaries did not shape
policy to match opinion polls. Instead, they crafted a rationale and a
strategy, then showed the public how the policy protected American
interests and values. The emphasis on values — especially democracy and
political freedom — was key. In the words of Columbia University
historian John Ruggie, they succeeded by linking “the pursuit of
American interests to a transformative vision of world order that
appealed to the American public.”
Truman and others saw containment as the central objective of U.S.

foreign policy. Accordingly, military security concerns dominated the
spending and priorities of cooperative engagement with other nations.
The other elements of engagement—economic growth and social
stewardship—were judged important largely because of their relationship
to containment. Humanitarian and economic aid programs were justified
as a means to promote both social stability and market economies in
developing countries.
Despite (or, some would argue, because of ) this emphasis on military

security, the Cold War period saw dramatic gains in social stewardship.
Since the end of World War II, child mortality rates worldwide have
fallen by  percent, helping to raise life expectancy in the developing
countries by  percent. These gains are due, in part, to the efforts of
bilateral and multilateral aid agencies in partnership with developing-
country governments and NGOs, and to strong economic growth.
Bilateral and multilateral aid agencies played an important role in

reducing child mortality rates, and their success illustrates the special
niche these agencies occupy. For example, the United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF) and USAID helped promote a potent method of saving
children’s lives: oral rehydration salts (ORS). ORS, a simple mixture of
water, salt, and sugar, offers an extraordinarily effective means to combat
the dehydration caused by diarrhea. When cholera swept through refugee
camps during the  Bangladesh war of independence,  percent of the
victims treated with ORS survived. But were it not for bilateral and
multilateral aid agencies, this medical advance might not have gained
wide usage. Market mechanisms probably would not have worked:
because its ingredients are inexpensive and widely available, pharmaceuti-
cal companies would have little incentive to market and distribute ORS.
Despite these and many other successes, critics have noted that the Cold
War imperatives of containment sometimes conflicted with social
stewardship objectives. For example, in the process of rewarding allies
with aid, bilateral agencies sometimes overlooked the needy and bolstered
oppressive and/or corrupt regimes. This tarnished their credibility in the
developing world, where many still view these institutions as agents of
foreign “imperialism.” Moreover, these institutions often employed top-
down management methods that undermined local initiative. And,
because their usefulness was measured in strategic terms, these institu-
tions were not always judged by their success (or lack thereof ) in fostering
social stewardship.
In the post-Cold War era, bilateral and multilateral aid agencies are at a
challenging impasse. Freed from the imperatives of containment, they
now have a greater opportunity to promote social stewardship. Accord-
ingly, these agencies have begun slowly to adapt their programs to the
new era by forging new partnerships with citizens’ groups and by empha-
sizing market-based interventions and democratizing reforms.
However, now that they have lost their Cold War rationale, the institu-
tions of social stewardship are losing political support. Containment was
a flawed rationale for promoting stewardship, but it did at least offer a
coherent framework for understanding our interests in the developing
world: during the Cold War, every nation had strategic importance as a
potential ally or enemy. Today, it is more difficult to articulate U.S.
interest in countries such as Mali or Bangladesh. As a result, the institu-
tions of social stewardship have lost their strategic compass — and much
of their political base of support.
Public Opinion and the U.S. Retreat from
International Social Stewardship
If public support for cooperative engagement was an artifact of the Cold
War, what has become of that support since the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Conventional wisdom holds that Americans have little interest in interna-
tional issues and that the end of the Cold War has eroded what little
support existed for cooperation with other nations. For example, a recent
survey of policymakers, journalists, and other opinion leaders found that
most thought the American public prefers isolationism to international
engagement. But careful analysis reveals a great deal of latent support for
engagement — especially to promote social stewardship.
Although few researchers have probed Americans’ understanding of

global interdependence, there are indicators of awareness among the
general public. In a  poll conducted by the Program on International
Policy Attitudes (PIPA), for example,  percent agreed that “the world
economy is so interconnected today that, in the long run, helping Third
World countries to develop is in the economic interest of the U.S.”
However, polls show that Americans have significant misunderstandings

