A Powerless State?
&b[>/ 1 LyvL*r.-(* \ I 1 I . ' " 1 'u-l U " - " " I '
242 The End of Patriarchalism
prime-time television), and to the spread of sens
society through the back alleys of wild desire, that i
Liberation from the family confronts the'self wi
oppression. The escape to freedom in the open,
will lead to individual anxiety and social violence,
coexistence and shared responsibility are found that bring together
women, men, and children in a reconstructed, egalitarian family
better suited to free women, informed children, and uncertain men.
The End of ~atriarchalism?
The continuing struggles in and around patriarchalism do not all
a clear forecasting of the historical horizon. Let me again repeat t is specific to the capitalist state," wrote Nicos Poulantzas in
there is no predetermined directionality in history. We are ,"is that it absorbs so~cialtime and space, sets up the matrices of
marching through the triumphant avenues of our liberation, e and space, and monc~polizesthe organization of time and space
when we feel so, we had better watch out to see where these shi come, by the action of the state, networks of domination and
paths ultimately lead. Life muddles through life and, as we kn This is how the modern nation is the product of the state."'
full of surprises. A fundamentalist restoration, bringing p ny longer. State control over space and time is increasingly
chalism back under the protection of divine law, sed by global flows of capital, goods, services, technology,
process of the undermining of the patriarch+ nication, and information. The state's capture of historical
induced by informational capitalism, and willingly purs ough its appropriation of tradition and the (re)construction
cultural social movements. The homophobic backlash may u ational identity iS'challenged by plural identities as defined by
recognition of homosexual rights, as shown by the overwhelm ous subjects. The state's attempt to reassert its power in the
by the US CongressinJuly 1996to declare heterosexuality a na by developing supranational institutions further under-
for legal marriage. And, around the world, patriarchalism is ines its sovereignty. And the state's effort to restore legitimacy by
and well, in spite of the symptomsof crisis that I have tried zing administrative power to regional and local levels re-
size in this chapter. However, the very vehemence of the r ces centrifugal tendencies by bringing citizens closer to
defense of patriarchalism, as in the religious fundament nment but increasing their aloofness toward the nation-state.
ments thriving in many countries, is a sign of the inte le global capitalism thrives, and nationalist ideologies
anti-patriarchal challenges. Values that were supposed t 1over the world, the nation-state, as historically created in
natural, indeed divine, must now be asserted by e Modem Age, seems to be losing its power, although, and this is
retrenching in their last defensive bastion, and losing sential,not its i n f ~ e n c e . ~In this chapter I shallexplain why, and elab-
people's minds. the potential consequences of this fundamental
The ability or inability of feminist and sexual i velopment. I shall use illustrations of nation-states in various
ments to institutionalize their values will essentially de untries to emphasize that we are observing a systemic, global
relationship to the state, the last resort apparatus of on, albeit with a great variety of manifestations. Indeed,
throughout history. However, the extraordinary de growing challenge to states' sovereignty around the world seems
upon the state by social movements, attacking insti riginate from the inabilityof the modern nation-state to navigate
nation at their root, emerge at the very momentwhe
to be itself in the midst of a structural crisis, br ulantzas (1978:109);my translation.
contradiction between the globalization of its future ly (1975);Giddens (198'5);Held (1991,1993);Sklair (1991);Camilleriand
cation of its past. 1992);Guehenno (1993);I-Iorsman and Marshall (1994);Touraine(1994);- .- -- -.
Určeno pouze pro studijní účely
244 A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
uncharted, stormy waters between the p The transnational core of national economies
the challenge of singular id en ti tie^.^
ndence of financial markets and currency markets
Id, operating as a unit in real time, links up national
Globalizationand the State constant exchange between dollars, yens, and the
's currencies (euros in the future) forces systemic
The instrumental capacity of the nati een these currencies, as the only measure able to
mined by globalizationof core economi of stability in the currency market, and thus in
media and electroniccommunication, d trade. All other currencies in the world have
1practical purposes, to this triangle of wealth. If
systemically interdependent, so are, or will be,
The analysis of the crisis of the nation-st d ifmonetarypoliciesare somehowharmonized
el, so are, or will be, prime interest rates, and,
policies. It follows that individual nation-states
e control over fundamental elements of their
fact, this was already the experience of devel-
1980s, and of European countries during the
s has shown how economic policies in
writes, "only in modern nation-states can the state apparatus general ere shaped during the 1980s by international
successfulclaim to the monopoly of the means ofviolence,and onlyin such
does the administrativescopeof the sta
nal financial institutions and private banks
torial boundaries about which that cl oping economies as a prerequisite to inter-
d trade.6 In the European Union, the
he defacto European Central Bank. For
control German inflation after the govern-
contained themselves? on to set the exchangerate of one Western
to unify Germany, the Bundesbank tight-
by historical transformation.
For a definition and an analysis
rced a deflation throughout Europe,
1, chapter 2. For a salutary critiqu nce of national economies. In 1992 the
and Thompson (1996).It has be
phenomenon, and has occurred rce the devaluation of the pound, as
the expansion of capitalism at
although I am not convinced icy is essentially determined by the
technology does not introdu tionship between trade balance and exchange rate with the
ted States.As for the United States, the most self-sufficientecon-
n spite of a substantial trade deficit
cing increased government spending
benefit from comparative hi
action between technology
politics, and politicali why the present isjust a repetition of past experience, beyond the rather
I am hopeful that such an e
fewattemptsI haveseen in
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246 A Powerless State? I4 Powerless State? 247
through borrowing, to a large extent from foreign capital. So largest market economies (US,Japan, Germany); the most open of
doing, the main issue in American economic policy in the 1990s the large European economies (theUK); another European country,
became the reduction of a gigantic budget deficit which threatened Spain, which, while being the eighth largest market economy in the
to become the black hole of the economy. America's economic inde- world, is at a lower levell of economic/technological development
pendence was an illusion, likely to dissipate in the future when living than G7 countries; and one major economy of the newly industrial-
standards will reflect competitiveness in the global economy, once ized world, India. On the basis of statistics compiled and elaborated
the cushion of massive government borrowing, which became out of by Sandra Moog, tables 5.1 and 5.2 have been constructed to provide
control under the Reagan Administration, is lifted.' It can be argued an overview of some indicatorsof government finance and economic
that the degree of freedom of governments' economic policy has activity, related to the prolcess of internationalization of economies. I
been drastically reduced in the 1990s, with their budget policy will not comment in detail. Rather, I will use these tables to expand
caught between automatic entitlements inherited from the past, and and specify the argument on globalization and the state as presented
high capital mobility experienced in the' present, and probably in the preceding pages.
increasing in the f u t ~ r e . ~ Let us firstexamine the group offour countries (US,UI(, Germany, .
This increasing difficultyof government control over the economy and Spain) that seem to behave, in very broad terms, along similar
(that some economists eagerly welcome) is accentuated by the lines, albeit with differences that I shall emphasize. Government
growingtransnationalization of production, notjust under the impact expenditureshave increased, and nowrepresent between one-quarter
of multinational corporations, but mainly through the production and over 40 percent of GDP. Governmentjobs have decreased every-
and trade networks in which these corporations are integ~-ated.~.It where. The share of goveirnment consumption has decreased in the
follows a declining capacity of governments to ensure, in their terri- three major countries,while increasing in Spain.The share of govern-
tories, the productive basisfor generating revenue. As companies and ment capital formation has increased in the US and declined in
wealthy individuals alike find fiscal havens around the world, and as Germany. Centralgovernment's tax revenue has decreased in the US,
accounting of value added in an international production system while increasing in the other countries, substantially in Spain.
becomes increasingly cumbersome, a new fiscal crisis of the state Government deficithas increased, and substantiallyso in the US and
arises, as the expression of'an increasing contradiction between the Germany. Government debt has decreased in the UK, although it still
internationalization of investment, production, and consumption, on represents about 34 percent of GDP, and has dramaticallyincreased
the one hand, and the national basis of taxation systems, on the in Spain, Germany, and in the US, where in 1992it represented 52.2
other.'' Isit an accident that the twowealthiest countriesin theworld, percent of GDP.Thefinanlcingof government deficitshasled thefour
in per capita terms, are Luxembourg and Switzerland?It may well be countries to increase, in some cases substantially, dependency on
that one of the last stands of the nation-state is being fought in cyber- foreign debt and foreign net lending. The ratios of government
accounting space, between dutiful tax inspectors and sophisticated foreign debt and government net borrowing on GDP, central banks'
transnational lawyers. currency reserves, government expenditures, and countries' exports
show,in general terms, an increasing dependence of governments on global
A statistical appraisal of the new fiscal crisis of the state in capital markets. Thus, for the United States, between 1980 and 1993,
the global economy government foreign debt as a percentage of GDPmor$than doubled;
as a percentage of currency reserves, it increased by 20 percent and,
At this point in the analysis,it may be helpful to look at the evolution in 1993, represented almost ten times the level of total currency
of government finances in the period of stepped-up globalization of reserves; as a percentage of exports, it increased by 133percent; and
national economies between 1980 and the early 1990s. To limit the as a percentage of governiment expenditures, it almost doubled, to
complexity of the analysis, I have selected six countries: the three reach a level of 41.7 percent of total expenditures. As for the US
government's net foreign borrowing, it increased in these 14years by
a staggering456percent, increasing by 203percent itsratio to govern-
' Thurow (1992);Cohen (1993).
Vhesnais (1994);Nunnenkamp et al. (1994).
ment expenditure, to reach a level equivalent to 6 percent of
"uckley (1994).
government expenditure. SinceUS directforeign investmentabroad,
lo Guehenno (1993). as a proportion of domestic investment, increased by 52.8 percent,
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Table 5.1 Internationalization of the economy and public finance: rates of change, 1980-93 (and 1993 ratios, unless
otherwise indicated)
United United
States Kingdom Germany Japan Spain India
Gov. foreign 104.2 31.8 538.5 (p) 0.0 1,066.7 -25.3
debtlGDP % (9.8) (5.811992) (16.6) (P) (0.311990) (10.5) (5.9)
Gov. foreign debt/ 20.1 44.7 325.3 (p) 9.9 674.5 -1 6.5
currency reserves % (998.6) (168.111992) (368.4) (p) (12.211990) (121.6) (149.4)
Gov. foreign 133.0 50.5 590.8 (p) 9.5 795.5 -55.6
debtlexports % (134.0) (32.211992) (75.3) (P) (2.3/1990) (79.7) (70.7)
Gov. foreign debt/ 92.2 17.5 423.5 (p)
- 586.8 -40.7
gov. expenditures % (41.7) (13.511992) (44.5) (P) (36.4) (35.4)
Gov. net foreign 203.0 787.5 223.4 (p) - - 10.3
borrowing/gov. (6.12) (14.211992) (15.2) (PI (4.3)
expenditures %
Direct foreign 52.8 44.4 52.2 57.1 183.3
-
investment abroad1 (5.5) (17.9) (3.5) (1.1) (2.8)
domestic investment %
Inflow of direct -35.5 -8.9 -50.0
- 236.7 -
foreign investment/ (2.0) (10.2) (0.1) (8.6)
domestic investment %
(p) indicates preliminary data.
Note: For figures and details about sources and methods of calculation, please see the Methodological Appendix.
Sources: Compiled and elaborated by Sandra Moog from the following sources: GovernmentFinance Statistics Yearbook, vol. 18
(Washington DC: IMF, 1994); InternationalFinancialStatistics Yearbook, vol. 48 (Washington DC: IMF, 1995); The Europa World Yearbook
(London: Europa Publications, 1982, 1985, 1995); NationalAccounts: Detailed Tables, ,7980-7992, vol. 2 (Paris: OECD, 1994); OECD Economic
Outlook, vol. 58 (Paris: OECD, 1995); World Tables, 7994 (TheWorld Bank, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)
Table 5.2 Government role in the economy and public finance: rates of change, 1980-92 (and 1992 ratios, unless
otherwise indicated)
United United
States Kingdom Germany Japan Spain India
Gov. expenditures1 9.1 13.1 19.7 -
GDP %
49.4
(24.0)
29.3 (p)
(43.2) (34.6) (25.1) (17.2) (p)
Budgetary central -15.6 8.0 1i.S ip) 18.2 64.2
gov. tax revenuelGDP % (10.8)
17.3 (p)
(27.0) (13.5) (p) (13.011990) (17.411991) (11.2) (p)
Gov. budget 42.9 8.7 44.4 -78.6 16.2
deficit/GDP % (4.8) (5.0)
20.0 (P)
(2.6) (1.511990) (4.3) (5.2) (p)
Gov. debtlGDP % 91.9 -26.0 78.1 30.1 160.8
(52.2)
28.2 (p)
(34.1) (28.5) (53.211990) (39.9) (52.8) (p)
Gov. employment/ -4.7 -3.1 -0.6 -20.9 - -
total employment % (16.2) (22.2) (16.4) (7.2)
Gov. capital 21.2 - -7.0 - - -
formation/gross fixed (16.0) (27.9)
capital formation %
Gov. consumption1 -6.9 -2.7 -8.1 66.3 33.8
private consumption % (27.2)
40.2 (PI
(34.5) (32.7) (16.3) (26.9) (19.0) (p)
(P) indicates ~reliminarvdata., -
Note: For figures and details about sources and methods of calculation, please see the Methodological Appendix.
Sources: Compiled and elaborated by Sandra Moog from the following sources: GovernmentFinance Statistics Yearbook, vol. 18
(Washington DC: IMF, 1994); InternationalFinancialStatistics Yearbook, vol. 48 (WashingtonDC: IMF, 1995); The Europa World Yearbook
(London: Europa Publications, 1982, 1985, 1995); NationalAccounts: Detailed Tables, 7980-7992, vol. 2 (Paris: OECD, 1994);OECD Economic
Outlook, vol. 58 (Paris: OECD, 1995); World Tables, 7994(TheWorld Bank, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)
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A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
3°F
B
while inflow of direct foreign investment, also as a proportion of US ,-*
domestic investment, decreased by 35.5percent, it can be argued that ,$#
Belgium
the US federal government has become largely dependent on global
capital markets and foreign lending.
The story is somewhat different for the UK, Germany, and Spain,- ----
Greece
Canada
but trends are similar. It is important to notice that, while the UK <g$jseemsto be less dependent, Germanyisincreasing its dependency on ,b$
foreign capital much faster than the US, as shown by several indica- ;
tors: government foreign debt over GDP (538.5 percent increase), ,j
over currency reserves (325.3 percent increase), and over exports i
(590.8 percent increase). The German government's net foreign
"
borrowing in 1993 reached a level representing over 15 percent of- - . - . . -
Ireland
Japan
Sweden
United States
Germany
France
government expenditure,anditsforeign debt isthe equivalent or 44.9
percent of government expenditure, in both cases a higher
percentage than those for the US. Thus, in spite of a strong export
performance in the 1980s,Germany, unlike Japan, has substantially
Yj:
4 Britain
1985 1995 est.increased the international dependence of its national state.
Interestingly enough, India, while increasing government expen-. .
Figure5.1 General government gross financial liabilities (%of GDP)
Source: OECD, elaborated by The Economist (January20, 1996)
Sf,
- 1
@
diture, consumption, and indebtedness, seems to be much less ,
dependent on foreign debt: indeed, all its indicators of financial
dependency shownegative growth for the period, with the exception
of the ratio of government foreign borrowing on government expen-
@? So,what appears to be an exception to the rule of government depen-
dency, and increasing government deficit, is not. Japanese
corporations take on the world economy, and their competitiveness
finances the state,whose consumption has grown much faster than in
any other of the countries studied. The Japanese state displays a
second-order financial dependency on the movements of the inter-
national economy,l a its borrowing fi-omJapanese banks flourishing
g, along with their keiretsu.
.VZ; Three major trends can be underlined with regard to the argu-
ments presented in this chapter:
diture, still kept at a modest level. A sizeableincrease in the share of :$
tax revenue in GDP is only part of the explanation, the main one ;
being the substantial acceleration of economic growth in India in the
past decade. I should emphasize, however, that while the rate of :\
change of indicators of the government's financial dependency in 12- - -
India has been negative over the period, the level ot dependency ;j
remains very high (government foreign debt represents over 70 {. -
percent of exports, and almost 150percent of currency reserves).
As is often the case,Japan is different. TheJapanese governmen
during the period 1980-93. On the other hand, governmen
consumption increased, government debt also increased, andJapan
is as high asAmerica in the ratio of government debt to GDP (over50
percent).These observationsindicate that theJapanese government's
finances rely, rather, on domestic borrowing. This also reflects th
greater competitiveness of theJapanese economy, and the conside
able trade and balance of payments surplus accumulated by the
lm its compeuuvene
was not affected by foreign borrowing during the 1980s. Its budget 22
deficit over GDP is by far the lowest, and it substantially declined :$
1 In spite of a certain state's disengagement in the economy, partic-
ularly in terms of direct employment, and regulation, there is still
. a substantial economic role for the state that requires additional
financing besides taxation, thus increasing the financial liability of
the state,with the exception of the UK (see figure 5.1).
