Slaughter spoke on the existence of what she called "global networks" of professionals who meet regularly and engage in a cross-fertilization of ideas and experiences in fields such as legislation, jurisprudence, economics and ecology. "[Traditionally,] when we talk about international relations, we talk about states interacting with one another. It's a fiction," said Slaughter.
According to Slaughter, the reality is that the international relationships among state officials are much less formal. "We've never paid attention to this because we use a set of lenses that makes the informality and omnipresence of international relationships disappear," said Slaughter.
"The minute you drop it, you [can] think of states as disaggregated government branches," she added. She said there is less reliance in present day on international institutions and more reliance on informal global networks of professionals.
Slaughter used the U.S. government's policies following the Sept. 11 attacks to illustrate her point. She said that the Bush administration created ad hoc coalitions of countries that coordinated the war against terrorism on financial, legal, intelligence and military fronts.
This cooperation among networks of multinational officials improved the effectiveness of anti-terrorist efforts. Seizure of terrorists' funds, for example, would not have been possible without a global exchange of information. "This is a case where network threat was met with a network response," said Slaughter.
According to Slaughter, international relations has taken on an important role in many professional fields as well. In banking, for example, the Financial Stability Forum is an international body devoted to coordinating the laws of different countries.
According to Slaughter, financial regulators have been dubbed the "new diplomats." Quasi-official global organizations set up regulations and accepted practice standards in banking, financial crime enforcement, antitrust issues and bankruptcy. This coordination serves to better "insure global economic stability [and] build capacity to regulate an entire economy," said Slaughter.
Perhaps one of the most important fields in which global networking occurs is jurisprudence, according to Slaughter. Judges from around the world meet to discuss legal problems.
In fact, current standards for good jurisprudence have almost come to require the inclusion of foreign legal thought and experience. "Judges [today] speak in a different language," said Slaughter. "They see the world as working together and cooperating."
"Legislators are also networking but are lagging behind," said Slaughter. Public representatives may worry that constituents will not respond well to the influence of foreign rationale in their lawmaking. Moreover, Slaughter pointed out, the relatively frequent turnover of the profession makes it hard to develop working relationships among legislators from around the world.
According to Slaughter, the effects of this new world order are complex. "We need governments to cooperate on a regional scale but don't want a global government set up," she said.
One possible solution is establishing "policy networks" that do not hold definitive legislative power over several sovereign nations but do have the power to agree on general global standards.
Another problem she sees with the new world order is that it could prove impossible to hold the networks accountable for their influence on national laws and policies. "I call this the government trilemma. We want global cooperation but worry about [over]centralization and about a solution in which no one is accountable," said Slaughter.
She said that the European Union, where national sovereignty remains intact, is more of a model global consortium than the U.S., where states forfeit their sovereignty to the national government.
Slaughter hypothesized that one danger of these government networks is that they can circumvent the United Nations and become a club of developed countries. For example, Slaughter noted, the Security Capital Corp. will only help other countries organize their economies if they adopt its policies.
Professor of Economics Beth Yarbrough, who has previously worked with Slaughter, commented on her lecture. "[Her] first lecture provided a fresh lens through which to view trends in international governance," she said. "She's made major contributions to our understanding of international institutions ... as well as to our understanding of global governance and international legal-jurisdiction issues, including those related to the war on terrorism."