about U.S. programs abroad, which erode support for development
assistance. For example, most think federal spending on international
programs, as a percentage of the federal budget, is many times greater
than it is in fact. Another poll found that  percent of Americans think
the United States spends “too much” on foreign assistance. However,
when asked to guess the amount now spent on aid, the average estimate
was about  percent of the federal budget — although the actual number
is less than one percent. And Americans believe that, compared to other
developed countries, the United States carries a much larger share of the
burden of helping the world’s poor than it actually does.
Americans have real doubts about the motives and methods of current
U.S. programs abroad. Most reject a hegemonic role for the United
States—“Who are we to tell them what to do?” is a common refrain in
focus groups. A high percentage believes that foreign assistance is wasted,
ineffective, and/or fails to reach its intended beneficiaries. In one poll, 
percent agreed that “There is so much waste and corruption in the
process of giving foreign aid that very little actually reaches the people
who need it.”
The perception of ineffectiveness substantially diminishes support for

foreign assistance. In the classic ethical allegory, one must always jump
into the water to save a drowning person — unless one cannot swim.
Americans may care about the “drowning” people overseas, but they
doubt whether foreign aid programs can “swim.”
The news media contribute to the perception of U.S. ineffectiveness
abroad. War, famine, and disaster dominate the scant news coverage of
less-developed countries, while success stories — such as dramatic
improvements in infant and child health —are rarely deemed newswor-
thy. By accentuating the negative, the news media foster an impression
that poor countries are unsalvageable. (Private charitable groups may
unwittingly contribute to this state of affairs, with fund-raising appeals
that present the citizens of less-developed countries as helpless victims.)
Moreover, as arbiters of salience (the degree of importance given to issues
and events) the news media have helped diminish the attention given to
international issues. International news coverage is declining, as many
news organizations are closing their foreign bureaus.
Skepticism about U.S. programs abroad also stems from diminished faith
in the public sector generally. Indeed, confidence in government is at an
all-time low. One recent survey found that only  percent believed that
the federal government can be trusted to do “what is right” most of the
time — down from  percent in . It follows that Americans would
doubt that the U.S. government, which is widely perceived as failing its
own citizens, is capable of solving international or global problems.
However, opinion research shows that the American public does support
cooperative engagement if properly conceived and executed. Polls
consistently show that most Americans want the United States to play an
active role in international affairs, both for moral reasons and because
they believe engagement serves domestic interests. A strong majority of
 percent believes the United States should give some foreign aid, while
just  percent want aid programs eliminated. The United Nations and
other multilateral institutions still enjoy broad support: a  poll by the
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations found that  percent of Ameri-
cans included “support for strengthening the United Nations” as a
“somewhat” or “very” high foreign policy goal of the United States—
the highest level of support for that goal in twenty years.
When concerns about unfairness, corruption, and inefficiency are

addressed, support for cooperative engagement rebounds. Indeed, when
told how much the United States actually spends on foreign assistance,
most favor sustaining or even increasing that amount. Given assurances
that other nations are carrying their fair share, Americans favor U.S.
participation in multilateral efforts to keep the peace, promote economic
development, and provide humanitarian assistance. Most ( percent) say
they would even pay more in taxes for foreign assistance if they could be
sure the aid really went to those in need.
Although the data are far from conclusive, there are indicators that
Americans reject the military-security dominated framework of national
interests in favor of a framework that emphasizes social stewardship. In a
recent poll conducted for the International Women’s Health Coalition,
voters were asked whether they preferred a foreign policy that
“emphasize[s] the security of people around the world, by focusing on
poverty, the environment, health care, education and human rights,” or
one that “emphasize[s] the security of nations around the world, by
focusing on trade, military defense, and nuclear arms control.” Fifty-nine
percent chose the people-centered approach, while just  percent voted
for the nation-centered view. While the distinction between “people”
and “nations” may seem artificial to some, the poll suggests an important
feature of public opinion about cooperative engagement.
Still, public opinion does not readily translate into policy, for a simple
reason: international issues still have low salience for most people.
Although Americans will state their support for social stewardship when
asked, few petition their members of Congress to protest cuts in develop-
ment assistance. Americans generally do not base their votes on interna-
tional concerns, and when asked to rate the nation’s biggest problems,
international issues do not even make the top-ten list.
Leadership: The Key to Raising Salience