2 Governments' borrowing, with the major exception of Japan, is
increasingly dependent on foreign lending, to an extent that
already overwhelms central banks' currency reserves, and over-
t shadows export performance. This reflects the broader
phenomenon of an increasing gap between the faster growth of
;'r global financial markets in relation to the growth of global trade.
country. So, theJapanese state is much more autonomous than other
states vis & visthe rest of the world but theJapanese economy is much
more dependent on trade performance, since Japanese. .capital;
finances its government with the proceeds frc
'
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A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
in industrialized countries." This is because it becomes increasingly
West Germany
contradictory for firms to operate in globalized, integrated markets,
Switzerland while experiencing major cost differentials in social benefits, as well
Belgium - as distinct levels of regulation between countries. This happens not
Austria only between Nor& and South, but between different OECD coun-
tries, aswell: for example, socialbenefits-related labor costs are muchJapan
lower in the US than in Germany (see figure 5.2). But what is a
Holland comparative advantage of US location vis 6 vis Germany becomes a
France disadvantagevisa visMexico, after the implementation of the NAFTA
United States Treaty. Since firms,because of information technology, can locate in
Italy any different sites and still link up to global production networks
and markets (see volume I, chapter 6)., there follows a downward
Britain spiral of socialcostscompetition. Thelimits to such "negativecompet-
itiveness" in the past have been twofold: on the one hand, the
oductivity and quality lag between countries protected workers
Non-wage costs Directwages advanced economies vis a visless-developed competitors; on the
other hand, domestic pressure induced protectionism, so as to
Figure5.2 Labor costs in manufacturing, 1994 ($ Per hour)
'
increase the price of imports, via tariffs, to a level where the compar-
source: Swedish Employers' Federation,elaborated by The /30nomist ; ative advantage of external sourcingwould disappear. Both limits are
(January 27,1996) withering away. The new World Trade Organization is setting up a
watch dog system to detect and penalize barriers to free trade. While
the politics of international trade condition the actual impact of such
controls, it would seem that, unless there is a dramatic reversal in the
, process of global~economicintegration, blatant, large-scale protec-
3 The Japanese state has succeeded in establishing a r~~easureof -2 nism will become increasingly subject to retaliation from other
fiscal autonomy vis a vis foreign capital. However, it has done so countries. As for the quality and productivity lag, Harley Shaiken's
on the basis of domestic borrowing, financedwithJapanese CorPo- '
study of American automobile factories in Mexico has shown the
rations' earnings from protectionism and export performance; so rapid catch-up of Mexican workers' productivitywhich equalled that
that theJapanese economy, and theJapanese state, have bmome ofAmerican workersin about 18months. Similarprocesseshave been
addicted to trade surplusesandrecycling ofprofib inJapanese soil- erved in Asia.l%d (Europeans should be reminded) American
This state of affairsled to theJapanese "bubble economy" of the , labor productivity is still the highest in the world, so canceling a
late 1980s, and, subsequently, when the bubble burst, to the re- ' : potential European competitivenessdifferential that could still allow
cession of the early 1990s. I for a generous welfare state. In an economy whose core markets for
2 capital, goods, and services are increasingly integrated on a global
Overall, the intertwining of national economies, and the depen- : ;1 scale, there is little room for vastly different welfare states, with rela-
dency of government finance on global markets and foreign lending, "+ similarlevelsof labor productivityand production quality. Only
have created the conditions for an international fiscal crisis of a1social contract (reducing the gap, without necessarilyequal-
social and working conditions), linked to international tariff
agreements, could avoid the demise of the most generous welfare
Globalization and the welfare state , states.Yet, because in the new liberalized,networked, globaleconomy
he such a far-reaching social contract is unlikely, welfare states are being
The globalization of production and investment also threatens th
warestate,a key elementin the policies of the nation-state in the pa Wilensky (1975);Janowitz (1976);Navarro (1994, 1995);Castells (1996).
half-century, and probably the main building block of its legitima Shaiken (1990);Rodgers (1994).
Určeno pouze pro studijní účely
254 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 255
downsized to the lowest common denominator that keeps spiraling for interactive multimedia, and the inability to control satellites
downwards.13So doing, a fundamental component of the legitimacy beaming across bordlers or computer-mediated communication over
and stability of the nation-state fades away, not only in Europe but the 'phone line, blew up the traditional lines of regulatory defense.
throughout the world, from middle-class welfare states in Chile or 1 The explosion of telecommunications, and the development of cable,
Mexico to the remnants of statist welfare states in Russia, China, or ,? provided the vehicles for unprecedented broadcasting power.
India, or to the urban welfare state induced in the United States by Business saw the trend and seized the opportunity. Mega-mergers
the social struggles of the 1960s. ook place, and capital was mobilized around the world to take posi-
Therefore, the nation-state is increasinglypowerless in controlling
' tion in the media industry, an industry that could linkup power in the
monetary policy, deciding its budget, organizing production and economic, cultural, and political spheres.lsPressure was brought to
trade, collecting its corporate taxes, and fulfillingits commitments to bear on national governments during the 1980s under various
provide socialbenefits. In sum, it has lostmost of its economic power,
I
forms:19 public, or published, opinion, yearning for freedom and
albeit it still has some regulatory capacity and relative control over its diversity in the media; buy-outs of national media in difficulty; syndi-
subjects. cation of columnists to write the apology of unfettered
communication; promises of politicalcomplacency,if not support, to
Global communication networks, local audiences, uncertain ' almosteveryone in power or with the chance to be in the near future;
regulators 'and, not least, personal benefits for those officials who were
consenting adults. Symbolic politics, assimilating liberalization of
The prospects for national regulation and control are not much media to technological modernization, played a major role in tilting
better in another decisive area of state power: media and communi- ite opinion in favor of the new media system.2oThere is hardly any
cation. Control of information and entertainment, and, through a country, outside China, Singapore, and the Islamic fundamentalist
them, ofopinions andimageshas historicallybeen the anchoring tool I' world,where the institutional and businessstructure of the media did
of state power, to be perfected in the age of mass media.14In this not experience a dramatic turnaround between the mid-1980s and
realm, the nation-state confronts three major, interrelated chal- : ':' the mid-1990~.~'Television and radio were privatized on a large scale,
lenges: globalization and interlocking of ownership; flexibility and 1 d those government networks that remained often became indis-
pervasivenessof technology;autonomy and diversityof the media (see tinguishable from private television since they were submitted to the
volume I, chapter 5 ) . In fact, it has already surrendered to them in , ' discipline of audience ratings and/or advertising revenues.22
most countries.15Until the early 1980s,with the major exception of r p Wewspapers became calncentrated in major consortiums, often with
the United States, most television in the world was government- the backing of financial groups. And, most importantly, media busi-
controlled, and radios and newspapers were under the severe ss went global, with capital, talent, technology, and corporate
potential constraint of government good will, even in danocratic ,,Iownershipspinningall over the world, awayfrom the reach of nation-
counuies. Even in the United States, the Federal Communications a tes (see figure 5.3).It does not entirely follow that states have no
commission exercised a close control of electronic media, not always stake in the media. Governments still control important media, own
exempt from special interest bia~es,'~and the three major television stock,and have means oif influence in avast array of the media world.
networks monopolized 90 percent of the audience, framing, if not - And businessis careful not to antagonize thegatekeepers of potential
shaping, public opinion. Everything changed in a decade." The markets: when Murdoch's Star Channel was chastised by the Chinese
change was technology-driven.The diversification of communication overnment for its liberal views on Chinese politics,Star obliged with
modes, the link-up of all media in a digitalhypertext, opening theway ewly found restraint, canceling BBC's news service from the
'3 Sengenbergerand Campbell (1994);Navarro (1995);Castells (1996). MacDonald (1990).
l4 Mattelart (1991). Gerbner et al. (1993);CampoVidal (1996).
l5 Blumenfield (1994);Brenner (1994);Chong (1994);Graf (1995). 1 20 Vedel and Dutton (1990).
'"ohen (1986).
-
MacDonald (1990); Doyle (1992);Perez-Tabernero et al. (1993); Dentsu
17 Doyle (1992);Irving et al. (1994);Negroponte (1995); Scott et al. (1995); Institute for Human Studies (1994); TheEconomist (1994, 1996).
CampoVidal (1996).
22 Perez-Taberneroet al. (1993).
Určeno pouze pro studijní účely
A Powerless State? 257
m c ~ m 7 m q q q m q m * q ~ ~ ~ * channel's Chinese programming, and investingin an on-line edition
~ . ? ~ & a w w m r n r n m ~ N N N N N ~
2 %
I
of People's Daily.But, if governments still have influence over the4 -%-iijg----~zziij iijsz-32 media, they have lost much of their power, except for those media
2 ~ g & 2 ~ & 0 2 2 2 2 ~ 2 2 2 2 under the direct control of authoritarian states. Moreover, the media
k
m c
L t
e 'ou, E % @ o ,, need to build their independence as a key ingredient of their credi-- * E c j y s & g & C E =
bility-not only viscivispublicopinion, butwith regard to the plurality
8 5; 8.2 e; 2 p g e % @szaZ r a S o o m C ~ c n m -
a @ m c a a . - o g.L a c m o
of power-holdersand advertisers,since the advertisingindustry is the
rn
~ m l - z ~ l - ~ a l - n ~ l - ~ ~ ~ ~ economic foundatio'n of the media business. If a given medium
- becomes predominantly attached to an explicit political option or
systematicallyrepresses certain kinds of information, itwill restrict its
audience to a relatively small segment, will hardly be able to make a
profit in the marketplace, and will not appeal to the interests of a
pluralityof constituencies. On the other hand, the more a medium is
I
independent, broad, and credible, the more it attracts information,
, sellers and buyers from a wide spectrum. Independence and profes-
sionalism are not only rewarding ideologies for the media: they
translate into good business, including, sometimes, the possibility of
selling thisindependence at a higher price when the occasion arises.
, Once media are acknowledged in their independence, once the
nation-stateacquiescesto this qualityasan essentialproof of its demo-
cratic character, the circleisclosed:anyattempt to curtail the media's
liberty will become politically costly, since the citizenry, not neces-
sarily picky concerning the accuracy of news, defends jealously the
privilege ofreceivingin~formationfiom sourcesthat are notsubmitted
to the state.This iswhy even authoritarian states are losing the battle
over media in the Information Age. The ability of information, and
images, to diffuse via satellite, video-cassette, or the Internet has
dramatically expanded, so that news black-outs are increasingly inef-
"
fectivein the main urban centers of authoritarian countries, precisely
those placeswhere the 'educated, alternative eliteslive. Furthermore,
since governments all over the world want also to "go global," and
global media are their accessing tool, governments often enter into
negotiating two-way communication systems that, even when
proceeding slowlyand cautiously,ultimatelyundermine their hold on
communication. k
In a parallel movement to globalizationof the media, there has also
been, in many countries, thanks to new communication technologies,
such as cost-sharingsatellite transmission,an extraordinarygrowth of
local media, particularly for radio and cable television. Most of these
local media, which often share programming, have established a
strong connection to specific,popular audiences, bypassing the stan-
- dardized views of mass media. So doing, they escape the traditional
channels of control (beit direct or indirect) that nation-stateshad set
up vis d vis television networks and major newspapers. The growing
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258 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 259
political autonomy of local and regional media, using flexible the topics they want to see banned, and then set up ajoint monitor-
communication technologies, is as important a trend as the global- ing system that will certainly be challenged as unconstitutional in
ization of media in shaping public attitudes. Furthermore, the two democratic countries. Indeed, in the United States, in June 1996, a
trends converge in many instances, with global media corporations federaljudicial panel in Pennsylvania declared unconstitutional most
buying into niche markets, on the condition of accepting the speci- of the new federal law intended to regulate pornographic material
ficity of audiences built around local media.23 diffused over the Net. In a forceful decision, the threejudges wrote:
Computer-mediated communication is also escaping the control 'Just as the strength of lthe Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
of the nation-state, ushering in a new era of extra-territorial com- liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered
rn~nication.'~Most governments seem to be terrified at the prospect. speech the FirstAmendment protects."27Thus, for the years to come,
In January 1996, the French Minister of Information Technology nation-stateswill be struggling to control information circulating in
announced the intention of his government to propose to the globally interconnected telecommunication networks. I bet it is a lost
European Union a series of measures to ban free access to the battle. And with this eventual defeat will come the loss of a corner-
Internet. The event that prompted this scheme of technological
censorship from the country that spurred revolutionary ideals of lib- balization/localization of media and electronic
erty in Europe, as well as Minitel, was Mitterrand's last battle. After ntamount to the de-nationalization and de-
his death, a book was published by his doctor revealing statization of information, the two trends being inseparable for the
Mitterrand had had prostate cancer for all the 14years of his pre
dency. The book was banned in France, at the request
Mitterrand's family,but everybodycould read it on the Net. The fury ,A lawless world?
of the French government went far beyond this particular issue.
There was a clear understanding that government's or court's deci- rime further subverts the n a t i ~ n - ~ t ~ t ~ ,
sions over information could no longer be implemented. ng processes of governance, and actually para-
control of information has been, long before the Information the state in many instances. This is a crucial trend which is as
the foundation of state power.25Similar initiatives came, aroun romptly ignored in its consequence^.^^ A
same time, from the Chinese, German, and American governments m'e111, chapter 3) analyzeswhat is one of the
on avariety of issuesranging from financial and political info our world, and a distinctive one in respect of
in China to child pornography in the United States.26At the other periods, but it is necessary, at this point in the argument, to
the matter was the question of trans-border information fl include such acritical trend in our understanding of the currentcrisis
make it difficult to prosecute the source of information even if itwe ew is not the pervasiveness of crime and
detected. It is still under debate what are the real technical pos t is new is the global linkage of organized
bilities of cutting access to the Internet without shutting off a who nternational relations, both economic and
country from the network. It would seem that expost facto censorshi scaleand dynamismof the criminal economy.
and penalties, and self-operated screening devices, are easier tha netration, and eventual destabilization, of
thejamming of communication. But even if external screen of contexts under the influence of trans-
sures become effective, they will shrink the network, ug traffic is the most significant industrial
undermining access to much useful information and diminishi ctor in the new criminal economy, all kinds of illicit traffics come
extent and scope of interactivity. Furthermore, to be able gether in this shadowsystem that extends its reach and power over
the Net selectively, all countries connected to it will have to agree o e world: weapons, technology, radioactive materials, art treasures,
uman beings,human organs, killersfor hire, and smugglingof every
23 Levin (1987); Abramson et al. (1988); Scheer (1994); Spragen (199
Fallows (1996).
24 Ihhn (1994);Financial Technology International Bulletin (1995); Kuttn Cited by Lewis (1996b).
(1995);Ubois (1995).
d Frey (1992); Smith (1993);Lodato (1994);
25 Couch (1990). ;Handelman (1995);Johnson (1995);WuDunn
26 Berman and Weitzner (1995);Faison (1996);Lewis (1996a).
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A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
profitable item from anywhere to anywhere are connected through major countries.Foir instance, theJapanese Yakuzahas recently inter-
the mother of all crimes-money laundering.Without it, the criminal nationalized its connections. And the open, and less open, linkages
economy would neither be global nor very profitable. And, through of the Yakuza with Jlapanese government leaders are well known, to
money laundering, the criminal economy is connected to the global the point that the lainistry of Construction was considered, over a
financial markets, of which it is a sizeable component, and a relent- long period, as the .way to exchange government contracts in public
less source of speculation. According to the United Nations works for generous contributions from Yakuza-sponsored businesses
Conference on the Global Criminal Economy held in Naples in to the Liberal Democratic party -a system not too dissimilar to that
October 1994," a reasonable estimate would put the figure of capital of Italian Christian Democracy's Mezzogiorno development programs
from illegal sources being laundered in the global financial system at in relation to the Mafia. Or, when in 1996 a series of bank crises
aboutUS $750 billion ayear.These capitalflowsneed to be processed rocked Japan, resulting in unpaid loans for hundreds of billions of
with greater mobility and flexibility than those originating from any dollars, serioussuspicionsarose on the role of Yakuzain forcing bank
otherindustry,sinceitistheir constantswirlingthat makes them avoid managers to grant these loans, including the killing of two bankers.30
tracking by law enforcement agencies. In another context, the suspected penetration of internationally con-
The impact of these trends on national states occurs along three nected Russian criminal organizations in various spheres of
main lines: government of one of the world's most powerful states, including
I In manyinstances, the entire structure of the state, often including
the armed forces, is a worrisome development. And the chain of
the highest levels of power, is penetrated by criminal linkages,
political scandalsthat have shaken governments all over the world in
either through corruption, threats, or illegal political financing,
the 1990s (a topic that I shall analyze in chapter 6) is not unrelated,
thus creating havoc in the conduct of public affairs.
in many instances, to the continuing power struggle between the
2 International relations between nation-states, in many countries,
structures of global crime and the structures of nation-states.
come to be dependent, in various degrees, on the handling or
Furthermore, even major governments, which think they are rela-
mishandling of cooperation in the fight .against the criminal tively immune to penetration by crime in their higher levels, do
economy.The typical case until now has been that of relationships
suffer the aftershocks of criminal political maneuvering. For
between the United States and some Latin American countries
instance, when in 1994-95 the Mexican economy crumbled, in spite
(Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay, Panama), but it is be-
of massive US lending, because of a political crisis partly prompted,
coming a broader phenomenon, as the criminal economy
as I will argue below, by the penetration of drug traffickers in the
diversifies (for instance, Germany's concern with Russian Mafia-
highest levels of the Mexican ruling party, the dollar went sharply
originated traffic of radioactive materials; or the Russian
down, and the German mark skyrocketed in the currency markets,
government's worries about the increasing involvement of the
destabilizing the European monetary system, because of investors'
Sicilian Mafia and of Colombian cartels with the Russian Mafiya).
fears that the US government deficit would balloon in the effort to
3 The growing importance of financial flows from criminal origin
lift Mexico out of its potential crash. In this entangled whirlwind of
are key elements in stimulating or destabilizing entire national
crime, capital, and palwer, there is no safe place. Or, for that matter,
economies, so that economicpolicycannot be properly conducted
no safe national institutions.
in manycountries and areaswithout including into the picture this
Thus, globalization, in its different dimensions, undermines the
highly unpredictable factor.
autonomy and decision-making power of the nation-state. And this
happens at the very moment when the exercise of state power in the
It used to be that national governments deeply affected by the international area is also subject to the constraints of multilateralism
wheelings and dealings of the criminal economy were a handful of in defense,foreign pollicy, and global public policies, such as environ-
usual suspects, such as Italy or Colombia. Not any more. The impor- mental policy.
tance of the phenomenon, its global reach, the size of its wealth and
influence, and its entrenched connection with international finance,
make criminal linkages to political corruption a frequent feature in
2!'UnitedNations, Economicand Social Council (1994). WuDunn (1996).
