CHAPTER 18 Security: Domestic and
International
‘The condition of man . . . is a condition of war against
everyone.’
TH O M A S HO B B S , Leviathan (1651)
P R E V I E W Security is the deepest and most abiding issue in politics. At its heart is the
question: How can people live a decent and worthwhile existence, free from
threats, intimidation and violence?’ The search for security is therefore linked to
the pursuit of order; and for the establishment of relative peace and stability
amongst individuals and groups with different needs and interests. These concerns
are commonly thought to resolved in the domestic realm by the existence of
a sovereign state, a body capable of imposing its will on all the groups and
institutions within its borders. Nevertheless, domestic security raises important
issues, particularly about the roles of the institutions of the ‘coercive state’; the
police and the military. However, the issue of security is often considered to be
especially pressing in international politics because the international realm, unlike
the domestic realm, is anarchical, and therefore threatening and unstable by its
nature. There has been fierce theoretical debate about whether this implies that
international conflict and war are inevitable features of world affairs, and about the
extent to which states are able to keep war at bay through cooperation. These
debates have become increasingly pressing due to the advent of new challenges
to international security, such as the rise of transnational terrorism and the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. Finally, growing interest in the concept of ‘human
security’ has shifted attention from the security of the state to the security of the
individual, and, in the process, widened the notion of security to include, for
instance, economic security, food security and personal security.
K E Y I S S U E S In what ways does civil policing differ from political policing?
What mechanisms are used to make police forces publicly
accountable?
When, and in what ways, does the military intervene in domestic
politics?
What are the key theories of international security?
How has the international security agenda changed in recent years?
What are the implications of the notion of human security?
SECURITY BEYOND BOUNDARIES?
Although security, as the absence of danger, fear or anxiety, has a common character,
a distinction is conventionally drawn between the maintenance of security
in the domestic sphere and the maintenance of security in the international
sphere. This implies that the domestic/international, or ‘inside/outside’, divide
(discussed in Chapter 1) is of particular importance when it comes to security
matters. From the ‘inside’ of politics, security refers to the state’s capacity to
maintain order within its own borders, using the instruments of the coercive
state, the police and, at times, the military. Security, in this sense, deals with the
relationship between the state and non-state actors of various kinds, ranging
from criminal gangs to dissident groups and protest movements. In this respect,
the state enjoys the great advantage that, in most cases, its sovereign power allows
it to stand above all other associations and groups in society, ultimately by virtue
of possessing a monopoly of the means of what Max Weber (see p. 82) called
‘legitimate violence’.
From the ‘outside’ of politics, security refers to the capacity of the state to
provide protection against threats from beyond its own borders, especially the
ability of its armed forces to fight wars (see p. 415) and resist military attack.
Security, in this sense, has traditionally dealt with the state’s relationships with
other states, reflecting the conventional assumption that only states possess the
material and military resources to engage in warfare and, thereby, exert significant
coercive influence on the international stage. However, whereas state sovereignty
(see p. 58) supports the maintenance of security ‘inside’, it makes the
maintenance of security ‘outside’ deeply problematic. As sovereignty means that
there is no authority higher than the state, international politics is conducted in
an environment that is anarchical, in the sense that it lacks enforceable rules or
a pre-eminent power. It is commonly argued that this creates a bias in international
affairs in favour of insecurity, rather than security.
Nevertheless, the ‘inside/outside’ divide in security matters has become
increasingly difficult to sustain. This has been a result of recent trends and developments,
not least those associated with globalization (see p. 142), which have
seen a substantial growth in cross-border, or transnational, movements of
people, goods, money, information and ideas. State borders may not have
become irrelevant, but, in a technological age, they have certainly become more
fragile or‘porous’. This was dramatically demonstrated by the terrorist attacks on
New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, commonly dubbed 9/11. If
the world’s greatest power could be dealt such a devastating blow to its largest
city and its national capital, what chance did other states have? Furthermore, the
‘external’ threat in this case came not from another state but from a non-state
actor, a terrorist organization that operated more as a global network than as a
nationally-based organization. For some, September 11 marked the point at
which security ceased to be either a domestic issue or an international issue, but
became instead a global issue.