As the Marshall Plan illustrates, political leadership is necessary to raise
the salience of international issues and to galvanize public support for
cooperative engagement. Why, then, have today’s leaders failed to
articulate a new vision for U.S. engagement overseas? The most obvious
explanation is that they simply don’t have a vision—perhaps because the
complexities of global interdependence confound attempts to craft a
single, comprehensive strategy. And today’s policymakers are less con-
cerned (and perhaps less informed) about foreign policy issues than at any
time in the last twenty years.
A second explanation is that leaders feel no political pressure to take

action. There is no organized constituency for social stewardship, so
policymakers derive no political benefit from championing it. In fact,
they may incur political costs. For example, legislators who support aid to
family-planning programs in developing countries are targeted for defeat
by anti-abortion groups. In recent years, there has been a marked prolif-
eration of vocal single-issue groups—made possible, in part, by new
technologies that facilitate organizing and communication. Although
many of those organizations (including the anti-abortion groups) do not
represent majority opinion, they are often able to magnify their political
impact through skillful organizing. Policymakers often choose to sidestep
political minefields by avoiding positions that might anger powerful
single-interest groups.
Leaders may also be reluctant to take action because they mistake their
constituents’ frustration with current aid programs as a rejection of
cooperative engagement more generally. Many policymakers are unaware
that their constituents do, in fact, support cooperative engagement. In
part, this is because opponents of engagement are far better organized
than supporters. For example, PIPA conducted a study of four Congres-
sional districts whose representatives had voted to withdraw from the
United Nations and opposed foreign assistance. The members’ staffs
reported a steady stream of calls and letters from constituents who
opposed the United Nations and foreign assistance, which was inter-
preted as representing majority opinion. But a random telephone survey
of those districts found that constituents were broadly in favor of United
Nations support and foreign assistance: only – percent favored
withdrawing from the United Nations, and just – percent wanted to
eliminate foreign assistance. In politics, a vocal minority is often more
powerful than a silent majority.
Policymakers may misread their constituents because there is so little

public discourse on the relationship between national and global con-
cerns. Political campaigns rarely spotlight international issues or turn on
the candidates’ foreign policy views. More importantly, there is no
structured consensus-building process on international engagement.
There are few fora (besides the voting booth) for the general public to
communicate priorities to policymakers; and, as noted above, most
Americans do not base their votes on international issues.
• • •
The Cold War framework for cooperative engagement evolved in a very

different epoch, and that framework has not yet been reconfigured for the
era of global interdependence. As a nation, we lack sufficient capacity—as
measured in leadership, constituency, and institutional effectiveness—to
solve problems and seize opportunities in an interdependent world.
Meanwhile, the challenges increase in magnitude, and faith in collective
problem-solving declines. That loss of faith diminishes political support
for existing institutions of social stewardship. But without political
support, those institutions cannot retool for the new era. In this way,
falling support and limited capacity form a self-perpetuating cycle.
III BUILDING SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP
The cycle of reduced capacity for social stewardship can be broken if a

critical mass of Americans generates the political will to do so. Generat-
ing political will requires both leadership and constituency: leaders
must articulate a compelling vision of our nation’s role in the world,
and an organized constituency representing many sectors of the public
must spur policymakers to action. Generating political will also
requires the institutions of cooperative engagement to retool their
premises, purposes, and methods in order to advance and promote
social stewardship in an era of global interdependence.
Encourage the Leaders to Lead

During the Cold War, leaders persuaded a key segment of the Ameri-
can public that Soviet Communism posed a threat to their common
interests and that cooperative engagement would help keep that threat
at bay. Today’s leaders must make the case for social stewardship in an
interdependent world. Their challenge is more daunting: instead of an
easily demonized “evil empire,” there is a complex web of health,
environmental, and social problems. Instead of the unifying goal of
containment, there are dozens of interrelated objectives—including
expanded democracy, improved public health, environmental
sustainability, more equitable distribution of wealth, and universal
access to primary education. Instead of the challenge of dealing with a
constant threat, there is the very different task of managing rapid
change. And instead of an orderly system of client states, policymakers
confront a fragmented power structure of state and non-state actors.
To build support for social stewardship, leaders must appeal to Ameri-

cans’ interests and values. First, they must demonstrate a compelling
reason to take action, by articulating a sophisticated new model of
national interests. The new model must acknowledge the threats and
opportunities that result from global interdependence, and clarify U.S.
strategic interests.
While it may be difficult to show the strategic importance of a single

developing country, it may be more productive to view those nations as
a bloc. What are the potential benefits of expanding markets through-
out the developing world? And what are the potential dangers if
developing nations remain on the margins of the world economy? “If
we look at conventional strategic and economic interests, there are
probably no more than twenty-five nations that the U.S. should care
about,” says the Reverend J. Bryan Hehir, professor of the practice of
religion in society at Harvard University and counselor to Catholic Relief
Services. “But what if one hundred countries were to remain outside the
global economy? When you consider the cumulative and synergistic
effects of underdevelopment in dozens of countries, it changes the
strategic calculus. And beyond purely strategic interests, there is an
abiding moral responsibility not to allow one hundred countries and their
people to remain marginal in the shaping of the next century.”
The new framework should reflect the importance of social stewardship as