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262 A Powerless State?
The Nation-state in the Age of Multilateralism
The post-Cold War period is characterized by increasing multilateral
interdependence between nation-states.31This is due, primarily, to
three factors: the dissolution or loosening of the military blocs built
around the two superpowers; the dramatic impact of new technolo-
gies on warfare; and the social perception of the global character of
major challenges to humankind because of increased knowledge and
information, as in the case of environmental security.
With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and regardless of
possiblefuture tensions between Russia, China, andNATO, the major
mechanism for the stabilization of strategic links for most nation-
statesaround the two superpowersdisappeared aswell.32WhileNATO
continues to be organized around a USled Western alliance, itsfunc-
tions are being redefined in the second half of the 1990s toward the
fulfillment of security tasks on behalf of a broad consortium of
nations, in association, whenever possible, with the United Nations.
The new notion of global, collective which emerged for the
first time with the Gulf War to face the common threat to the oil
supply from the Middle East, involves a symbiotic relationship
between the most capable military forces (US and UK professional
armies), the financiers of operations (Japan, Germany, the Arab
princes, in the first place), and the rhetorical statements on behalf of
the civilizedworld (often enacted by French leaders). The deliberate
attempt by this NATO-based alliance to involve Russia injoint opera-
tions, as in Bosnia, is indicative of the transformation of military
alliances from superpower domination to joint policing of a shaky
world order, against potential unpredictable threats to the system.
The new securitysystem isbeing built, primarily, againstouter barbar-
ians without a name as yet.34SOdoing, nation-states, including the
most powerful, are enmeshed in a web of interests and negotiations
that reshapes itself into a differentformatfor each issue to be tackled.
Without the need for dramatic decisiveness in life and death situa-
tions, as was the case in the potential confrontation of superpowers
and their allies in the Cold War nuclear age, the muddling through
of a foreign policywith variablegeometry translates into the growing
inability of any state to act on its own in the international arena.
Foreign policy is, by essence,multilateral in this end of millenni~m.~~
Baylis and Rengger (1992); McGrew et al. (1992); Falk (1995); Orstrom
Moller (1995);Alonso Zaldivar (1996).
32 Alonso Zaldivar (1996);McGrew (1992b).
McGrew (1992a);Mokhtari (1994).
" Rosenau (1990);Berdal (1993);Guehenno (1993).
:I5 Frankel (1988); McGrewet al. (1992).
A Powerless State?
Two major reservations concern the degree of integration into this
system of collective securityof Russia, still a nuclear superpower, and
of China, superpower in the making.'= Yet, since it is unlikely that any
of them will organize a set of permanent allies around their interests
I
(in spite of China's links to Pakistan), their relative isolation, and
deep-seated distrust between them, does not contradict the multilat-
eral character of the new securitysystem, but simply adds complexity
: Fast changesin military technology are also undermining the capa-
; bility of the nation-state to stand alone.37Warfare is now essentially
dependent upon electronics and communications technology, as
demonstrated by the Gulf War. The massive devastation that can be
inflicted from a distance, through missile launchings and air strikes,
can cripple in a fevv hours a sizeable army, particularly if its defenses
are made blind by electronic counter-measures, and if targets have
been identified by satellite and processed by computers thousands of
kilometersaway to direct actualfire in thisinvisiblewar. Conventional
warfareis, asitalwayswas, technologicallydependent. The difference
in the current period is, on the one hand, the speed of technological
change, which makes weapons obsolete in a short time span.38This
forces the continuousupgrading ofweapons systemsif armies are sup
posed to really fight other armies, instead of controlling their own
people, as is still the case for much of humankind. Low-tech armies
are not armies atall, but disguisedpolice forces. On the other hand,
the character of new military technology makes necessary a profes-I
sional armyin which personnel isequippedwith advanced knowledge
to manipulate semi-automated weaponry, and communication sys-
tems. This gives an advantage to countries with an advanced
technologicallevel,regardless of the size of their armed forces, as the
cases of Israel and Singapore illustrate. Because of the essential role
of technology, nation-states still wanting to assert their capacity to
I exercise violence become permanently dependent on technological
suppliers,notjust on hardware, but on human resources. This depen-
dency, however, has to be placed in the context of a growing
diversification of conyentional war weapons, as countries industrial-
ize and technology d i f i s e ~ . ~ ~Thus, Brazil or Israel can be efficient
suppliers of advanced warfare equipment. France, the UIC, Germany,
Italy, and China have increased their role, together with the United
_ States and Russia, as suppliers of the world's armies. An increasingly
Y6
Boardmann (1994);Alonso Zaldivar (1996).
$, 97 McInnes (1992).
9 V c I n n e sand Shefield (1988);Grier (1995).
Y W c G r e w(1992b).
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264 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 265
complex pattern of cooperation and competition emerges, with would call "veto technologies," that is, weapons of mass destruction
China buying advanced fighters from Russia and communications that by their existence can deter a more powerful state from winning.
technologyfrom the United States,andFrance sellingmissiles towho- The global "terror lequilibrium"is in the process of being decentral-
ever wants to buy them, with after-sale services for training and ized to many local "terror equilibria." This trend forces, on the one
maintenance included. Furthermore, illegal global markets for hand, major powers to undertake concerted, multilateral action to
weapons,for anykind ofweapons, have proliferated, making possible prevent the controll of these weapons by new countries, political
widespread diffusion of whichever technology becomes available, forces, or terrorist groups. On the other hand, once some countries
from "Stingers" to "Patriots,"from nerve gas to electronicjamming come, anyway, into the possession of these weapons, the global secu-
devices. It follows that, unlike in other historical periods, no single rity system is compelled to intervene and assist in balancing powers
state is self-sufficient in the production of warfare equipment, with of destruction in each area of the world to prevent dangerous local
the essential exception of the United States (sinceRussia isnow tech- confrontations.43It follows a complex, entangled web of different
nologically dependent on microelectronics and communications). levels of destructive power, controlling each other with ad hot
But this does not imply that all nation-states are doomed to become agreements, and negotiated processes of disarmament and disen-
an American colony. It is, rather, the opposite. The lack of a clear gagement. In such a web no nation-state, not even the United States,
adversary has relaxed technology controls from the US Defense is free any longer, since a miscalculation, or an excess in exercising
Department, so that most essential technologies and conventional superior power, could trigger a nuclear, or bacteriological, local
weapons are widely available. Because nation-states cannot control holocaust. Humankind will live for a long time with the monsters of
sources for the supply of state-of-the-artequipment, they are perma- destruction we have created, either for mass, standardized annihila-
nently dependent, in the potential exercise of their war-making tion, or miniaturized for customized carnage. Under such
power, not on the US, but on diverse, global supplier networks. The circumstances, the most fundamental task of nation-states (and not
fact that the United States is technologically self-sufficient (and only just for the superpowers as in the Cold War period) has become to
because of the Pentagon's effort to fightoff dependency onJapanese limit the actual exercise of their own military power, thus weakening
manufacturing equipment) gives to the United States their original raison a?Ftre.
the title of being the only true superpower. Yet, even this fact does Nation-states also confront the limits of their legitimacy, and thus
not translate into full sovereignty in its foreign policy because of the ultimately of their power, regarding the global management of the
weak financial and political position of the US toward committing its i r ~ n m e n t . ~ ~Science and technology are producing,
forces abroad.40Furthermore, as McInnes argues, "the character of ecause ofincreased computing capacity,unprecedented new knowl-
modern warfare has led military thinkers to question whether a high egradation of nature, and on its consequences for our
intensity conflict could ever be worth the costs involved (regardless lated development, as shown in chapter 3, the environ-
of whether nuclear weapons are used), and even if such a war did
ent ha~sraised ecological consciousness in societies
occur,whether it could be sustained by anylength of time [given how nd theworld, putlting increasingpressure on the responsibilityof
expensive high-tech weapons are and how fast they can be rnments to halt the path toward catastrophe. Yet, individual
destroyed]."41
e powlerless, on their own, to act on issues such as
Technological evolution adds a new twist to international relations global warming,.the ozone layer, the deforestation of the planet, the
toward multilateralism. Industrialization of new areas of the world, pollution of waterreserves, the depletion of life in the oceans, and the
diffusion of scientificand technological knowledge, and illegal trade like. Effortsfor statksto come together take, more often than not, the
in everything have pushed, and are pushing, toward ~roliferationof form of international shows and solemn rhetoric, rather than actual
nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare ca~abilities.~~Thus, while iinplementation ofjoint action programs. Lipschutz and Coca write,
nation-states are increasinglydependent on cutting-edge technology in concluding their global survey on concerted environmental
in conventional warfare, they may nevertheless have access to what I
40 Savigear (1992). Daniel and Hayes (1995).
41 McInnes (1992:156).
Rowlands (1992);Vogler (1992);Morin and Kern (1993);Wapner (1995);
42 McGrew (199213).
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266 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 267
The possibilityof an hegemonic direction or the emergence of a
central coordinating authority seem remote with respect to envi-
ronmental matters. And the likelihood of effective multilateral
coordination seemssmall, aswell, because of major uncertainties
about the costs and benefits of environmental protection and
management. To these barriers and conditions we would add a
number of factors that stem from the nature of the state itself:
the fundamental incapacity of governments to control the
destructive processes involved, the scarcity of effective policy
levers,and the importance ofkeyresource-extraction (andhence
environmental destruction) for key state-societyalliances.45
This is not necessarily because of ignorance or ill-faith on the part of
governments,butbecause eachnation-state continuesto acton behalf
of its own interests, or of the interests of constituencies it values
most.46SOdoing, multilateralism becomes a forum of.debate and a
negotiating arena, rather than a tool for exercising collective respon-
sibility. Following a Habermasian logic of "crisis displacement," "the
fundamental and global environmental-economic contradiction," as
Hayputs it, "becomesdisplaced to the level of the nation-state."47This
structurallyinduced stubbornness of nation-statesparadoxicallyleads
to their weakening as viable political institutions, as citizens around
theworldrealize the incapacityof theserather expensiveand cumber-
some apparatuses in dealing with the major issues challenging
humankind. Thus, to overcome their growing irrelevance, nation-
states increasingly band together, shifting gears toward a new
supranational order of governance.
Global Governance and the Super Nation-state
"If one wants a shorthand explanation for the renewed momentum
of European integration in the mid-1980s19'as Streeck and Schmitter
wrote, "one would probably account for it as the result of an align-
ment between two broad interests - that of large European firms
struggling to overcome perceived competitive advantagesin relation
toJapanese and US capital and that of state elites seeking to restore
at least part of the political sovereignty they had gradually lost at the
national level asa result of growinginternational interdependence.
45 Lipschub and Coca (1993:332).
4"a~tell~ (forthcoming).
47 Hay (1994:8'7).
4H Streeck and Schmitter (1991:148).
On both counts,for businessinterests and politicalinterests,whatwas
soughtforwas not supranationality,but the reconstruction of nation-
based state power at a higher level, at a level where some degree of
control of global flows of wealth, information, and power could be
exercised. Theformation of theEuropean Union (as I will argue in volume
III) was not aprocess of building theEuropeanfederal state of thefuture, but
the construction of a political cartel, the Brussels cartel, in which European
nation-statescan still came out, collectively, some level of sovereigntyfrom the
newglobal disorder, and then distributethe benefits among its members, under
endlesslynegotiated rub. This iswhy, rather than ushering in the era of
supranationality and global governance, we are witnessing the emer-
gence of the super nation-state, that is of a state expressing, in a
variable geometry, the aggregate interests of its constitueht
members.49
A similar argument can be extrapolated to the plurality of inter-
national institutions that share the management of the economy, of
security, of development, of the environment, in this world fin de
milEnium. 5D The World Trade Organization has been set up to make
compatiblefree trade with trade restrictions in a non-disruptive mech-
anism of control and negotiation. The United Nations is vying to
establishits new, double role as a legitimate police force on behalf of
peace and human rights, and as a world media center, staging global
conferences every six months on the headlines of humankind:
environment, population, social exclusion, women, cities, and the
like. The G7 countries club has appointed itself as the supervisor of
the global economy, letting Russia watch through the window,just in
case, and instructing the International MonetaryFund and the World
Bank to keep financial markets and currenciesunder discipline, both
globallyand locally.Post-ColdWarNATO has emerged as the nucleus
of a credible military force to police the new world disorder. NAFTA
is tightening up the economic integration of the Western hemi-
sphere,with the potential incorp&rationof Chile,belying itsNorthern
label. MERCOSUR, on the other hand, is asserting South America's
independence by increasingly trading with Europe rather than with
the United States. Various Pacific cooperation international institu-
tions are trying to build the commonality of economic interests,
bridging over the historical mistrust between major players in the
Asian Pacific (Japan, China, Korea, Russia). Countries around the
world are using old ins~titutions,such as ASEAN or the Organization
4Qrstrom Moller (1995).
50
Berdal (1993);Rochester (1993);Bachr and Gordenker (1994); Dunaher
(1994);Falk (1995); Kraus and Knight (1995); Oversight of IMF/World Bank
(1995).
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268 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 269
ofAfricanUnity, or even post-colonialinstitutions, such as the British tively. Moreover,internationalinstitutions,partly to escape from such
Commonwealth, or the French cooperation system, as platforms for a paralysis, partly because of the inherent logic of any large bureau-
joint ventures toward a diversityof goals that could hardly be reached , cracy, tend to take on a life on their own. So doing, they define their
by individual nation-states. Most assessments of this growing process mandate in ways that tend to supersede the power of their constituent
of internationalization of state policies seem to doubt the feasibility states,instituting a defactoglobal bureaucracy.For instance, it isessen-
of global governance as fully shared sovereignty, in spite of this tially wrong, as leftist critics often argue, that the International
notion's powerful rationale. Rather, global governance is usually Monetary Fund is an agent of American imperalism or, for that
considered as the negotiated convergence of national governments' matter, of any imperialism. It is an agent of itself, fundamentally
interests and policies.51Nation-states, and their elites, are toojealous , moved by the ideology of neoclassical economic orthodoxy, and
of their privileges to surrender sovereignty,except under the ~romise . by the conviction of being the bulwark of measure and rationality
of tangible returns. In addition, according to opinion ~olls,itishighly in a dangerous world built on irrational expectations. The cold-
unlikely, in the foreseeable future, that the majorityof citizensin any bloodedness I havepersonallywitnessed of IMF technocrats' behavior
country would accept full integration in a supranational, federal in helping to destroyRussian societyin the critical moments of tran-
state..52The US experience of federal nation building is so historically sition in 1992-95 had nothing to dowith capitalistdomination. Itwas,
specific that, in spite of its forceful appeal, it can hardly be a model as in Africa, as in Latin America, a deep-seated, honest, ideological
for late millennium federalists in other areas of the world. commitment to teach financial rationality to the people of the world,
Furthermore, the growing incapacity of states to tackle the global ,
as the only serious ground to build a new society. Claimingvictory in
problems that make an impact on public opinion (from the fate of the Cold War for free-wheelingcapitalism (a historical &ont to the
whales to torture of dissidents around the world) leads civil societies harsh combats of social democracy against Sovietcommunism), IMF
to increasinglytake into their own hands the responsibilities of global ; experts do not act under the guidance of governments who appoint
citizenship. Thus, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Medecins sans them, or of citizenswho pay them, but asself-righteoussurgeons skill-
fmntihes, Oxfam,and so many other humanitarian non-governmental fully removing the remnants of political controls over market forces.
organizations have become a major force in the international arena : So doing, they may trigger a deep resentment among citizensall over
in the 1990s,often attracting more funding, performing more effec-
I
the world,who feel the full impact of these globalinstitutions on their
tively, and receiving greater legitimacy than government-sponsored lives, bypassing their obsolete nationstates.
international efforts.The "privatization"of globalhumanitarianism is Thus, the growing role played by international institutions and
gradually undermining one of the last rationales for the necessity of supranational consortia in world policies, cannot be equated to the
the nation-state.53 demise of the nation-state.But the price paid by nation-statesfor their
In sum, what we are witnessingis, at the same time, the irreversible precarious survival as segments of states' networks, is that of their
sharing of sovereignty in the management of major economic, envi- decreasing relevance, thus undermining their legitimacy, and ulti-
ronmental, and security issues, and, on the other hand, the matelyfurthering their powerlessness.