Moreover, the blurring of the domestic/international divide has widened the
opportunities available to governments to frame security issues in ways that are
politically or ideologically advantageous. Within days of the 9/11, for instance,
President George W. Bush portrayed the attacks as part of the‘war on terror’ (see
p. 401), a term that dominated subsequent discourse about both the nature of
400 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Order
As a political principle,
order refers to stable and
predictable forms of
behaviour and, above all,
to those that safeguard
personal security.
Nevertheless, order has
two very different
political associations.
Most commonly, it is
linked with political
authority and is thought
to be achievable only if
imposed ‘from above’
through a system of law.
‘Law and order’ thus
become a single, fused
concept. The alternative
view links order to
equality and social
justice, and emphasizes
that stability and security
may arise naturally ‘from
below’, through
cooperation and mutual
respect.
Security: the condition of
being safe from harm or
threats, usually understood as
‘freedom from fear’, implying
physical harm.
the attacks themselves and how the USA and others should respond to them. By
presenting 9/11 as an act of ‘war’, as opposed to a ‘crime’, it was lifted out of a
domestic security frame and presented within an international frame. This,
perhaps, served to prepare US public opinion, as well as the wider international
community, for a response that had a clear international dimension, namely
military intervention in Afghanistan and, for that matter, against any other
country claimed to be implicated with ‘terror’. To have portrayed 9/11 as a criminal
act would have been to suggest a more modest and focused response:
namely, a police action against accused international murders.
DOMESTIC SECURITY
The police and politics
The police force lies at the heart of the coercive state. The central purpose of a
police force is to maintain domestic order. Police forces came into existence in
the nineteenth century, largely as a result of the higher levels of social unrest and
political discontent that industrialization unleashed. For instance, in the UK, a
paid, uniformed, full-time and specially trained police force was established by
Robert Peel in London in 1829 following the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in
Manchester, when cavalry had been used to break up a large but peaceful
working-class demonstration. This type of police system was introduced
throughout the UK in 1856 and was later adopted by many other countries.
Although police forces and militaries are similar, in that they are both disciplined,
uniformed, and (if to different degrees) armed bodies, important differences
can be identified.
In the first place, whereas the military’s essentially external orientation means
that it is called into action only rarely (for example, in times of war, national
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 401
Focus on . . .
The ‘war on terror’
The ‘war on terror’ (or the ‘war on terrorism’), known in
US policy circles as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT,
refers to the efforts by the USA and its key allies to
root out and destroy the groups and forces deemed to
be responsible for global terrorism. Launched in the
aftermath of 9/11, it supposedly mapped out a strategy
for a ‘long war’ that addresses the principal security
threats to twenty-first-century world order. It aims, in
particular, to counter the historically new combination
of threats posed by non-state actors and especially
terrorist groups, so-called ‘rogue’ states, weapons of
mass destruction and the militant theories of radicalized
Islam. Critics of the ‘war on terror’ have argued
both that its inherent vagueness legitimizes an almost
unlimited range of foreign and domestic policy interventions,
and that, in building up a climate of fear and
apprehension, it allows the USA and other governments
to manipulate public opinion and manufacture consent
for (possibly) imperialist and illiberal actions. Others
have questioned whether it is possible to have a ‘war’
against an abstract noun.
emergency, and national disaster), the police force’s concern with domestic order
means that it has a routine and everyday involvement in public life. The police
force is also more closely integrated into society than is the military: its members
and their families usually live in the communities in which they work, although,
as discussed below, a distinctive police culture often develops. Furthermore, the
police typically use non-military tactics: because of their reliance on at least a
measure of consent and legitimacy, they are either usually unarmed (as in the
UK), or their arms are primarily a form of self-defence. To some extent, however,
modern developments have tended to blur the distinction between the police
and the military. Not only have armed forces been called in to deal with domestic
disorder, as during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but police forces have also tended
to develop an increasingly paramilitary character. This is reflected in their access to
progressively more sophisticated weaponry and, in many states, in their adoption
of a quasi-military mode of operation.
There are three contrasting approaches to the nature of policing and the role
that it plays in society:
The liberal perspective regards the police as an essentially neutral body, the
purpose of which is to maintain domestic order through the protection of
individual rights and liberties. In this view, police forces operate within a
broad consensus and enjoy a high measure of legitimacy, based on the
perception that policing promotes social stability and personal security. The
police are principally concerned with protecting citizens from each other.