a crucial goal in its own right, not just as an instrument of military security.
At the same time, it might depict the three points of the cooperative
engagement “triangle”—military security, economic growth and trade,
and social stewardship—as interdependent and mutually reinforcing.
This model rests on a solid foundation of empirical evidence. History

shows that even a strong military cannot maintain peace in the absence of
broad-based economic growth and social stewardship. Similarly, human
well-being and prosperity are not secure without protection from military
attack. And economic growth, if unaccompanied by social stewardship
measures that promote equitable development, may exacerbate instability
by widening gaps between rich and poor. This new model of cooperative
engagement shows that social stewardship is integral to security and
prosperity, and therefore firmly establishes both its claim to resources and
its legitimacy as a rationale for economic and even military policy
decisions:
Social
Stewardship
Military Economic
Security Growth
A new framework for international cooperative engagement in which

social stewardship, economic growth, and military security are seen as
mutually reinforcing.
The appeal to Americans’ interests must address means as well as ends.
Leaders must show the public that proposed remedies will work, by
publicizing success stories about effective social stewardship. And they
must provide reassurance that the means employed will be consistent with
mainstream beliefs. Opinion research suggests that Americans prefer
strategies that are non-hegemonic, that involve private as well as public
actors, and that provide demonstrable benefits to people at the grassroots
level.
Second, an effort to build support for social stewardship must speak to

Americans’ “hearts” by crafting messages that resonate with core values.
Public opinion data suggest that support for cooperative engagement will
not emerge from military security concerns alone; Americans want a
foreign policy that represents their values as well as their interests.
Opinion research shows that there are broad areas of agreement about the
values that should guide cooperative engagement, including, for example:
environmental stewardship, democracy and political freedom, equal
opportunity, government accountability, international burden-sharing,
and protection of children.
Organize a Broad-based Constituency

for Social Stewardship
Leadership and constituency are the yin and yang of politics: the public
needs leadership to articulate goals and spearhead policy change; but
leadership cannot (or will not) take action without strong backing from
the public. While encouraging leaders to take action, it is also necessary
to consolidate a powerful constituency for social stewardship among the
American people.
Nongovernmental organizations would be central to any constituency-

building effort. A rapidly proliferating network of NGOs now mediates
the relationship between leaders and the public in many nations, and
affects policy on a wide range of international issues. Multilateral organi-
zations, which are forging international NGO networks, may serve as
vehicles to reach NGOs in the United States and overseas.
NGOs can identify areas of public consensus and spur policymakers to

action. For example, the International Women’s Health Coalition
(IWHC) helped ensure that women’s concerns were reflected at the 
United Nations International Conference on Population and Develop-
ment (ICPD). IWHC began by reaching out to women’s NGOs around
the globe, identifying consensus positions and drafting a substantive
agenda to improve women’s lives. Endorsed by the United States and
several European delegations, IWHC’s message became a cornerstone of
the ICPD document.
In many other cases, U.S. NGOs have helped steer foreign policy. For
example, InterAction’s “Just %” campaign helped inform policymakers
about the true costs and benefits of development assistance, short-circuiting
attempts to use the budget deficit as a rationale to cut foreign aid. In a
related effort, CARE volunteers and staff met with Congressional leaders,
voicing their moral and practical support for foreign assistance.
Yet, while they are growing in number and influence, NGOs have
limited ability to build a broad-based constituency for social steward-
ship. Many lack the capacity to reach and mobilize the general public.
And most are special-interest groups with a mandate to advance a single
issue. It is unclear whether a series of targeted, single-issue campaigns
could add up to more than the sum of its parts: a real constituency for
social stewardship.
An effective constituency-building effort, therefore, must reach beyond

the “usual suspects” of NGO members with a known interest in some
aspect of social stewardship. It is important to enlist the support of those
who are in a position to advance—or obstruct—the social stewardship
agenda. This could be accomplished, for example, by involving commu-
nity opinion leaders in foreign policy debates to a far greater degree. The
effort could begin by encouraging leaders to reach out to pivotal seg-
ments of the general public. These segments might include:
• Women: Polls show a “gender gap” on social stewardship; women are