entrenchment of nation-statesas the basic components of this entan-
gled web of political institutions. However, the outcome of such a
process is not the reinforcement of nation-states, but the systemic Identities, Local Governments, and the Deconstruction
erosion of their power in exchange for their durability.This is, firstof
all, because the processes of relentless conflict, alliance, and negotia-
of the Nation-stateI
tion make international institutionsrather ineffective, so that most of On December 25,1632, the Count-Duke of Olivareswrote to his king,
their plitical energy is spent in the process, rather than in the
product. This seriouslyslows down the intervening capacity of states,
unable to act by themselves, yet paralyzed when trying to act collec- ost important business in your Monarchy is for Your
Majesty to make yourself King of Spain; I mean, Sir, that Your
51 United Nations Commissionon Global Governance (1995).
I
I
Majesty should not be content with being King of Portugal,
52 Orstrom Moller (1995). Valencia, and Count of Barcelona, but should work and
" Guehenno (1993);Rubertde Ventos (1994);Falk (1995). scheme to reduce these kingdoms of which Spain is
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270 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 271
to the style and laws of Castile,with no differentiation relying on repression. Subordinate social groups, and cultural,
in the form of frontiers, custom posts, the power to convoke the national, regional minorities, do have access to power at lower.levels
Cortes of Castile, Aragon and Portugal wherever it seems desir- of the state,in the territories where they live. Thus, a complex geom-
able, and the unrestricted appointment of ministers of different etryemergesin the relationship between the state,socialclasses,social
natlons bothh-daere ...h-dd'i r~up-Crr-denfiEe~present m civil society. In each community and
you will be the most powerful prince I each region, the social alliances and their political expression are
specific,corresponding to the existing local/regional power relation-
The king acted on this advice,thus inducing a process that ultimately ships, the history of the territory, and its specific economic structure.
led to the Revolt of the Reapers in Catalonia, the revolt against the This differentiation of power alliances according to various regions
salt tax in the Basque Country, and the rebellion and eventual and communities is an essential mechanism for keeping in balance,
independence of Portugal. At the same time, he also built, in the overall, the interests of various elites which jointly benefit from the
process, the foundations of the modern, centralized, Spanish nation- policies of the state, albeit in different proportions, in different
state, albeit in such a precarious condition that prompted almost dimensions,and in different territ~ries.~~Localand regional notables
three centuries of uprisings, repressions, civil wars, terrorism, and
trade powerin their territoryfor their allegianceto structuresof domi- .
institutional in~tability.~~Although the-Spanish state, until 1977, nance at the national level,where interests of national or global elites
represented an extreme situation of imposed homogeneity, most are more powerful. Local notables are intermediaries between local
modern nation-states,and particularlythe French revolutionary state, societies and the national state: they are, at the same time, political
have been built on the denial of the historical/cultural identities of brokers and local bosses. Since agreements reached between social
its constituents to the benefit of that identity that better suited the actors at the level of local1government do not often correspond to the
interests of the dominant social groups at the origins of the state. As political alliances established between various social interests at
argued in chapter 1, the state, not the nation (defined either cultur- the national level, the local system of power does not develop easily
ally or territorially, or both), created the nation-state in the iV.fodm along strict party lines, even in the European situation of party-
Age.56Once a nation became established, under the territorial control dominated democracies. Local and regional social alliances are
of a @en state, the sharing of history did induce social and cultural frequently ad hoc arrangements, organized around local leadership.
bonds, aswellaseconomic andpoliticalinterests, amongitsmembers. Thus, local and regional governments are, at the sametime, the mani-
Yet, the uneven representation of social interests, cultures, and terri- festation of decentralized state power, the closest point of contact
tories in the nation-state skewed national institutions toward the between the stateand civilsociety,and the expressionof cultural iden-
interests of originating elites and their geometry of alliances, thus tities which, while hegemonic in a given territory, are sparsely
opening the way for institutional crises when subdued identities, included in the ruling elites of the nation-state.60
historicallyrooted or ideologically revived, were able to mobilize for I have argued, in chapter 1, that the increasing diversification and
a renegotiation of the historical national ~ontract.~' fragmentation of socialinterests in the network societyresult in their
The structure of the nation-state is territorially differentiated, and aggregation under the form of (re)constructed identities. Thus, a
this territorial differentiation, with its sharing, and not sharing, of plurality of identities forwards to the nation-state the claims,
powers, expresses alliances and oppositions between social interests, demands, and challenges of the civil society. The growing inability
cultures,regions, and nationalities that compose the state.As I elabor- of the nation-state to respopd simultaneously to this vast array of
ated elsewhere,58the territorial differentiation of state institutions demandsinducqswhatHabermascalled a "legitimationcri~is,"~'or, in
explains to a large extent the apparent mystery of why states are often Richard Sennett's analysis, the "fall of public man,"62the figure that
ruled on behalf of the interests of a minority while not necessarily is the foundation of democratic citizenship. To overcome such a
54 Cited by Elliott and de la Pena (1978:95);translation by Elliott.
55 Alonso Zaldivar and Castells (1992). 5"ulong (1978);Tarrow (1978).
Norman (1940); Halperin Donghi (1969); Tilly (1975); Gellner (1983); Gremion (1976);Ferraresi and Kemeny (19'7'7);Rokkan and Urwin (1982);
Giddens (1985);Rubert de Ventos (1994). orja (1988);Ziccardi (1995);Borja and Castells (1996).
5' Hobsbawm (1990):Blas Guerrero (1994). Habermas (1973).
5H Castells (1981). Sennett (1978).
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272 A Powerless State?
legitimation crisis,statesdecentralize some of their power to local and
regional political institutions. This movement results from two
convergent trends. On the one hand, because of the territorial differ-
entiation of state institutions, regional and national minority
identitiesfind their easiestexpression at local and regional levels. On
the other hand, national governments tend to focus on managing the
strategic challenges posed by the globalization of wealth, communi-
cation, and power, hence letting lower levels of governance take
responsibilityfor linking up with society by managing everyday life's
issues, so to rebuild legitimacy through decentralization. However,
once this decentralization of power occurs,local and regional govern-
ments mayseize the initiative on behalf of their populations, and may
engage in developmental strategies vis d vis the global system, even-
tually coming into competition with their own parent states.
This trend isapparent all over the world in the 1990s.In the United
States, the growing distrust of federal government goes hand in hand
with a revival of local and state governments as sites of public atten-
tion. Indeed, according to opinion polls in the mid-1990~,~~this
re-localization of government offers the most immediate avenue for
the re-legitimation of politics, be it in the form of ultra-conservative
populism, as in the "county rights" movement or the born-again
Republican party, building its hegemony on attacking the federal
g ~ v e r n m e n t . ~ ~In the European Union, while substantial areas of
sovereigntyhave been transferred to Brussels,responsibilityfor many
everyday life matters has been shifted to regional and local govern-
ments, including, in most countries, education, social policy, culture,
housing, environment, and urban amenities.65Furthermore, cities
and regions across Europe have gathered together in institutional
networks that bypass national states, and constitute one of the most
formidable lobbies, acting simultaneously on European institutions
and on their respective national governments. In addition, cities and
regions actively engage in direct negotiations with multinational
corporations, and have become the most important agents of
economic development policies, since national governments are
limited in their actions by EU regulation^.^^ In Latin America, the
restructuring of public policy to overcome the crisisof the 1980sgave
new impetus to municipal and state governments, whose role had
been traditionally overshadowed by dependency on the national
government, with the important exception of Brazil. Local, provin-
Roper Center of Public Opinion and Polling (1995).
64 Balz and Brownstein (1996).
" Orstrom Moller (1995).
" Bogs et al. (1992);Goldsmith (1993); Graham (1995).
A Powerless State?
, cial, and state governments in Mexico, in Brazil, in Bolivia, in
Ecuador, in Argentina4 in Chile, benefitted, in the 1980sand 1990s,
from decentralization of power and resources, and undertook a
number of socialand economic reformswhich are transforming Latin
America's institutional geography. So doing, not only did they share
power with the nation-state, but, most importantly, they created the
basis for a new political legitimacyin favor of the local state.'j7
China is experiencing a similar fundamental transformation, with
Shanghai and Guandong controlling the main avenues of access to
- the global economy, and many cities and provinces around the
country organizing their own linkages to the new market system.
; WhileBeijing seemsto be keepingpolitica1.controlwithan iron hand,
in fact the power of the Chinese Communist party relies on a delicate
balance of power-sharing and wealth distribution between national,
provincial, and local elites. This central/provincial/local arrange-
ment of the Chinese state in the process of primitive accumulation
maywell be the key mechanism in ensuringan orderly transition from
statism to capitali~m.~'A similar situation can be observed in post-
Communist Russia. The balance of power between Moscow and local
I
and regional elites has been critical for the relative stability of the
Russian state in the midst of a chaotic economy, as in the sharing of
power and profits between the federal government and the "oil
generals"inWestern Siberia;or between Moscowelitesandlocalelites
"
in both European Russia and in the Far East.69On the other hand,
when demands of naiional identitywere not duly acknowledged,and
eventuallymishandled, as in Chech'nya, the ensuing war was largely
responsible for derailing the course of the Russian tran~ition.~~Thus,
from the glory of Barcelona to the agony of Grozny, territorial iden-
tity and local/regional governments have become decisive forces in
the fate of citizens, in the relationships between state and society,and
in the reshaping of nation-states.A surveyof comparativeevidence on
political decentralization seems to support the popular saying
, according towhich national governments in the Information Age are
too small to handle global forces, yet too big to manage people's
lives.71
67 Ziccardi (1991, 1995);Laserna (1992).
="heung (1994);Li (1995); Hsing (1996).
" Kiselyova and Castells (1997).
- 70 Khazanov (1995).
BOj a and Castells (1996).
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274 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 275
The Identificationof the State or with the young beurs of French North African ghettos.74 These
excluded ethnic minorities do not aim at the local state but call.upon
The selective institutionalization of identity in the state has a very the national state in order to see their rights acknowledged, and their
important,indirect effecton the overalldynamics of state and society. interests defended, above and against local/state governments, as in
Namely, not all identities are able to find refuge in the institutionsof the case of American minorities requesting "affirmative actionm
local and regional governments. In fact, one of the functions of temi- programs to make up for centuries of institutional and social discrim-
torial differentiation of the state is to keep the principle of universal ination. However, the nation-state,in order to survive its legitimation
equality, while organizing its application as segregated inequality. crisis vis ci viJthe "nlajority,"increasinglyshifts power and resources
Separate and unequal from the norm that underlies, forinstanceJthe to local and regional governments. So doing, it becomes less and less
stronglocal autonomy of American local g~vernment.~'The concen- able to equalize the interests of various identities and social groups
tration of poor people and ethnic minorities in America's central represented in the nation-state at large. ~ h u s ,mounting social pres-
cities or in French banlieues tends to confine socialproblems spatially, suresthreaten the equilibrium of the whole nation. The nation-state's
while decreasing the level of available public resources precisely by growing inability to respond to such pressures, because of the de-
keeping local autonomy. Local/regional autonomy reinforces ter~+ centralization of its power, further de-legitimizes its protective and
torially dominant elites and identities, while depriving those social representative role vis ci vis discriminated minorities. Subsequently,
groups whoare either not represented in these autonomous govern- these minorities seek refuge in their local communities, in non-
merit institutions or, else, are ghettoized and i~olated.7~Under such governmental structures of self-reliance.75Thus, what started as a
conditions, two different processesmay take place. On the one hand, process of re-legitimizing the state by shifting power from national to
identities that tend to be inclusive use their control of regional insti- local level,mayend up deepeningthe legitimation crisisofthenation-
tutions to broaden the socialand demographic basis of their identity. state, and the tribalization of society in communities built around
onthe other hand, local societiesretrenched in a defensiveposition primary identities, as shown in chapter 1.
build their autonomous institutions as mechanisms of exclusion-An In the limit, when the nation-state does not represent a powerful
example of the first process is democratic Catalonia: it is run by identity, or does not provide room for a coalition of social interests
Catalans in Catalan, although in the 1990s the majority of the that empower th_emselvesunder a (re)constructed identity, a
adult population was not born in Catalonia, since genuine Catalan social/political force defined by a particular identity (ethnic, terri-
women have been traditionally giving birth below the replacement torial, religious) may take over the state, to make it the exclusive
rate. Yet, the process of cultural integration and socialassimilationfor expression of such an identity. This is the process of formation of
immigrants from Southern Spain is relatively smooth, so that their fundamentalist States,,such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the
children will be culturally Catalan (see above chapter 1)- What is institutions of American governance proposed by the Christian
important in this example is to observe how a given cultural/national Coalition in the 1990s.At first glance, it would seem that fundamen-
identity, t~ be Catalan, uses the control of the local/regional state to talism gives a new, and powerful, breadth to the nation-state, in an
survive as an identity, both by reinforcing its bargaining position vis updated historicalversion. Yet, it is in fact the deepest manifestation
vis the Spanish nation-state, and by using its hold on the of the demise of the nation-state. As explained in chapter 1, the
regional/local institutions to integrate non-Catalans, thus producing expression of Islaw. is not, and cannot be, the nationstate (a secular
them as Catalans, and reproducing Catalonia through surrogate institution), but the umma, the community of believers. The umma is,
families. by definition, transnational, and should reach out to the entire
A totally different situation arises when identities and interests universe. This is also the case with the Catholic Church, a trans-
dominating in local institutions reject the notion of integration, as in national, fundamentalist movement seeking to convert the entire
ethnicallydivided communities. More often than not, the rejection of planet to the only true God, using when possible the support of any
official culture is answered by the excluded building pride in thei state-Under this persl~ective,a fundamentalist state is not a nation-
excluded identity, as in many Latino communities in American cities, state,both in itsrelationship to the world and in itsrelationship to the
72 Blakely and Goldsmith (1993). SanchezJankowski (1991);Wieviorka (1993).
73 Smith (1991). Wacquant (1994);Trend (1996).
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276 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 277
society living in the national territory. Vis & vis the world, the funds- structure of the state. Yet, it is precisely this exceptionalism76 that
mentalist state has to maneuver, in alliance with other believers' makes the observationof the American nation-state analyticallyrele-
apparatuses, states or not, toward the expansion of the faith, toward vant. This is because if eTh32 a state with a global reach, rooted inJexible
the molding of institutions, national, international, and local, federalism, becomesembattled by mrent trendsaspresentedin this chaptn; the
the principles of the faith:the fundamentalistprojectisa global d~eoc- proposed analysis might be considered to c a 9 general value.
racy, not a national, religious state. ES & vis a territorially defined
society, the fundamentalist state does not aim at representing the NAFTAl Chiapas, Tijuana, and the agony of the PRI state77
interests of all citizens, and of all identities present in the territory,
but aims at helping those citizens, in their various identities, to find After two decades of post-revolutionaryinstability,Mexico went on to
the truth of ~ o d ,the only truth. Therefore, the fundamentalist state, build one of the most effective, if not most democratic, states in the
while unleashing the last wave of states' absolute power, does so, in world. It was organized around what came to be known as partido
fact, by negating the legitimacy and durability of the nation-state. Reuoludonano Institucinnal (PRI), literally emphasizing the political
~ h ~ ~ ,the current death dance between identities, nations, and project of insti~tionalizingthe 1910-1 7revolution in the diversityof
states, leaves, on the one hand, historically emptied nation-states, =
its ideals and actors. The PRI state was able to subdue the competing
drifting on the high seas of globalflows of power; on the other hand, Power centers that haunted Latin American politics in most other
fundamental identities, retrenched in their communities or of the region: the Army and the Catholic Church. It &ill-
lized toward the uncompromising Capture of an embattled survived its unescapable, intimate connection with the United
nation-state; in between, the local state strives to rebuild legitimacy States, keeping alive Mexican nationalism and asserting political
and instrumentality by navigating transnational networks and inte- while enjoyillg generally good relations with its powerful
grating local civil societies. neighbor. It managed to build a strong national, indigenous identity,
Let me illustrate the full meaning of this proposition by focusing bridging to the memories of pre-Colombian civilizations, while
on contemporary developments in two major nation-states under- keeping in obscured marginalityits 10percent Indian population. ~t
going (as many others in the world) a structural crisis in the 1990s: succeeded, also, in fostering substantial economic growth beheen
Mexico and the United States. i I940 and 1974, to Create the world's twelfth largest economy by the
lggOs-hd,with the exception of targeted killingsby landowners and
- local ~aeigues,occasionalpolitical massacres (for example, Tlatelolco
contemporary Crises of Nation-states: Mexico's PRI in 1968), and some limited action by leftist guerrillas, violence was
state and the US Federal Government in the 1990s rare in Mexican politics. Indeed, transmission of power from presi-
'
dent to president Was orderly, predictable, and unchallenged. Each
The analysisof the crisisof nation-states,aspresented in this chapter, 8
president would designate his successor, and step out of the open
may be by illustrating it with a Summar/ account political arena for ever. h d each president would betray his prede-
crises. The reader should be aware, however, that observations and cessor, but never criticize him, and never investigate his actions.
interpretation presented below are not intended to be fully fledged Systemic,widespreadcorruption was orderly,played by the rules, and,
studies of state crises, given the limits of this chapter, even if they are
grounded on empirical knowledge of the matter. From a wide range 1 76 Lipset (1996).
ofpossibilitie~around the world,I have selected, partly for reasons of '
77 The mal~spof Mexico presented here is based on three sets of sources: (a)
personal acquaintance, two important cases. First, the Mexican PR1 and magazinesfrom Mexico and other countries, as well as h z s t a
state because, afterhaving been one of the most stablepolitical reffmesin the 4 Mexicans de Son'olo@a;(b) a number of published sources, including Mejia
wor/dfor about sir decades, it disintegrated in afew years under the ombined , Barqueraetal.(1985);Berins Collier (1992);Gil etal. (1993);cooketa]. (1994);
impact, I will argue, ofglobalization, identity, and a tranrfmed ciuil sonety. Pa*ido~olu~onan'oInstitun'onal(1994);TrejoDelarbre (1994a,b);Aguirreeta].