generally more supportive than men.
• People of faith: Religious Americans give generously to charities that

work overseas, yet represent a largely untapped source of support for U.S.
programs of social stewardship.
• Youth: Young people are more idealistic and more likely to “think
globally” than their elders, but many are unsure whether the United
States can afford cooperative engagement.
• Educators: Educators can bring credibility and legitimacy to a long-term

public education effort.
• Business people: The business community has access to policymakers

and can help develop “rules of the road” that set normative values for the
globalization of economic life. Businesspeople are often concerned about
international issues and have a vested interest in establishing a stable
environment for trade.
• Labor union leadership: Labor leaders have a clear interest in steward-

ship to improve conditions and wages for workers worldwide. And labor
leaders often have a better understanding of economic interdependence
than the general public.
• Media owners and employees: The news media shape people’s experi-
ence of the world. Yet, although they have unparalleled access to Ameri-
cans’ hearts and minds, most reporters and editors have only a superficial
understanding of international issues and the need for social stewardship.
• Foundation staff and trustees: Private foundations provide leadership,
priority-setting, and funding for NGO efforts. Because they often have
more flexibility than public donors, they may have greater capacity for
innovation in crafting approaches to social stewardship.
An effort to build constituency must also work to close the gap between
policymakers and the public. Perhaps as a legacy of the Cold War, foreign
policy decisionmaking is often shielded from the spotlight of public
scrutiny. As a result, U.S. policies of cooperative engagement are not in
tune with the public’s instincts, and a wide gap exists between the
priorities of leaders and the public.
To close the gap, it is necessary to create mechanisms for ongoing

dialogue between policymakers and the public. The values and objectives
that guide cooperative engagement should be refined in a national process
of consensus building. But currently, there is no process under way to
build— or even reveal — that consensus.
It may be possible to jump-start that process by creating regular,

structured opportunities—such as Internet chat groups or town
meetings—for policymakers to listen to the public’s concerns. Another
approach might seek to improve the circulation of information between
policymakers and the public by, for example, educating policymakers
about the nuances of public opinion on cooperative engagement. Yet
another might work to broaden and deepen mainstream media coverage
of international issues, with an emphasis on neglected success stories
about social stewardship efforts.
Retool Mechanisms of Cooperative Engagement

The existing mechanisms of cooperative engagement — multilateral
organizations and bilateral aid agencies — were originally geared to the
exigencies of a different era. These institutions must be retooled to meet
the challenges of global interdependence by assuming new responsibili-
ties, ensuring a greater degree of transparency and accountability, and
crafting new models of engagement.
The realities of global interdependence call for a robust multilateral

system. Some efforts have been made in this area: in recent years, multi-
lateral organizations have been assigned broad new responsibilities to
oversee international agreements on the environment, population growth,
and women’s rights, to name just a few. But the growing power of
multilaterals is viewed with ambivalence by governments, which hand
multilaterals new responsibilities while reining them in with limited
funding and mandates. At the same time, multilaterals lack the author-
ity to enforce international standards of conduct and in some cases are
weakened by inefficient and unresponsive bureaucracies.
Limiting the funding for multilateral organizations will not ensure that
they use their new authority in a responsible way. Instead, it is necessary
to ensure that multilateral organizations are transparent, which guarantees
that their processes and mechanisms can be fully monitored; and account-
able, which means that those institutions are responsive to the needs of
aid recipients and donors alike. It will be no small feat to ensure the
transparency and accountability of international organizations that
employ a diverse range of approaches. Indeed, this will be a central
challenge for cooperative engagement in the next century.
If multilateral institutions are strengthened, do bilateral aid agencies still

have a role to play? At Pocantico, the answer, at least for the United
States, was a qualified yes. It is clear that U.S. development assistance
programs have the accumulated expertise and program infrastructure
(especially in family planning, disease control, and agricultural research)
that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace. And, for a nation
guided by values as well as interests, it is important to maintain an
independent capacity for social stewardship.
But in order to garner broad political support, bilateral development

assistance must also be retooled for the new era. In the absence of Cold
War imperatives, social stewardship should be the exclusive objective of
development assistance programs. To function effectively, development
assistance programs must have a clearer framework of goals and strate-
gies. That framework should fit into the larger design of U.S. foreign
policy and be consistent with the aims of the countries in which
bilateral programs work. By clarifying goals and strategies, these
programs will be able to act proactively, rather than merely respond to
disasters as they arise.
Bilateral development programs could also achieve greater impact by