Secondly,1consider it meaningful to explore the actual effectsof the
'
(lg95);BusinessWeek (1995~);Golden (1995);Marquez (1995);PerezFernandez
processes described above on the US federal government, even if the del Castilloeta]. (1995);~ ~ ~ m e r s(1995);TheEconomist (1995b,c);Tirade and
Luna (1995);Woldenberg (1995); Ziccardi (1995);Moreno Toscan0 (1996);
US is an exceptional case because of the size of its economy, the flex- , I and (c)mypersonalknowledgeof Mexicoafter25years ofregularlystudyingthat
ibiliq of itspolitics,and the the high degree of decentralization in the country.
Určeno pouze pro studijní účely
278 A Powerless State? ,A Powerless State?
in fact, was a major stabilizingfactor in Mexican politics: each presi-
dent renewed the distribution of political appointmentsin the entire
structure of the state, leading to tens of thousands of new appoint-
ments everysixyears. During their tenure appointeeswould have the
chance of benefitting personally from their position, under different
forms. This collective rotation of political elites in a very rewarding
system, ensured collectivediscipline, everybodywaitingfor his oppor-
tunity (itwas usually his) which would likely come on the condition of
respecting the rules of the game. The penalty for breaking the rules
of discipline, silence, patience, and, above all, hierarchy was eternal
exile from any relevant position of power and wealth in the country,
including media presence and meaningful academic appointments.
Inside the PRI, different political factions (caman'llas) competed for
power, but never breaking the collective discipline of the party, and
never challenging the authority of the president, decider of lastresort
in any dispute. Yet, the key to social and political stability in the
Mexican state was the elaborate system of connections between the
PRI and the civil society. It relied on the organic incorporation of
popular sectors, mainly through the trade unions (Confederan'on de
TrabajadoresMexicanos, CTM),which controlled the working class; the
Confederan'on Nacional Campesina (CNC),which controlled peasants
and farmers, most of them in a system of communal use of the land
on state property (didos),established by the agrarian revolution; and
the Confderacion Nacional de Organizan'onesPopulares (CNOP),which
tried to organize miscellaneous urban popular sectors, although with
notably less success. This system of political clientelism was, for the
most part, not based on manipulation and repression, but on actual
delivery ofjobs, wages, social benefits, goods (including land), and
services (including urban amenities) in a comprehensive populist
scheme. The Mexican bourgeoisie, and foreign capital, were essen-
tially excluded from the power system, although their interests were
frequently represented by the PRI, certainly a pro-capitalist party,
albeit in a national populist version. Indeed, most business groups,
with the exception of the autonomous Monterrey group, were
outgrowthsof the Mexican state. Last,and least, electionsweresystem-
aticallyrigged by fraud and intimidation when necessary.But, in most
cases,PRI would have won (although not in all cases, in all elections,
as it came to be) because of the effectiveness of a populist system,
socially engineered through networks, familism, and personal loyal-
ties in a vertical chain of reciprocities covering the whole country. In
this sense, the PFU system was not simply a political regime, but the
very structure of the Mexican state, as it existed in the twentieth
century.
Then, it all went down in less than a decade, between the mid-
1980s and the mid-1990s. Even in the unlikely event that the first
Mexican president of the twenty-first centurywill again be a PRI can-
didate, he would preside over a very different state, since the
- political system above described has already collapsed. In 1994, the
first year of the legal existence of NAFTA, the institutional expres-
sion of full-scale globalization of the Mexican economy, the
following events took place: the Zapatistas insurged in Chiapas, on
the first day of the year; the PRI presidential candidate, Luis
Donaldo Colosio,was assassinated (the first time that such an event
had occurred in half a century): the Mexican peso collapsed, and
Mexico almost defaulted, in spite of unprecedented US and IMF
support, sending shock waves throughout the world economy; the
General Secretary of PRI,Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu (whose first
wife was President Salinas' sister) was assassinated, and his brother,
Mexico's Deputy Attorney General was suspected of a cover-up in
*
the assassination, and fled the country; Raul Salinas, brother of the
, then president Carlos Sadinas, and a close business associate of the
president, was accused of masterminding the assassination of Ruiz
Massieu, and jailed; Raul Salinas' connections to the drug cartels,
and to the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars were
exposed; President Carlals Salinas, a few days after stepping down in
December 1994, rejected any wrongdoings, staged a 24hour
hunger strike,and, after receiving polite comfort from his successor,
. President Zedillo, left the country; his departure opened, for the
first time ever, a flurrf of public denunciations and reciprocal accu-
I
sations by Mexican politicians from all factions, including former
presidents, who decided that now it was all for all. Although the
August 1994presidential election was won by the PRI, in a relatively
clean electoral process, widespread fear of instability and violence if
the PRI were defeated was critical for such a victory. Electoral results
- in state, municipal, and c~ongressionalelections held afterwardsindi-
cated a clear upward trend of votes toward the conservative
opposition, the Partido de Acn'on Nan'onal (PAN), and, to a lesser
extent, toward the left-wingcritics organized around the Partido de la
'3
RmolucionDemocratica (PRD). President Zedillo relinquished consid-
erable control over the electoral machine, appointed independents
and member$ of PAN to high levels in his administration, and
'i seemed to be prepared to be the president of the transition toward
a different kind of regime, and, maybe, state. But the PRI seemed to
^
think otherwise. In November 1996, it rejected the agreement with
other parties on the law on political reform.
The political future of Mexico is unclear at the time of writing
(1996) with political forces, and political leaders of various origins
and ideologies,positioning themselvesfor the new political era. The
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280 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 281
only certainty is that the PRI state has ended its historical course.78 son of General Cardenas, the 1930s' historic, populist leader of p H )
And thequestioniswhy, andhow thismajorpoliticaleventrelatestotheovmall picked up steam, attracting the left of the PRI, from where
arPmentpresented here on the crisis of the nation-stateas a result of conflicts Cuauthemoc Cardenas originated. The PRI barely survived the 1988
induced by the contradiction between globalization and identity. presidential election: Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Ciudad Juarez
The currenttransformation of Mexico,and the demise of itsnation- voted against the PRI. Carlos Salinas, the designated P N candidate
state, started in 1982,when Mexico became unable to pay interest on was elected because of fraud, this time the difference in votes being
its foreign debt, in spite of the fact that Mexico's oil ~roduction small enough that frautd became the decisivefactor. Salinas, an intel-
picked up exactly at the time when the two oil supply crises of 19'74 ligent, well-educated man, got the message. He appointed his
and 1979 substantially increased oil prices in the world. After Lopez old-timefriend Manuel Camacho as Regente (Mayor) of Mexico City,
Portillo's administration (1976-82) ended with the sudden national- and lethim givefree rein to his instincts:socialprograms, negotiation
ization of Mexico's banks, in a desperate attempt to reassert state with civil society, den~ocratization.The new president (with the
control over a rapidly internationalizing economy, Mexico's ~olitical influential help of the "Mexican Rasputin," F r e n c h - b ~ r n - ~ f - S ~ ~ ~ i ~ h -
and business elites, the US, and international corporate interests ancestry,international consultantJose Cordoba) focusedon ensuring
decided somehow (I do not know exactly how) that Mexico was too the full integration of Mexicointo the global economy.Salinas'views
important a country to be left to traditional populists to run it. A new were straightforward: 'We see an intense economic globalization of
generation of tecnicos,rather than politicos,came to power, substituting markets, and the revolution in knowledge and technology makes all
US-uained economists, financiers, and political scientists,for licenci- of us live, more than ever, a single universal history."79Indeed, his
adosfrom the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico's Law career goal (and semi-alfficialcandidacy) for his after-presidencylife,
School, as was the tradition. None the less, new elites still had to be was to become the first Secretary General of the newly instituted
liCenn'adosof the UNAM aswell, and they still had to be in the lineage World Trade Organization. Accordingly, he tightened Mexico's belt,
of one of the traditional PRI political families. In the case of Carlos sharplyreduced public spending, modernized communications and
Salinas, it was the former president Miguel Aleman's network, via telecommunications infrastructure, privatized most public enter-
salinasYfather, Secretaryof Commerce 1958-64, and Salinas' uncle, prises, internationaliz~~dbanking, liberalized trade, and set the
Ortiz Mena, Mexico's Treasury Secretary between 1958 and 1982. counuy wide open for foreign investment. While standards of living
Miguel de la Madrid, a technocrat linked to Catholic integrist circles, plummeted for the majority of people, inflation was sharplyreduced,
was the transition president, in 1982-88, in charge ofputting Mexico's the Mexican economy grew substantially, exports boomed, invest-
finances in order, and grooming the new team of young, technically ment poured in, so that in 1993Mexico became the countrywith the
competent, politically daringleaderswhowould create a newcountry, highest amount of foreign directinvestment in the developingworld.
and a new state, from within the PRI: Harvard's Carlos Salinas, Currencyreserves accumulated quickly. Foreign debt paymentswere
Secretaryof the Budget, and Princeton's Manuel Camacho, Secretary under control. It was successful globalization at work. Salinas also
of Urban Development, were the leading figures. But the austerity launched an unprecedented attack on corruptlabor leaders (actually
program implemented by de la Madrid in the 1980splunged Mexico a warning to all organized labor), and vowed to fight corruption and
into a recession, and for all practical purposes broke the social pac drug traffic, although on these matters history, maybe soon,willjudge
with labor and the urban popular sectors.Union leaderswere carefu his actual record. In the process, he dramatically reduced the real
not tojeopardize their privileges,but industrialworkers,~ublicsecto ages of Mexican workers and impoverished large sectors of the
employees,and popular neighborhoods felt the pain of restructurin opulation..He did launch a charity program, Pronasol, led by one of
Then, in 1985, an earthquake struck Ciudad de Mexico, wrec is closesi collaborators, Luis Donaldo Colosio, while charging
homes and businesses, and triggering social protests. halterna amacho with helping out restless Mexico City dwellers,and Ernesto
political coalition,the FDN, organized by Cuauthemoc Ckdenas (th dillo with modernizing the educational system. Against the back-
ound of much human suffering, the Mexican economywas indeed
78 In November 1996, local electionsin the states of Mexico and Hidal
ansformed in afewyears, to the point that the US, and international
ove~helminglywon by opposition parties.The local electionssheduled estors,decided thatittvastime to graduateMexico,welcoming this
1997 in Mexico City and Monterreyare expected to inflictanother major
on PRI. Cited by Berins Collier (1992: 134).
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282 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 283
nation of over 90 million people into the First World Club (the planner) wasnot a member of the old guard.The party apparatuswas
OECD), even if over 50 percent of its citizenswere living below the . already tense about his appointment. But Camachowas too much: he
poverty line, and about 30 percent in absolute poverty. The signing of
.' - was ~oliticallysavvy, had his own party connections, grassroots
N ~ A ,in 1993,was the high point of this strategy of integration of support, good opinion polls, and an uncompromising attitude. ~ 0 t h
Mexico into the global economy. It was the moment of Salinas' Colosioand Camacho spelled future trouble for the party if theywere
triumph. ~t was also time to designate the next president-to-be- to become presidents. But even worse than one or the other was the
Instead of selecting Camacho, the strongest and most popular of his -r uncertainty about whom, and even the possibility of an alliance
inner circle,hewentfor Colosio,anotheryoung teCnico,who, although between them. As negotiations in Chiapas went on, and as Colosio's
not from the old guard of the PRI,was president of the party, andwas campaign seemed to be in a holding pattern, tensions in the party
considered more open to compromise by the party apparatus- apparatus intensified, particularly in some sectors with very specific
~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ l l ~ ,Camacho's best friend in the PRI, Ruiz Massieu, was the interests, ahd much to lose.
Party's General Secretary. But, he was there precisely to fight off the 1 Having reached thispoint in the analysis,I have to introduce a new
"dinosaurs," the old guard. Camacho was disgruntled by his de- : element that, in my informed opinion, is absolutelydecisive,even if1
motion, both forpersonal and politicalreasons, and, for the firsttime have no hard evidence:Mexico's new role inglobal organized Since
in Mexican politics, he made clear his thoughts, to the president, and the 1960s,Mexico cultivated,and exported, marihuana, but not more
in public. But he had no option. By the end of 1993, everything (actuallyless) than some areas in the US, such as northern California
seemed under control, and Salinasappeared to have succeeded in his and Kentucky. Heroin production started on a limited scale in the
perestroyka precisely by avoiding the mistake that, in his opinion, a 1970s.But the big change came in the 1980swhen the formahon of
Gorbachev had committed: to reform politics before reforming the : global drugnetworks,and stepped-uppressure on the Caribbean and
economy. CentralAmerican routesin the US, led the Colombian cartelsto share
Then, on January 1, 1994, the first day of the N m A era, the part of the USbound commercewith Mexican cartels,bygiving them
zapatistas attacked. I have alreadyanalyzed the causes,circumstances, an amount of cocaine equivalent to what they were able to smuggle
and meaning of the Zapatista movement (chapter 2), so that I am into the US at the service of the Colombians.Trafficskyrocketed,and
simply considering here the movement's impact on the crisis of the powerful Mexican cartelswere organized: in Tamaulipas and the ~ u l f
Mexican state. It was devastating. Not because it really endangered $' around Garcia Abrego; in Ciudad Juarez around Amado Carrillo; in
state power from the military standpoint. But because it quickly - Tduana around the Arellano Felix brothers, among others. They
became the rallying cry of a civil society that, in its large majority1was added profitable heroine cultivation, and traffic. Then, ampheta-
economically hurting and politically alienated. Furthermore, mines- Then, everything. In the tens of billions of dollars. To work
genuinely Indian and peasant rebellion struck a major blow to PRI's quietly, and professionally, they followed the Cali model, rather than
mytholow.The poor, the peasant, the Indian, were not the subdued, - Medellin's. Avoid unnecessary killing, be discreet.Just be cool, eK1-
thankful, beneficiaries of the revolution, but the excluded, and they cient, buy whomever YOU need: police, drug investigators,judges,
were fighting back. The veil of hypocrisy behind which Mexico had prosecutors, local and state officials, and PRI bosses, as high as
been livingfor decadeswas irreversiblytorn. The kingwas naked, an possible. Every dollar invested in corruption is profitable because it
so was the PIU. creates a network that, by extending itself, multiplies support, and
Second act. Salinas, nervous with Carnacho's reaction, decided to ,' ensures silence. Thus, while the new techno-political elite of Mexico
request his senices again (with purposes and intentions unknown to ' was busy linkingup with the global economy,important sectorsof the
me) to repair the damage in Chiapas. Camacho was appointed ' - traditional PRI apparatus, together with state and local officialsof
PresidentYsCommissionerfor Peace. His skillful, conciliatory negoti- various political affiliations,established their own connection to the
ation, and the popularity of the Zapatistas, triggered a new round of 1 "other global economy." By 1994, the new "mafiocracy"was strong
intrigue in the PRI in early 1994.With the Colosio campaign slowin ' enough to defenditsinterests, but not establishedenough to cash out,
taking off, the possibility of a reversal of the president's decision, - and disappear into the financial avenues of money laundering. They
nominating Camacho instead of Colosio, became the talk of the needed more time, predictable time. And both Colosioand Camacho
town. colosio, the presidential candidate, a very capable and well- were unpredictable and (dangerousto their interests. They decided @
intentioned technocrat (aUniversityof Penn~ylvania-trainedregional ;fill them both: Colosio,with a bullet; Camacho with a well-organized
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284 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 285
opinion campaign that blamed him, morally, for Colosio'sfate. They (itslargestever),and arranged afewdeals,so that by mid-1995 Mexico
succeeded. Not accidentally, Colosio was killed in Tijuana. Zedillo, - found itself somewhat cushioned by $50 billion, in exchange for
Colosio's campaign manager, and one of the four of Salinas' inner ' which it lost its economic independence for ever.
circle (the other was Pedro Aspe, the Finance Minister), took his Beyond economic restructuring, with its high social cost, and the
place. He is a competent, Yale-educated economist. Yet, his ~olitical
- new linkages with global crime, another essential element in the
connections were tenuous and his political skills untested. Not that demise of the PRI state was the mobilization of Mexico's civil society,
the criminal connection had its way fully. But at least they changed particularlyin major urban centers. This mobilizationwas ambiguous
the rules of the game. Whoever trespassed into their territory would , because it was made up of very differentsocial interests, cultures, and
do it at their peril. political projects.It brought together important sectors ofthe profes-
Next in linewas the SecretaryGeneral of the PRI, who appeared to , sional middle class, benefitting from the prospects of a dynamic
go too far in investigatingColosio's death, still unsolved at the time T,
economy, but yearning for democratization, clean government, and
of writing. This time, the assassin of SecretaryGeneralJose Francisco limits to bureaucracy.But it also threw into the battle against the P N
Ruiz Massieu was traced back to a prominent PRI parliamentarian, to state,public sector employeesthreatened in their security;disaffected
the Tamaulipas cartel, and, ultimately, to Raul Salinas, the brother, urban popular neighborhoods, fearful of the breakdown of mecha-
and close associate, of the president. Oddly enough, Ruiz Massieu's nisms of redistribution of land and services; students, mobilizing
brother, who was the government's Special Prosecutor against Drug around the renewed symbols of social change; and poor people,
Traffic, has been formally accused of being on the cartels' payroll. It millions of them, in (citiesand the countryside, fighting to surviveby
is too early to assertbeyond doubtwho was doingwhat, and certainly ; any means. And althlough political skepticism is on the rise, and not
beyond my knowledge and competence. Yet, what is analyticallyrele- many Mexicans truly believe that their fate depends on alternative
vant isthatin the 1994decisivepoliticalcrisis,the drug traffickers-PRI political parties, therle is consensus on the inability of the PRI state to
connection played a major role in the assassinations, intimidations, deliver. The breakdown of populist legitimacy is tantamount to the
and cover-ups that destroyed traditional rules of the ~oliticalgame, 1
end of populist, organic alliances at the heart of the system.
and opened thewayfor the demise of the PRI state. It must be empha- '1 The democratizing effort during the Salinas administration took
sized that thiswasnot a typicalcaseof politicalinfiltrationby the mob. $$ the form of devolution of power and resources to local and state
It was the global reach of these criminal networks, their implication for
I
governments, along with the tolerance of electoral victories for the
US-Mexican relations, and theinvolvement of thehigherlevelsof thestate that opposition in a number of important states and cities, particularly in
make the crisis significant as an illustration of how the globalization of crime +
t2 the North. The series of monographs on municipal governments in
ovmhelmspowerful, stable nation-states.
the 1990s,coordinated by Alicia Ziccardi," show important improve-
The political killings, the obvious infiltration of criminal elements ments in local administration, particularly in Leon, Durango,
in the state, the challenge from the Zapatistas,supported by a majority Torreon, and in Mexico DF, among others. Yet, the political impact
of public opinion, and the internal conflictsin the PRI, shookforeign I of these relative successes was to further undermine the P N state,
investors' confidence in the stability of Mexico's emergent market. sincein all these cases a stronger connection was established between
Capital outflowstartedin March 1994,after Colosio's assassination on the municipal administrations, in many instances in the hands of
March 23. In spite of this, Salinas, and his minister, Aspe, decided to I, opposition parties, and local civil societies. Even in Mexico DF the
keep the fixed exchange rate, using Mexico's abundant reserves to municipal administration of presidential appointee, Regente Manuel
make up for loss of foreign capital. They were counting on reversing Camacho, ended up establishing his own electoral basis among the
the trend. It did not happen. When Zedillo took control, on , population, bypassing the traditional PRI apparatus. Thus, overall,
December 1, 1994, he panicked at the real situation, as reflected in the effort at democratizing and decentralizing power to the lower
secret book-keeping.He rushed a devaluation thatmade thingsworse. levels of the state,while the president and his technocratswere riding
Ensuing capital flight left Mexico on the edge of defaulting, and the global economy, created greater distance between all segmentsof
shook up markets in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. The US president the population and the presidential quarters. Since the essence of the
came to the rescue, NAFTA obliging, going as far as to bypass Mexican state was the godly status of the president while being
Congress, and to bring in $20 billion as collateral guarantee, pulled
from the federal pockets. IMF also pitched in with an $8 billion loan " Ziccardi (1991, 1995).
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A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
president, the widespread lack of reverence, even in the moments of The people Versus the state: the fading legitimacy of US
SalinasYtriumph, rang the bell for one of the most durable political : federal government 82
regimes in this century.
The Mexican nation-state will go on, in a new historical course, The crisis of the American state in the 1990sis a crisis oflegitimacy
because the roots of nationalism are solidly planted in the hearts of that, I contend, goes far beyond the traditional libertarian seain in
US politics. It starts fkom the depths of civil society, expressing its
PRI, and, while stillinfluentialand resourceful, I dare to say,itwill be griefs on several, distinct issues that converge into questioning the
increasingly powerless. role, function, and power of the federal government, as asserted by
Economically, Mexico, and the world, have entered a new era, of the Supreme Court since its landmark decisions of 1810 and 1819.
which Mexico is probably a pioneer. Larry Summers, one of the most The immediate political impact of this renewed distrust of govern-
distinguished international finance experts, and a key player in the f merit is the growing ascendance of a rebuilt Republican party, clearly
Mexicanbail-out,wrote at the end of 1995,with the hindsight of time: skewed to the right, as resoundingly expressed in the 1994 congres-
'The form of Mexico's crisis [in 19941 was shaped by the financial 3 sional and governattorial elections and to some extent confirmed in
innovationsofrecentyears: and advancesin information and commu- the 1996congressionalelections that kept the GOP in control of both
nications technology caused it to be propagated in a way that is 1 the House and the Senate.Yet, the influence of anti-statefeelingsgoes
without precedent. It is little wonder, then, that the International far beyond the Republican electorate to embrace independentvoters,
Monetary Fund's Michel Camdessus,haslabeled it as the firstcrisisof
'
such as those represented by Ross Perot, who reject altogether the
the 21st century."a' This translated into the fact that Mexico's current party system. Anti-state standing also includes a growing
economic policy in the future, any kind of policy, will have to be number of democratic constituencies, so that President Clinton in his
closelycoordinated with US economic policy, and with intanational 1996 State of the Nation address went into announcing "the end of
financial markets. + big government."
Politically, Mexico has to reckon, from now on, with the Peneea- Indeed, Clinton's re-election in 1996 was largely due to his
tion of its state apparatus, at any level, by global crime networks. It is embracing of many of the Republican themes against the welfare
doubtful thatitsownpolice andjudicial systemareimmunefrom such state, and against government spending, together with a tough stand
penetration, so making extremely difficultthe recovery of the state's on law and order, and the promise to preserve entitlements for the
full autonomy ufi& vis crime. Indeed, it appears that most ofthe reve- 7: middle class, thus skillfullyoccupying the center-right of the political
lations about drug connections with the political system, including ; spectrum-As Theda Skocpol stated, commenting on the 1996presi-
those referring to Raul Salinas, came from investigative work by US dential election results, "Regardless of the partisan balance,
intelligence -which makes Mexican leaders dependent on American something about the shift in the debate thatwas registered in 1994is
intelligence. ' goingto staywithus. There isjust a sensethatyou can'tuse theFederal
~ndomestic politics, a more educated and mobilized civil society is Governmentfor biginitiativesevenif the nationalproblems arebig."f13
experimenting with new ways of expression and organization, all in
directcontradiction to the PRI state,and often more developed at the
local level. Increasing globalization and segmentation of the media '
One of the best accounts of political developments in the US in h e firsthalf
are relaxing the grip that the Televisa group, a private multimedia , of h e 1990s is Balz and Brownstein (1996). I refer to this book for additional
empire traditionally allied with the PRT state, had on "infotainment." , sources.To place American anti-government culture in a historical perspective,
And symbolically,the power of identity, as claimed by Marcos and see Lipset (1996) and k i n (1995). For additional, useful information ad
the Zapatistas,has done more than to unveil Mexico'sideological self- underlying the matters covered in this section, see: Stanley and Niemi
complacency:it has built bridges between the real Indians, the real (lg92); Davidson (1993); Bennett (1994); Black and Black (1994); Murrayand
poor, and the educated urban sectors in search of new mobilizing Hermstein (1994);Woodward (1994);BaroneandUjifusa (1995);Campbell and
utopias. In the process, the Mexican nation was reunited, this time
Rockman(1995); Greenberg (1995);Himmelfarb (1995);Pagan0 and Bowman
(l995); Roper Center of Public Opinion and Polling (1995); Dianne (1996);
against the pH state. (1996). For a rigorous, sociological critique of Murray's theses, see
Fischer et al. (1995).
Bl Summers (1995: 46). 2," Cited by Toner (1996).
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288 A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
289
Furthermore, the 1996 election registered increasing disaffection
from the electorate toward all political candidates: only 49 percent of
eligiblevotersbothered tovote, and Clinton obtained only 49 percent Smaller governmentlfewer services
of this 49 percent. Keeping the executive and legislative powers in
different political hands seemed to be the result of an implicit collec-
tive will to reinforce the system of checks and balances so to deny
excessive power to any kind of government.
This powerful anti-state trend, for the time being, deeply affects
politics but not the structure of the state.Yet, it seems to be on itsway
to transforming the institutional basis and political purpose of gover-
nance in America. If the proposals approved by the Republican
congressin 1995, or a modified version of these policies, become
enacted,asispossible, the federal governmentwould transfer to state
governments by 2002 the responsibility and funds to manage dozens Larger governmenvmany services
of major programs, including welfare, Medicaid,job training, and
environmental protection, for a total estimated amount of $200
billion in annual spending.'* Furthermore, fundswould be provided
as block grants, so that final decision for their use would be in the Figure5.4 Public opinion attitudes toward size of government and
hands of the states, although with some provisions, whose content is service in US.1984-95 (results of the survey question:
the object of ferocious infighting in Congress.The Clinton adminis- you SayYou favor smaller government with fewer services
tration was also planning to shift increasing responsibilityto the states or larger government with many services?")
in severalmajor areas,including transportation policyandwelfare. In Source: S"lve~sby ABC NewslThe Washington Post, 1984, 1988, 19g2,
addition, efforts to cut the budget deficit in seven years, both by and 1993; and The LosAngeles Times, June 1993 and
Republicans and by President Clinton, will lead to a substantialreduc- - January 1995
tion in spending both at the federal and state levels. Medicaid
spendingmaybe reduced by 30percent (thatis,$270billion) between
1995and 2002. Federal agencies playing a major role in government
regulation, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Federal Communications Commission, would most likely see their
power and funding sharply curtailed. Indeed, reducing the budget
deficit, while based on a strong economic rationale, has become the
most powerful tool in shrinking the federal government, posting
$203 billion dollar annual deficit in 1995.The combined move
toward devolution of power to the states and counties, deregula
of welfare rights, drastic reduction of spending
borrowing, and tax cuts (including the possibility, in the futur
true fiscal revolution, as illustrated by the recurrent debate on a
income tax) are operating a fundamental redefinition of the Po
and aims of federal government, and thus of the A.merican state-
The forces driving this transformation of the role of governmen
the United States emerge from a profound, explicit rejection of
federal government by a large majority ofAmericans in the 1990s(se
BusinessWeek(1995e).
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290 A Powerless State?
even those aimed at combating economic insecurity through
expanded job training or guaranteed health care. Hostility
toward Washington is now as much a part of American culture
as reverence for the flaga5
It is precisely this divide between strengthened allegiance to the
nation's symbol (the flag), and growing disobedience to the state's
institutions (Washington) that characterizes a legitimacy crisis.
In chapter 2, while discussing social movements, I briefly analyzed
the insurgency against the new global order in the United States,
putting forward a number of ideas on the roots and characteristicsof
movements such as the American militia, the "county rights," "wise
use" movement, and miscellaneous "patriot" anti-government mobil-
izations.In thischapter, myfocusison the impactof such movements,
and of broader trendsin public opinion on politicsand the state.Anti-
state feelings in 1990s' American society cannot be reduced to their
most extreme manifestation, although the Patriot movement does
epitomize the values and the anger expressed in large sectors of the
society, as echoed in the diatribes of Rush Limbaugh's radio talk
shows. Anti-federal government feelings and politics are the
converging point of a vast array of ideological, economic, and social
trends so deeply rooted in the relationship between globalization,
construction of identity, and politics that it is safe to predict that
whicheverpartywinsin 2000,be it the GOP, or arenewedDemocratic
party, it may well be pushed into an overhaul of American political
institutions in the twenty-first century. A review of the main compo-
nents of this 1990s'conservativepopulism will help to understand the
complexityof the process, and the extent of the crisislooming on the
horizon, beyond variations of the political cycle.
A first, powerful, trend is a new brand of economic populism,
reacting to the disfranchisement of a substantial proportion of
American workers under the impact of global economic restruc-
turing. Corporateprofitsand the stockmarketwere atan all-timehigh
in 1996,although the DowJones index was falling sharply each time
substantial job creation was announced. Technology is, slowly but
surely,inducing growth in productivity.Mostwomen are now earning
income. Jobs are being created in record numbers (10 million new
jobs during the Clinton administration). Yet, deep-seated dissatisfac-
tion and insecurity are a reflection of stagnant or declining living
standards for the majorityof the population, together with the struc-
tural instability introduced in the labor market by flexible work,
networking of firms, and increasing dependence on transnational
85 Balz and Brownstein (1996: 13).
A Powerless State?
patterns of investment,]production,and trade (see volume I).To be
sure, this is an anti-corporate, rather than an anti-statefeeling, and in
factimplicitlycallsfor more activegovernment intervention, as in the
drive toward protectionism. Yet, it fuels anger against federal govern-
ment because Washington is seen, correctly, as the manager of
globalization, particularly after the signing of the NAFTA treaty,
which came to symbolizeincreasing American economic interdepen-
dence. Policy issues involved in this movement lead, potentially, to
economic protectionism, restriction of immigration, and discrimina-
tion against immigrants.Its implications lead to a frontal opposition
to corporate interests, for whom free trade and free movement of
capital, and of highly skilled labor, are essential, thus introducing an
explosive contradiction within the Republican party, as demonstrated
in the 1996 presidential primaries, with the alarm of GOP's leader-
ship confronted with the initial success of Buchanan's populist
candidacy.A similarcontradiction existsalsoin the Democratic party,
with most labor unions, and manyminority groups, opposingNAFTA,
and the full mobility of capital andjobs in an open, global economy,
generally supported by Democratic leaders, and certainly
nother current of public opinion, partly coincidental with
protectionism, is the one proposing political isolationism,
d by widespread popular opposition to committing
erican troops abroad in the absence of a clearly perceived threat
national securityat home, a condition to which Somalia or Bosnia
d not qualify.With the fading away of the SovietUnion, the ration-
e for national mobilization was lost in the minds and hearts of
ople, and the regular exercise of military superpower status, so
pealing to economic, intellectual, and political elites, does not
eem tojustify costor suffering.Rejection of American troops serving
er the United Nations flag became the rallying point against
tilateralism, and against the blurring of US sovereignty in the
omplex web of internatilonal institutions characterizing the post-
old War era, such as the World Trade Organization.
A third current of opinion refers to a widespread rejection of what
considefed to be government interference in private lives, family,
local communities. This is the case of the "home school move-
t," often associated with Christian fundamentalism, in which
ents refuse to send their children to school, and reject the need
r certification. Or of the "countyrights" and "wise use" movements
instenvironmental regulation, mixing defense of local autonomy,
titularly in the West, with the interests of logging and mining
anies. Or the growing, widespread concern about threats to
y from the computerized state, fueling libertarianism of
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292 A Powerless State?
different brands, dependingon levelsof education and socialcontext.
Family values, anti-abortion movements, anti-gay campaigns, and
religious fundamentalism (most often from white evangelicals)form
the basis of a wide, diversifiedsocial current, of which, as mentioned
in chapters 1and 2, the Christian Coalition is the most potent, and
organized political expression,with 1.5 million members, and 1,200
chapters in 50 states. Indeed, the Christian Coalition has become, by
the mid-1990s, the most important single bloc of voters in the
Republican party, and a deciding force in many elections, at the local,
state, and federallevel,credited as being the functional equivalent of
what organized labor used to be in the Democratic party. Christian
fundamentalists, are not, in principle, an anti-state movement.
Indeed, their dreamwould be a theocracy,a God-abidingnation, with
government enforcing the rules of God, as they have done in some
school boards which they came to control'in California, or in the vote
of the Tennessee Senate in February 1996 to post the Ten
Commandments in public offices and schools, requiring their obser-
vance. Yet, under the current constitutional regime of religious
freedom, and separation between Church and state, the rebuilding of
the Christian nation demands first of all the dismantlement of the
secularized state, as it is today. The extraordinary development of
Christian fundamentalismin'thepast decadein the United States,and
its conversion into a well-organized political force, can be related to
the reconstruction of identity, and to resistance to the disintegration
of the traditional family. It is a rejection of feminism, gay liberation,
and the end of patriarchalism. And of government efforts to imple-
ment laws supporting women's choice, gender equality, and cultural
tolerance. But beyond this reaction, rooted in personal insecurity,
there is an attempt at reconstructing identity and meaning on the
basis of an idealized past, the past offamilyand community in a homo-
geneous society now being rebuilt in the new suburbia, and in the
small towns of a vanishing rural life. This reaction is particularly
dramatic against the background of the current collapse of the patri-
archal family in America (see chapter 4). The insurgency against the
crisis of patriarchalism is as powerful as the opposition to the new
global economic order in challenging liberal values and the political
establishment, thus delegitimizing their perceived enforcer, the
federal government.