specializing in social needs that market mechanisms do not address. For
example, while funding for infrastructure development is now more
widely available from private investors, public subsidies are still necessary
to broaden access to education and health care.
For both multilateral and bilateral institutions, new models of engage-

ment could greatly enhance effectiveness. Top-down, hegemonic models
of operation are not suited to the current challenges. Instead, these
institutions must learn to harness broader forces — such as markets and
social trends — to advance social stewardship. And they must learn to
cultivate partnerships with a broad range of actors.
By working directly with NGOs, multilateral and bilateral institutions

can bypass corrupt governments and support locally-designed initiatives.
This model is gaining wide acceptance: NGOs now deliver more official
development assistance than the entire UN system (excluding the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund). However, like multilateral
organizations, NGOs have been given significant new responsibilities that
are not always matched by funding and other support. And NGOs have
limitations of their own. As noted above, many are special-interest groups
with little capacity for large-scale action, and they lack the accountability
of democratically elected governments.
Public-private partnerships are another promising alternative to tradi-

tional aid programs. Unlike government aid, the scope of which is limited
by the size of donor-country budgets, public-private partnerships gain
leverage by shaping the fundamental rules that govern economic life. For
example, an alliance of garment and athletic-shoe manufacturers is
working to develop codes of labor practices for their contractor firms
overseas, with the aim of eliminating sweatshop working conditions.
And a new effort launched by U.S. policymakers and corporations seeks
to prohibit bribery in international trade. But these approaches have
built-in limits as well. For example, it is often difficult to enlist the private
sector in meeting social needs that markets do not value.
To reorient the mechanisms of cooperative engagement, it is important to

recognize that there is no “magic bullet” that will solve the problems or
consolidate the gains of global interdependence. Mechanisms of coopera-
tive engagement—including bilateral and multilateral agencies—must be
nimble, flexible, and creative enough to harness the capacities of a broad
range of actors, including governments, NGOs, corporations, trade
associations, and educational institutions.
Again, leadership is key. Institutions cannot be expected to transform

themselves from within; policymakers and opinion leaders must first
shape a vision of cooperative engagement and devise an appropriate
reform agenda for bilateral and multilateral institutions.
CONCLUSION
For decades, the containment of Soviet Communism served as the guiding

principle of U.S. foreign policy, and military security was the central task
of cooperative engagement. Today, cooperative engagement is increasingly
focused on promoting trade and investment. Both approaches are vitally
important, and their achievements—the end of the Cold War, a global
economy that produces unprecedented wealth—are impressive. But both
are incomplete: human well-being is not reliably produced as a byproduct
of military security or aggregate economic growth.
At the Pocantico meeting, participants agreed on the need for a renewed

emphasis on social stewardship to complement military security and
economic growth. In an interdependent world, they determined, social
stewardship is a crucial component of peace, prosperity, and human
well-being.
Yet today, the U.S. government is retreating from commitment to the

existing mechanisms of social stewardship — bilateral and multilateral
development agencies — and has yet to design new ones. The American
public is not leading the retreat: public support for social stewardship
exists, although in latent form. For that support to become manifest, it is
necessary to achieve a broad consensus about the meaning of national
interests and values in an era of global interdependence and to energize a
constituency for new models of social stewardship. That consensus will
not take shape without the vision and commitment of leadership.
As the twenty-first century nears, it is time to recognize that prosperity

and security are closely connected to human well-being. In a world
where boundaries are porous, where everything — people, ideas, capital,
weapons, and disease — moves easily across national borders, we cannot
afford to turn our backs on the world. Instead, we must strengthen our
ties with the people of other nations and work together to create a world
that invests in the potential of each of its citizens.
NOTES
 Of course, there is considerable overlap among the three areas of cooperative