The critique of federal laws and institutions becomes even more
vitriolicwhen it links up with class and racial hostility toward the poor
and racial minorities. This is why the selective delegitimation of the
welfare state, already embattled by edonomic trends, crystallizes
popular sentiment, politicalvotes, and anti-government hostility.I say
selective because Social Security and Medicare (which account for
A Powerless State? 293
More importantto: 'Reducethe federal deficit' 'Prevent cuts to
("/.I the program'(%)
Fundingfor the arts 66 29
Welfare programs in genelral 65 30
Food stamps 60
Defensespending
Aid to farmers
Loans to collegestudents
Medicaid (thefederal health
programfor the poor)
Grants to cities to put more
police on the streets
School lunch programs
Social security
Medicare (thefederal
program for the elderly)
Figure 5.5 Attitudes toward federal government programs and
reduction offederal budget deficit, in US, 1995(results of the survey
question: "For each of the following programs, do you think it is
more important to reduce the federal budget or more important to
prevent that program from being significantlycut?")
Source: Survey by the Gallup Organization for CNNIUSA Today,
February 24-26, 1995
about two-thirds of the budget of the US welfare state) continue to
receive the support of a large majority of the population, so as to make
the systemverydifficulttlo reform (seefigure 5.5). On the other hand,
welfareprograms, socialbenefitsfor the poor, trainingprograms, and
affirmative action for minorities are under attack by a majority that
refuses to,paytaxes to sustain "the others," and stigmatizes the poor,
blaming them for their behavior, for example attributing to welfare
the exponential growth in the number of "babies born to
babies." In the "theories" presented by the academic advisors of the
anti-welfare moyement, 7Jictorian England and its rigorous morality
becomes the model, and the poor and minorities are sentenced to a
permanent lesser status by their biologically determined IQ.8fiA
further manifestation of the break up of social solidarityis the special
Murrayand Herrnstein (1994);Himmelfarb (1995).
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294 A Powerless State?
rage developed by "angry white males," extending the rejection of
affirmative action to women, thus inducing an additional potential
split among disaffected citizens. The mobilization of a substantial
proportion of civil society against the welfare state in America leads,
at the same time, to segmentation of society and to the weakening of
the state, increasinglypressured toward becoming, predominantly, a
repressive apparatus against the ~ising"dangerous classes." The
emphasis on community volunteerism and charity as substitutes for
the welfare state, while stressing the importance of a concerned civil
society,isessentiallyan ideologicalscreen not to face the cynicalaban-
donment of collective responsibility under the pretext of exercising
individual responsibility.
All these dimensions of citizens' revolt are sometimes coincident
with the unfettered interests of corporate capitalism (asin the critique
of welfarism or environmentalism), sometimes sharply in opposition
to them (as in the critique of globalization and work flexibility).But,
while being very different, and stemmingfrom different sources, they
all converge into frontal opposition to the extensive role of federal
government, characterizing the American nation-state as constituted
in the past half-century.
But let me be clear on this point. As a whole, 1990s' conservative
populism in America is not a libertarian movement, and does not
echo the tradition of anti-government republicanism. Some of its
most important components, as described above, demand, in fact,
very statist policies, imposing values of some organized segments of
society over individuals and families by the state. This is clearly the
case of Christian fundamentalists, whose growing influence in local
and state governments is seen as a means of imposing godly behavior
over the whole societyunder theirjurisdiction. This is also the case of
protectionist economic policies, whose full implementation would
require a decisive effort by federal government to control and gear
the entire American economy. Therefore, the crisis of the nation-state
does not come, only,from the cultural hegemony of anti-state values, butfrom
the convergence of challengesfrom various ideologies and interests into the
calling into question of the USfederal government, as it is historically consti-
tuted -either to sharplyreduce itsrole (traditional libertarianism), or
to capture it on behalf of a new mission to rebuild the American
nation under the guidance of God, and/or in isolation of the new
global order. This is why this crisisof legitimacy, although underlying
the "Republicanrevolution" of 1994,cannot be equatedwith it. It cuts
across parties, and constituencies, and it affects industrial workers as
much as farmers, angry males as much as angry tax-payers.
These very diverse, powerful currents often organize around two
issues that become a shared banner for many of them: refuse taxes,
A Powerless State? 295
bear arms. By depriving government, and particularly the federal
government, of fiscal revenues, state action becomes gradually
subdued. In a societyand economy of rising demands vis d vis public
policies, a dwindling tax base forces the state to concentrate on its
core, strategic functions, essentially to keep law and order, and to
provide the infrastructure for the newinformational, global economy,
while paying the interests of a debtinheritedfrom Reagan's ColdWar.
Therefore, it becomes unable to perform other functions, and so is
actually forced "off people's backs."
On the other hand, in the minds of a substantial proportion of the
population, the right to bear arms is the ultimate foundation of citi-
zens' freedom, under the invocation of the American constitution.
Although many Americans do not agree with this state of affairs, the
fact of the matter is that there are 300 million handguns in US house-
holds, and war weaponry is available on the open market.
Powerful organizations and lobbies, such as Americans for Tax
Reform, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the
legendary National Rifle Association, fight, with success, to under-
mine state control over money and guns. My God, my family, my
community, my money, my gun, seem to be the set of values that
shape the consciousness and behavior of an increasingly im-
portant proportion of American people, in direct opposition to the
rules, programs, and personnel of the federal government, and with
increasing hostility toward global corporatism and institutional
mu1tilateralism.
The diffusionof these themes and attitudesin American societyhas
been helped by the increasing localization,segmentation, and differ-
entiation of the media, and by the spread of interactive, electronic
communication. The k.ey development in this sense is the growing
influence of local radio, broadcasting syndicated programs, and the
explosion of talk showsand call-in talk radio. Between 1988and 1995,
the number of stations specializing in talk radio doubled, reaching
1,200. New satellite technology, and the loosening of regulations on
distorted allegations,helped their development and influence. Rush
Limbaugh, the star of talk shows, enjoyed a weekly audience of 20
million over 600 stations in the whole country, thus becoming a
potent political force by himself. The new GOP, in 1994, paid
homage, in a public dinner, to Limbaugh, the man who, more than
anyone else,had popularized the causeof ultra-conservatism and anti-
government stands throughout the country. Besides radio, the new
populist, grassroots movement, as indicated in chapter 2, used all the
potential of new communication technologies, including the
Internet, but also Fax machines, to coordinate their action and ideas,
and to diffuse them among targeted receivers and elected officials.
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296 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 297
The de-massification of the media bypassed the traditional channels ensuing probable disaffection of a powerful populist trend, that cuts
of indirect control between the political establishment and the audi-
*
across party lines, may induce a fundamental crisis in the American
ence, unleashing the diffusion of all kinds of information and ideas, political system. It may well destabilize the careful balance that the
including the most outrageous, distorted, and unfair, among millions
I
foundingfathers and the Supreme Court had historicallyestablished
of people. The borderline between publishing the fit and the unac- between the local and the federal, between government and society,
ceptable, carefullyestablishedover decadesby a generally responsible thus potentially triggering the crisis of the American nation-state.
freedom of the press, became irreversibly blurred.
However distorted are the expressionsof anger, these social trends Structure and process in the crisis of the state
are not temporary moods of public opinion. Available opinion polls
in the 1990sshow their persistence, and their depth (see chapter 6 ) . <*
, Let me emphasize the relevant analyticalelements derived from these
They are rooted in major structural transformations, as presented in - ' succinct case studies of state crisis. In both, Mexico and the United
this book, and processed under the specific culture and institutions States, we observe the direct impact of globalization and capitalist
of American society.As Balz and Brownstein write: . restructuring on the legitimacy of the state, through the partial
dismantlement of the welfare state, the disruption of traditional
Behind all these swirling,swellingmovementson the Right is the productive structures, increasing job instability, extreme social
fear of aworld spinning outof control ...As the econoniyrestruc- : inequality, and the link up of valuable segments of economy and
tures under the pressures of globalization and advancing society in global networks, while large sectors of the population and
technology, and society's cultural framework strains under the I
territory are switched off from the dynamic, globalized system: all
breakdown of the two-parent family, this is one of those times processes that I have analyzed in volume I, and which are shown to
[when large numbers of Americans feel themselves uprooted by I take their toll on the state's abilityto respond to social demands, and,
developments that they cannot understand or control]. "People ultimately, on the state's legitimacy. Furthermore, the close connec-
feel they don't have control overtheir ownlives,"saidRepublican ; tion of the Mexican economywith the US economy, institutionalized
pollster Frank Luntz. "That they can no longer shape their by NAFTA, and the electronic linkage of its financial markets with
future."87 global markets in _realtime, made the collapse of the peso in 199495
And they blame for it the state they have built over the past half- very different from any previous economic crisis, actually exempli-
century, yearning to retake control over their lives in their fying, as reported above, "the first financial crisis of the twenty-first
communities and with their families,and moving away from govern- century."Additionally, in the case of Mexico, the penetration of the
ment. They are helped in this process by a Republican party that had stateby the globalcriminal economyadds apowerful twistto the disor-
been out of parliamentary power for three decades, and then saw the -- ganization of political institutions and to their crisis of legitimacy.
opportunity to assert its power for decades to come. But the GOP is 1 In the case of the United States (notin Mexico, asyet), the crisisof
doing so by riding the wave of anti-government, and anti-establish- '
p , patriarchalism,with itsroots in the informational economy and in the
ment feelings, thus playing with fire. As Balz and Brownstein challenge from social movements, deepened insecurity and fear
conclude: "All the intellectual energy in the Republican party is now Z amonglarge sectorsof people, prompting awithdrawalfrom the legal
focused in finding new ways to reduce the scope and reach of the and political institutions that were receptive to women's rights, and
federal government."s8However, since the GOP also represents ", from the secular state. For a significantsegment of the population, it
powerful corporate interests, embedded in a global economy and in led to retrenchment in the affirmation of God, family, and commu-
international institutions, by becoming the instrument of anti-state nlty, as eternal values beyond contest from social challenges.
populism it builds an explosive internal contradiction between its In both cases,the structural crisesthat undermined the state's legit-
anti-government and fundamentalistpopular base, and its traditional imacy interacted with the development of social movements which,
role of representing corporate capitalism and the defense establish- under forms specific to each society, affirmed alternative identities,
ment. The coming into the open of such a contradiction, and the and explicitly rejected the legitimacy of the federal government.
Although these identity-based movements involved only a minority
Balz and Brownstein (1996: 1'73).
'of activists, their demands and claims were indeed processed by
Balz and Brownstein (1996:295). the political system, and found an echo, admittedly distorted, in the
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298 A Powerless State?
population at large. There is an undeniable connection between the
symbolic impact of the Zapatistas and the widespread rejection of the
PRI state in Mexican society, ending what was one of the most
perdurable political systems in the world. As for the United States,
while the Patriots are more a symptom than a cause, the crisis of legit-
imacymanifestsitselfin the broad distrust of government,particularly
of the federal government, and of politicians and parties, particularly
of those linked to mainstream politics. The rise of popularity of
conservativeRepublicans in the mid-1990sis, to a large extent, linked
to their politically suicidal campaigning against the very government
institutionswhich they want to control.
In both cases, Mexico and the United States, new electronic
communication systems have been decisive in amplifying the impact
of relatively small movements on public opinion at large by their
feeding of the media and by their horizontal, unfettered networking.
Thus, there is an empirically observable, analytically meaningful
connection between globalization, informationalization, capitalist
restructuring, identity-basedsocial movements,and the crisis of polit-
ical legitimacy in both Mexican and American states, albeit with
different forms, specific to each society. What is first in inducing
causalityis,methodologically,awrong question because structure and
process interact inseparably in the sequence leading to the crisis of
the state. It would be difficult to imagine the impact of the Zapatistas
on Mexicowithout the profound impact of globalizationin economy
and society. But the Zapatistas were not the result of economic crisis:
they existed before, in the struggles of Indians and peasants
supported by Catholicpriests, and in the revolutionarywillof refugees
from the 1970sradical left movements.Libertarianism inAmerica has
a long tradition, and isolationismis a perennial temptation of a conti-
nental-sized, powerful country, as is the opposite temptation toward
imperialism. That one or the other prevail in a particular historical
period is not pre-scripted, since the precise outcome of interaction
between the elementsI have identified, constituting, at the same time,
structure and process, is largely undetermined. So, in spite of the
Republican revolution of 1994, Clinton still won the 1996 presiden-
tial election, to a large extent precisely because of the internal
contradictionsof the Republican electoratein being mobilized,at the
same time, on behalf of corporate interestsandby the themes of right-
wing populism. Yet, Clinton himself, in order to win, had to depart
sharplyfrom the traditional Democratic platform, thusfurthering the
distance between the hopes of many Democrats and the realities of
politics.
Why the social and political response to the new global disorder
came from "the left" in Mexico and from "the right" in the United
A Powerless State?
States is due, partly, to specific political agencies, and, partly, to the
characteristicsof the crisis to be dealtwith. Namely, since the state, in
both cases,wasunable to deliveritspromised protection, and became,
instead, the active manager of the globalization/restructuring
process, the challenge against the statewas mounted from outside the
traditional basis of support for government-led reforms: the pro-
federal government Deimocratsin the United States; the PRI populist
systemin Mexico.This doesnot preclude that a pro-welfare state, pro-
government, left-wingmovement could develop in the future in both
countries, but it would have to grow awayfrom the halls of the polit-
ical establishment, precisely because of the crisis of its legitimacy.
This openness of politicalprocessesdoes not invalidate the interest
of an in-depth, analytical understanding because the materials we
have uncovered, and their linkages, are indeed the stuff of which
politicalinstitutions and political processes are made in our time. As
- for analyzing the relatiolnship between the sources of state crisis and
the new forms of political struggle and competition, I need to
consider, first, the specific dynamic of political actors in the new,I
informational paradigm -an exercise that I will attempt in chapter 6.
The State, Violtance, and Surveillance: from Big
Brother to Little Sisters
Is the state really powerless in the network society? Aren't we wit-
nessing, instead, a surge: of violence and repression throughout the
world? Isn't privacy facing the greatest dangers in human history,
because of the pervasiveness of new information technologies?
Didn't Big Brother arrive, as Orwell predicted, around 1984?And
how could the state be powerless when mastering a formidable tech-
% nological capacity, and controlling an unprecedented stock of
inf~rmation?'~
These essential, and usual, questions mix contradictory evidence
with confused theory. Yet, their treatment is central in the under-
standing of the crisis of the state. First of all, the Big Brother imagery
must be empiricallydismissed,as it refers to the connection between
our-societies and the Orwellian prophecy. Indeed, George Orwell
could well have been right, vis ci vis the object of his prophecy,
Stalinism, not the liberal, capitalist state, if political history and tech-
nology had followed a different trajectory in the past half-century,
something that was certainly within the realm of possibility. But
statism disintegrated in contact with new information technologies,
- my Burnham (1983); Lyon (1994).
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300 -: A Powerless State? A Powerless State?
instead of being capable of mastering them (seevolume 111);and new
information technologies unleashed the power of networking and
decentralization, actually undermining the centralizing logic of one-
way instructions and vertical, bureaucratic surveillance (see volume
I). Our societiesare not orderly prisons, but disorderlyjungles.
However,new,powerful information technologies might indeed be
put to the service of surveillance, control, and repression by state
apparatuses (police, tax collection, censorship, suppression of polit-
ical dissidence, and the like). But so might they be used for citizens
to enhance their control over the state, by rightfully accessing infor-
mation in public data banks, by interacting with their political
representatives on-line, by watching live political sessions, and even-
tuallycommenting live on them.g0Also, new technologies may enable
citizensto videotape events,so providing visual evidence of abuses,as
in the case of globalenvironmental organizations that distributevideo
power to local groups around the world to report on environmental
crimes, thus putting pressure on the ecological culprits. What the
power of technology does is to extraordinarily amplify the trends
rooted in socialstructure and institutions: oppressive societiesmay be
more so with the new surveillance tools, while democratic, participa-
t o r ~societiesmay enhance their openness and representativeness by
further distributing political power with the power of technology.
Thus, the direct impact of new information technologies on power
and the state is an empirical matter, on which the record is mixed.
But, a deeper, more fundamental trend is at work, actually under-
mining the nation-state's power: the increasing diffusion of both
surveillancecapacity and the potential for violence outside the insti-
tutions of the state and beyond the borders of the nation.
Reports of the growing threat to privacy concern less the state as
such than business organizations and private information networks,
or public bureaucracies following their own logic as apparatuses,
rather than acting on behalf of government. States, throughout
history, have collected information on their subjects, very often by
rudimentary but effective brutal means. Certainly, computers quali-
tatively changed the ability to cross-refer information, combining
social security, health, ID cards, residence, and employment infor-
mation. But with the limited exception of Anglo-Saxon countries,
rooted in a libertarian tradition, people around the world, from
democratic Switzerland to Communist China, have spent their lives
dependent on files of information of residence, work, and on every
domain of their relationship to government. On the other hand, if it
is true that policework has been facilitated by new technologies, it has
!lo Anthes (1993);Betts (1995);Gleason (1995).
also become extraordinarily complicated by the similar, and some-
times superior, sophistication of organized crime in using new
technologies (for instance, interfering with police communications,
linking up electronically, accessing computing records and so on).
The real issue is somewhere else: it is in the gathering of information on indi-
viduals by hsinessfirms, and organizations of all kinds, and in the creation
of a marketfor this info~mation.The credit card, more than the ID card,
is giving awayprivacy. This is the instrument through which peoples'
lives can be profiled, analyzed, and targeted for marketing (or black-
mailing) purposes. And the notion of the credit card as life in the
public record must be extended to avarietyof businessofferings,from
frequent flyer prograims to consumer services of every possible item,
and to membership of miscellaneous associations. Rather than an
oppressive 'BigBrother, " it is a myriad of well-wishing"littlesisters," relating
to each one ofus on apersonal basis because they know who we are, who have
invaded all realms of life. What computers do, indeed, is to make
possible the gathering, processing, and using for specificpurposes of
amassof individualizedinformation, so that our name can be printed,
and the offeringpersonalized, or an offer mailed out, or beamed in,
to millions of individuals. Or, in a telling illustration of new techno-
1 logical logic,theV-chip, to be implanted in AmericanTVsets in 1997,
, allows households to program censorship according to a system of
codes thatwill alsobe implanted in the televisionsignalsemitted from
.. the stations. So doing, it decentralizes surveillance rather than
centralizingcontrol.
DavidLyon,in his insightfulbook on the matter, has insisted on the
, critical development alf this extension of surveillanceway beyond the
boundaries of the stateg1What he calls "the electronic eye"is indeed
a surveillance"society,"rather than a "surveillancestate."This is, after
- all, the heart of Foucault's theory of micro-powers, although he
confused many of his superficialreaders by calling "state"what, in his
own view, is in fact "the system;" that is, the network of sources of
, power in various domains of social life, including the power in the
, family. If, in the Weberian tradition, we restrict the concept of state
to the set of institutions holding the legitimate monopoly of means of
violence, and by nation-state the territorial delimitation of such a
powerlg2it would seem1 that we are witnessing in fact the diffusion of
the power of surveillanceand of violence (symbolicor physical) into
society at large.
This trend is even more apparent in the new relationship between
state and media. Given the growingfinancial and legal independence
" Lyon (1994).
y2 Giddens (1985).
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302 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 303
of the media, increased technological capacityputs into the hands networks, and the ability to repress rebellion is eroded by endemic
the media the ability to spy on the state, and to do so on beh communalism and tribalism. While the nation-state still looks
of society and/or of specific interest groups (see chapter 6). When, imposing in its shiny uniform, and people's bodies and soulsstill are
in 1991, a Spanish radio station recorded the conversation over cel- routinely tortured around the world, information flows bypass, and
lular 'phones of two socialist officials, the broadcasting of thei sometimes overwhelm, the state; terrorist wars criss-cross national
critical remarks about the socialistPrime Minister triggered a pol boundaries; and communal turfs exhaust the law and order patrol.
cal crisis. Or when Prince Charles and his friend indulged over : The state still relies on violence and surveillance,but it does not hold
'phone in postmodern elaborations on Tampax and related matters, their monopoly any longer, nor can it exercise them from its national
the tabloid printing of these conversations shook the British Crown.
To be sure, media revelations, or gossip, have always been a threat to
the state, and a defense of citizens. But new technologies, and the
new media system, have exponentially increased the vulnerabi The Crisis of Ithe Nation-stateand the Theory of
the state to the media, thus to business, and to society at large. In the State
torically relative terms, today's state is more surveilled
surveillant. In his seminal article on democracy, the nation-state, and the global
Furthermore, while the nation-state keeps the capacity for system, David Held summarizeshis analysis by writing that
violence,93it is losing its monopoly because its main challengers are the international order today ischaracterized by both the persist-
taking the form of, either, transnational networks of terrorism, or, ence of the sovereign state systemand the development of plural
communal groups resorting to suicidalviolence. In the first case, the authority structures. The objections to such a hybrid system are
global character of terrorism (political, criminal, or both), and of , '
severe.It isopen to question whether itoffersanysolutions to the
their supplier networks in information, weapons, and fina fundamental probllems of modern political thought which have
requires a systemiccooperation between nation-states' police, so that 4 been preoccupied by, among other things, the rationale and
the operating unit is an increasingly transnational police force. basis of order and toleration, of democracy and accountability,
the second case, when communal groups, or local gangs, renounce and of legitimaterule.96
their membership of the nation-state, the state becomes increasingly
vulnerable to violence rooted in the social structure of its society, as Although he goes on to offer his own optimisticproposal for re-legit-
if stateswere to be permanently engaged in fighting a guerrilla war.95 , imizing the state in its postnational reincarnation, the powerful
Thus the contradiction the state faces: if it does not use violence, it arguments against continuing state sovereignty that he puts forward
fades away as a state; if ituses it, on a quasi-permanent basis, there will - in the preceding pages explain his hesitant concluding line: 'There
go a substantialpart of its resources and legitimacy,because it would are good reasons for being optimistic about the results - and
imply an endless state of emergency. So, the state can only proceed es~imistic."~'In this context, I am not sure what "optimistic" and
with such a durable violencewhen and if the survival of the nation, or essimistic"mean. I h~aveno particular sympathyfor modern nation-
of the nation-state,is at stake. Because of the increasing reluctance of tes that have eagerly mobilized their people for reciprocal mass
societies to support a lasting use of violence, except in extreme s , slaughter in the bloocliest century of human history - the twentieth
tions, the difficultyof the state to actuallyresort to violence on a scale t ~ r y . ~ ~But this is a matter of opinion. What really matters is that the
large enough to be effective leads to its diminishing ability to do so newpowersystem is characterized, and I agree with David Held on this, by
frequently, and thus to the gradual loss of its privilege as holding the theplurality of sources of authority (and, I would add, ofpower), the nation-
means of violence. state beingjust one of these sources.This, in fact, seems to have been the
Thus, the capacity of surveillance is diffused in society, orical rule, rather than the exception. As Spruyt argues, the
monopoly of violence is challenged by transnational, non-state modern nation-state had a number of "competitors" (city-states,
" Tilly (1995).
" Fooner (1989).
" Wieviorka (1988).
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304 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 305
trading pacts, empires),99as well, I would add, as military and diplo- of powers and counteipowers, they are powerless by themselves: they
matic alliances, which did not disappear, but coexisted with the - are dependent on a broader system of enacting authority and influ-
nation-state throughout its development in the Modern Age.
-
ence from multiple slources. This statement, which I believe to be
However,what seems to be emerging now, for the reasons presented
'
consistent with the observations and elaborations presented in this
in this chapter, is the de-centering of the nation-statewithin the realm - chapter, has serious consequences for the theory and practice of the
of shared sovereignty that characterizes the current world's political
scene. Hirst and Thompson, whose vigorous critique of simplistic The theory of the state has been dominated, for decades, by the
views on globalizationemphasizesthe continuingrelevance of nation- een institutionalism, pluralism and instrumentalism in
states, acknowledge,none the less, the state's new role: different versions.lO'Institutionalists, in the Weberian tradition,
have emphasized the autonomy of state institutions, following the
The emerging forms of governance of international markets historically given state once the winds of history
and other economic processes involve the major national gov- eds in a territory that became its national basis. Pluralists
ernments but in a new role: states come to function less as n the structure and evolution of the state, as the outcome of a
"sovereign" entities and more as components of an inter- variety of influences in the endless (re)formation of the state,
national "polity". The central functions of the nation-state will
become those of providing legitimacy for and ensuring the
according to the dynamics of a plural civil society, in a constant
g of the constilutional process.
accountability of supra-national and subnational governance mentalists,Marxistsor historicists,see the state as the expres-
me~hanisrns.'~~ 'I.
sion of social actors pursuing their interests and achieving
Furthermore, in addition to its complex relationship to miscel- domination, be it without challenge within the state ("the executive
laneous expressions of political power/representation, the committee of the bourgeoisie"), or as the unstable result of struggles,
nation-state isincreasinglysubmitted to a more subtle, and more trou- ,and compromise. But, as Giddens, Guehenno, and Held
bling, competition from sources of power that are undefined, and, argue, in all schoolsof thought, the relationship between state and society,
sometimes, undefinable. These are networks of capital, production, and thus the theory of the state, is considered in the context of the nation, and
communication, crime, international institutions, supranational mili- has thenation-state as itspameof reference.What happenswhen, in Held's
tary apparatuses, non-governmental organizations, transnational -
"
formulation, the "n'ational community"is not any more the "relevant
religions, and public opinion movements. And below the state, there - ity"assuch aframe of reference?''' How canwe think of non-
are communities, tribes, localities, cults, and gangs. So,while nation-
- '
national, diversifiedsocialinterests represented in,or fightingfor, the
states do continue to exist, and they will continue to do so in the e whole world?But the unit relevant for capital flows is not
foreseeable future, they are, and they will increasingly be, nodes of a as that for labor, for social movements, or for cultural iden-
broader network of power. They will often be confronted by other flows w to link up interests and values expressed, globally and
of powerin the network,which directlycontradict the exercise of their a variable geometry, in the structure and policies of the
authority, asithappensnowadaysto central bankswhenever they have nation-state?Thus,from thepoint of view of theory we must reconstruct
the illusion of countering global markets' runs against a given s to understand power relationships without presup-
currency. Or, for that matter, when nation-states, alone or together, necessary intersection between nation and the state, that
decide to eradicate drug production, traffic, or consumption, a battle g identity from instrumentality. New power relationships,
repeatedly lost over the past two decades everywhere - except in beyond the powerlessnation-state,must be understood as the capacity
Singapore (with all the implications of this remark). Nation-states -;i to-control global instrumental networks on the basis of specific iden-
have lost their sovereignty because the very concept of sovereignty, , tities, or, seen from the perspective of global networks, to subdue any
since Bodin, implies that it is not possible to lose sovereignty "a little ; identity in the fulfillment of transnational instrumental goals. The
bit": this was precisely the traditional casus belli. Nation-states may control of the nation-state, one way or the other, becomes just one
retain decision-makingcapacity,but, havingbecome part of anetwork -i means among others to assert power; that is the capacity to impose a
Spruyt (1994).
loo Hirst and Thompson (1996:171).
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306 A Powerless State? A Powerless State? 307
given will/interest/value, regardless of consensus. The theory of what constituted the historical basis of the successful, developmental
power, in this context, supersedes the theory of the state, as I shall
elaborate in the Conclusion to this volume. Thus, communalism indeed constructs/maintains states in the
However, it does not follow that nation-states have become irrele- newly globalized society, but, in the process, itweakens decisivelythe
vant, or that they will disappear. They will not, in most cases, at least , nation-state as constituted in the Modern Age, and maybe questions
for a long time. This is for paradoxical reasons that have to do more < the very notion of the nation-state by capturing it into specific
with communalism than with the state. Indeed, in a world of a- * * identities.lo6
cultural, transnational global networks, societiestend, as proposed in
the preceding chapters, to retrench themselves on the basis of iden-
tities,and to construct/reconstruct institutions asexpressionsof these Conclusion: the King of the Universe, Sun Tzu,and the
identities. This is why we witness, at the same time, the crisis of the Crisis of Democracy
nation-state and the explosion of nationalism^.'^^ The explicit goal of
most, but not all, of these nationalisms is to build or rebuild a new So, whither the nation-state asfar as historical practice is concerned?
nation-state, one based on identity, notjust on historical heritage of Answering this question, Martin Carnoyissuesa resounding n0.W' He
territorial control. So doing, in many instances, nationalisms chal- argues, and 1concur with him, that national competitivenessis still a
lenge, and ultimately bring into crisis, existing nation-states that were function of national policies, and the attractiveness of economies to
built on historic alliances, or on the total or partial negation of some foreign multinationals is a function of local economic conditions;
of the identities that form their constituencies. Thus, contemporary . that multinationals depend heavily on their home statesfor direct or
nationalisms are, in fact, a major factor in prompting the crisis of indirect protection; and that national human-capital policies are
nation-states as historically constituted, as illustrated by recent expe- essential for the productivity of economic units located in a national
riences in the Soviet Union, in Yugoslavia, and in Africa, and as may ,
territory. Supporting this argument, Hirst and Thompson show that,
be the case in the future in Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, : if in addition to the relationship between multinational corporations
Indonesia), and even (who knows?) in Europe (Spain, UK, Italy, and the state, we include the wide range of policies through which
Belgium). If and when these new, identity-based nationalisms reach ation-statescan use their regulatory powers to ease or block move-
the stageof statehood theywill find the samelimits of current nation- ments of capital, lsbor, information, and commodities, itis clear that,
states vis ci vis global flows of power. However, their construction will oint in history, the fading away of the nation-state is a
not be aimed at asserting sovereignty, but at resisting other states'
sovereignty, while navigating the global system in an endless process er, in the 1 9 9 0 ~ ~nation-states have been transformed from
of bargaining and adjustment.Some authors use the concept of "neo- , sovereignsubjectsinto strategicactors,playing their interests, and the
medieval form of universal political order."'04 As with any "neo" 5
interests they are supposed to represent, in a global system of inter-
characterization, I suspect it belies history. It is, however, an inter- action, in a condition of systemically shared sovereignty. They
esting image to convey the notion of autonomous, powerless states : : marshal1considerable influence, but they barely hold power by them-
that remain none the less instruments of political initiative and selves, in isolation from supranational macro-forces and subnational
sources of conditional authority.
micro-processes. Furthermore, when acting strategicallyin the inter-
Nation-states that remain strong in the middle of historical turbu-
I
national arena, they are submitted to tremendous internal stress. On
lence, such asJapan or South Korea, also do so on the basis of social the one hand, to foster productivity and competitiveness of their
homogeneity and cultural identity. Although even in such cases a economies they must ally themselves closely with global economic
growing contradiction is emerging between the interests ofJapanese
- and abide by global rules favorable to capital flows, while
or Korean multinational corporations, now becoming truly global in J; their societies are being asked to wait patiently for the trickled down
order to survive cut-throat competition, and the territorial domain
and political interests ofJapanese or Korean states, thus undermining Johnson (1982);Castells (1992a).
Guehenno (1993).
lo3 Cohen (1996). lo' Carnoy (1993:88).
'04 Bull (1977: 254), cited by Held (1991). .. 'O-irst and Thompson (1996).
Určeno pouze pro studijní účely
308 A Powerless State?
benefits of corporate ingenuity. Also, to be good citizens of a multi-
lateral world order, nation-states have to cooperate with each other,
accept the pecking order of geopolitics, and contribute dutifully to 6 -
subdue renegade nations and agents of potential disorder, regardless
of the actual feelings of their usually ~arochialcitizens. Yet, on the
other hand, nation-states survive beyond historical inertia because of
the defensivecommunalism of nations and people in their territories, informational Politics and the
hanging onto their lastrefuge not to be pulled away by the whirlwind
of global flows. Thus, the more states emphasize communalism, the
Crisis of Democracy
less effective they become as co-agents of a global system of shared
power. The more they triumph in the planetary scene, in close part-
nership with the agents of globalization, the less they represent their
national constituencies. End of millennium politics, almost every- :
where in the world, is dominated by this fundamental contradiction.
Thus, it may well be that nation-states are reaching the status of Introduction:the Politicsof Society
Saint-Exupery's King of the Universe, fully in control of ordering the
sun to rise everyday.From the East.But, at the same time,while losing I Power used to be in the hands ofprinces, oligarchies, and ruling elites; it
sovereignty, they emerge as major intervening players, in a pure
'
was defined as the capacity to impose one's will on others, modi&ing their
strategicworld,such asthe one informingSunTzu'swar treatise 2,5 *
behavior. This image qf Power does not fit with our reality any longer.
years ago: J'0we.r is everywhereand nowhere: it is in massproduction, infinancial
It is the businessof a general to be quiet and thus ensure secrecy; flows, in lifestyles, in the hospital, in the school, in television, in images,
upright and just, and thus maintain order. He must be able to
in messages, in technologies... Since the world of objects escapes to our
mystify his officers and men by false reports and appearances
will, our identity is no longerdefined 4 what we do but by what we are,
and thus keep them in total ignorance. By altering his arrange
thus making our sccieties somewhat closer to the experience of so-called
ments and changing his plans he keeps the enemy with
2 traditional societies, searchingfor balance rather thanforprogress. such
definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitou
isthe centralquestion towhichpolitical thoughtand actionmust respond:
routes, he prevents the enemyfrom anticipating his purpose
how to restore a link between the excessively open space of the economy,
the critical moment the leader of an army acts like one who ha
and the excessively closed, andfiagmented world of cultures? . . . The
climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind
: fundamental matter is not seizingpower, but to recreatesociety, to invent
him.'Og
: politics anew, to avoid the blind conflict between open markets and closed
communities, toovercomethebreakingdown ofsocietieswherethedistance
This is how powerless states can still be victorious, and so incr -zncreases between the included and the excluded, those in and those out.
their influence, on the condition of "kickingaway"the ladder of Alain Touraine, Lettre d Lionel,
nations, thus ushering in the crisis of democracy. pp. 36-8,42; my translation
e blurring of boundaries of the nation-state confusesthe definition
-citizenship.The abslence of a clear situs of power dilutes social
trol and diffuses political challenges. The rise of communalism,
its different forms, weakens the principle of political sharing on
which democratic politics is based. The growing inability of the state
to control capital flowsand ensure social security diminishes its rele-
vance for the average citizen. The emphasis on local institutions of
rnance increases the distance between mechanisms of political
01 and management of global problems. The voiding of kelo!' SunTzu (c.505496 BC, 1988: 131-3).
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