engagement, both in objectives and outcome. But for the purposes of this paper
“cooperative engagement to promote social stewardship” refers only to instru-
ments with an explicit mandate to promote health, equity, and human potential.
 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Valerie Percival, Environmental Scarcity and Violent
Conflict: Briefing Book (Washington, D.C.: American Association for the
Advancement of Science, ).
 Caroline Wheal, “Family Life and Health in Costa Rica,” Calypso Log (August
).
  World Population Data Sheet (Washington, D.C.: Population Reference
Bureau, ); and Jon Mitchell, “Costa Rica Graduates from U.S. Foreign Aid,”
Christian Science Monitor (August , ).
 National Defense Budget Estimates for FY (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Defense, ) Figures are given in constant  dollars, using Department
of Defense “deflators.”
 But cuts are threatened in other nations as well. For example, the Japanese
government recently announced a plan to reduce contributions to international
organizations by  to  percent, in order to effect a  percent reduction in
development assistance in fiscal .
 The Role of Foreign Aid in Development (Washington, D.C.: The Congress of
the United States, Congressional Budget Office, ).
 The Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development defines “official development assistance” as grants
or loans that one government or multilateral organization gives to a developing
country to promote economic development and welfare. ODA also includes
technical cooperation assistance, for example, in agriculture and development.
 “Financial Flows to Developing Countries in : Sharp Decline in Official Aid;
Private Flows Rise,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) News Release (June , ).
 Lending Credibility: New Mandates and Partnerships for the World Bank
(Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund, ).
 Letter from David F. Gordon, Director of U.S. Policy Programs, Overseas
Development Council, to Mark Malloch Brown, Vice-President, External Affairs,
The World Bank, September , .
 Comments made at Core Group/Experts Group Meeting sponsored by the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund “Project on World Security” and the Aspen Institute
“Global Stewardship Initiative,” Aspen, Colorado, August -, .
 Barry M. Blechman, William J. Durch, David F. Gordon, and Catherine Gwin,
The Partnership Imperative: Maintaining American Leadership in a New Era
(Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center and Overseas Development
Council, ).
 World Bank and International Monetary Fund data, cited in Lester Brown,
Christopher Flavin, and Hal Kane, Vital Signs : The Trends That Are Shaping
Our Future (New York: W.W. Norton, ).
 Human Development Report  (New York: United Nations Development
Program, ).
 Of course, globalization and interdependence are not new phenomena; interna-
tional markets have been a feature of economic life for centuries, if not millennia.
What is new is the extent, and sometimes instantaneous impact, of globalization.
Today, few communities remain fully outside the global web of commerce and
communication, and trends and impacts resonate rapidly throughout the world.
 Jeffrey Goldberg, “Their Africa Problem—And Ours,” The New York Times
Magazine (March , ).
 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Greenhouse Effect,” Slide presenta-
tion, Internet: http://www.epa.gov/global warming/sub/gh_slide/.htm
 U.S. Commerce Department, “Preliminary Data Release: U.S. Jobs Supported
by Exports of Goods and Services” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commerce
Department, ).
 Dani Rodrik, “Sense and Nonsense in the Globalization Debate,” Foreign Policy
(Summer ).
 Dale Belman and Thea M. Lee, “International Trade and the Performance of U.S.
Labor Markets,” in U.S. Trade Policy and Global Growth: New Directions in the
International Economy, ed. Robert A. Blecker (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, ).
 Global Development Finance  (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, );
Human Development Report  (New York: United Nations Development
Programme, ); Blechman, et al., The Partnership Imperative.
 Global Development Finance .
 Human Development Report  (New York: United Nations Development
Programme, ).
 See, for example, Lawrence F. Kaplan, “The Selling of American Foreign Policy,”
The Weekly Standard (April , ); and Amartya Sen, “Human Rights and
Asian Values,” The New Republic (July -, ).
 Blechman et al., The Partnership Imperative.
 John Gerard Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue? Interests, Identity and American
Foreign Policy,” International Security (Spring ).
 The State of the World’s Children  (New York: UNICEF, ); and Carl Haub
and Martha Farnsworth Riche, “Population by the Numbers: Trends in Popula-
tion Growth and Structure,” in Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population,
Consumption and the Environment, ed. Laurie Ann Mazur (Washington, D.C.:
Island Press, ).
 The State of the World’s Children.
 Steven Kull and I.M. Destler, The Foreign Policy Gap: How Policymakers Misread
the Public (College Park, Maryland: Center for International and Security Studies
of Maryland, ).
 Steven Kull, “What the Public Knows that Washington Doesn’t,” Foreign Policy,
no.  (Winter -).
 Steven Kull and I.M. Destler, An Emerging Consensus: A Study of American Public
Attitudes on America’s Role in the World (Maryland: Center for International and
Security Studies at Maryland, Program on International Policy Attitudes, ).
 Steven Kull, Americans and Foreign Aid: A Study of American Public Attitudes
(Washington, D.C.: PIPA, ).
 Anne Winter, Is Anyone Listening? Communicating Development in Donor
Countries (Geneva: United Nations Nongovernmental Liaison Service, ).
 Garrick Utley, “The Shrinking of Foreign News: From Broadcast to Narrowcast,”
Foreign Affairs (March/April ).
 Why Don’t Americans Trust the Government? The Washington Post/Kaiser Family
Foundation/Harvard University Survey Project (Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation, ).
 Kull, Americans and Foreign Aid.
 John Reilly, American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy  (Chicago:
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, ).
 Kull and Destler, An Emerging Consensus; National Issues Forums Institute,
Mission Uncertain: Reassessing America’s Global Role (New Jersey: John Doble
Research Associates, ).
 Lake Sosin Snell & Associates, “A Women’s Lens on Foreign Policy,”
(Washington, D.C.: International Women’s Health Coalition, ).
 Reilly, American Public Opinion.
 Ibid.
 Kull and Destler, The Foreign Policy Gap.
 Examples from history include: Somoza’s Nicaragua, Mobutu’s Zaire, South
Africa under apartheid, and current-day Israel.
 See, for example, Enhancing U.S. Security Through Foreign Aid (Washington,
D.C.: Congressional Budget Office, ). This study found “a fairly striking
correlation between economic malaise on the one hand and domestic unrest and
political instability on the other.”
 Jessica Mathews, “The Age of Nonstate Actors,” Foreign Affairs
(January/February ).
 Ibid.
 Robert A. Senser, “To End Sweatshops: Workers’ Rights in a Global Economy,”
Commonweal (July , ).

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G LO B A L I N T E R D E P E N D E N C E

PAPER NO. 1 AND THE NEED FOR

Laurie Ann Mazur & Susan E. Sechler

Copyright © , Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.

13 I: THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE

19 II: THE RETRE AT FROM SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP

25 III: BUILDING SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL STEWARDSHIP

On October –, , at the Pocantico Conference Center of the

The U.S. retreat from international cooperative engagement has been

In a lively and open discussion, participants reviewed what is known,

This meeting cannot be said to have produced a consensus, either on how

In its effort to articulate the importance of social stewardship and locate

Mark Malloch Brown

In a world made smaller by global commerce and communication,

“Cooperative engagement,” in this context, refers to the complex of

The term “social stewardship” is, admittedly, an awkward one. In public

Social stewardship is increasingly recognized as a component of na-

Social stewardship is also valued as a building block of economic growth.

And social stewardship has a moral value that cannot be quantified.

Still, the strategic, economic, and moral importance of social stewardship

Bilateral development assistance (more commonly known as “foreign

Political and budgetary constraints combine to limit U.S. support for

We live in an era of stark contrasts. The global economy produces wealth

Interdependence Calls for International Problem-Solving

Interdependence also means that what appear to be local problems can

In an interdependent world, environmental degradation, disease, terror-

For Americans, prosperity and quality of life are increasingly entwined

But strengthened economic ties with developing nations impel us to

And the practical implications of trade with developing countries may

Interdependence Presents Opportunities

The cross-pollination of cultures can also bring an end to age-old

But the transformative process of globalization is still in its early stages.

Currently, there is vigorous debate in foreign-policy circles about the

National interests are increasingly bound up with international concerns,

The “terms of engagement” for international affairs will, to a large extent,

Containment As a Rationale for Social Stewardship

Public support for these institutions did not materialize quickly or

Truman and others saw containment as the central objective of U.S.

Despite (or, some would argue, because of ) this emphasis on military

Bilateral and multilateral aid agencies played an important role in

Although few researchers have probed Americans’ understanding of

However, polls show that Americans have significant misunderstandings

The perception of ineffectiveness substantially diminishes support for

When concerns about unfairness, corruption, and inefficiency are

Leadership: The Key to Raising Salience

A second explanation is that leaders feel no political pressure to take

Policymakers may misread their constituents because there is so little

The Cold War framework for cooperative engagement evolved in a very

The cycle of reduced capacity for social stewardship can be broken if a

Encourage the Leaders to Lead

To build support for social stewardship, leaders must appeal to Ameri-

While it may be difficult to show the strategic importance of a single

The new framework should reflect the importance of social stewardship as

This model rests on a solid foundation of empirical evidence. History

A new framework for international cooperative engagement in which

Second, an effort to build support for social stewardship must speak to

Organize a Broad-based Constituency

Nongovernmental organizations would be central to any constituency-

NGOs can identify areas of public consensus and spur policymakers to

An effective constituency-building effort, therefore, must reach beyond