As policing is strictly concerned with upholding the rule of law (see p. 344),
it has no broader political function.
The conservative perspective stresses the police’s role in preserving the
authority of the state and ensuring that its jurisdiction extends throughout
the community. This view, which is rooted in a more pessimistic view of
human nature, emphasizes the importance of the police as an enforcement
agency capable of controlling social unrest and civil disorder. In this light,
police forces are inevitably seen as mechanisms of political control.
The radical perspective advances a much more critical view of police power.
This portrays police forces as tools of oppression that act in the interests of
the state, rather than of the people, and serve elites, rather than the masses.
In the Marxist version of this theory, the police are seen specifically as
defenders of property and upholders of capitalist class interests.
The role of the police force is also shaped by the nature of the political system in
which it operates and the ways in which the government uses the police. Civil
policing tends to be distinguished from political policing, and divisions are
usually identified between liberal states and so-called ‘police states’.
Role of the police
Civil policing is the aspect of police work with which the general public is usually
most familiar and which dominates the public image of the police force: the police
force exists to ‘fight crime’. This process increasingly has an international character,
brought about by the advent of major transnational criminal organizations
associated, in particular, with drug-trafficking and people-trafficking. However,
402 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Crime
A crime is a breach of
criminal law, which is law
that establishes the
relationship between the
state and the individual.
Criminals (persons
convicted of a crime) are
usually seen as being
motivated by self-gain of
some kind, rather than
broader political or moral
considerations, as in the
case of civil disobedience
(see p. 259). However, the
causes of, and remedies
for, crime are hotly
contested. The general
divide is between those
who blame individual
corruption and place
their faith in punishment,
and those who blame
deprivation and thus look
to reduce crime through
social reform.
Civil policing: The role of
the police in the enforcement
of criminal law.
the routine process of maintaining civil order is very different when undertaken
in, say, rural India than in modern cities such as NewYork, Paris and St Petersburg.
It is widely accepted that, while small and relatively homogeneous communities
are characterized by a significant level of self-policing, this changes as societies
become more fragmented (socially and culturally), and as large-scale organization
depersonalizes relationships and interaction. The spread of industrialization in
the twentieth century therefore brought about a measure of convergence in police
organization and tactics in different parts of the world. Police forces everywhere
tend to confront similar problems in the form of, for example, traffic infringements,
car theft, burglary, street crime and organized crime.
However, contrasting styles of civil policing have been adopted. On the one
hand, there is the idea of community policing. This system has traditionally
operated in Japan. Japanese police officers are expected to know and visit the
various families and workplaces that fall within their area of jurisdiction, operating
either from police boxes (koban) or from residential police stations (chuzaisho).
The success of this method, however, depends on the police being regarded
as respected members of the local community and on citizens accepting that
their lives will be closely monitored. Pressure for efficiency and cost cutting led
to the phasing out of community policing in the UK and elsewhere in the 1960s
and 1970s, with a shift towards what is called ‘fire brigade’ policing. This emphasizes
the capacity of the police to react to breaches of law when they occur, in the
hope that crime will be prevented by the effectiveness of the police response.
Fire-brigade policing, or reactive policing, requires the adoption of harder, even
paramilitary, tactics, and a greater emphasis on technology and arms. Pioneered
in the early 1990s in New York,‘zero tolerance’ policing, or positive policing, has
been widely adopted, formally or informally, in many parts of the world. Based
on the so-called ‘broken windows theory’, this relies on a strategy of strict
enforcement in relation to minor offences (hence ‘zero tolerance’) in order to
reduce levels of serious crime. It works on the basis that unrestrained petty crime
creates the impression that ‘no one is in control’.
Policing can, nevertheless, be ‘political’ in two senses. First, policing may be
carried out in accordance with political biases or social prejudices that favour
certain groups or interests over others. Second, policing may extend beyond civil
matters and impact on specifically political disputes. The first concern has traditionally
been raised by radicals and socialists, who dismiss the idea that police
forces (or any other state body) act in a neutral and impartial fashion. From this
perspective, the training and discipline of the police force and the nature of
police work itself tend to breed a culture that is socially authoritarian and politically
conservative. The working classes, strikers, protesters, women and racial
minorities are therefore likely to be amongst the groups treated less sympathetically
by the police.
Despite mechanisms of public accountability and protestations of impartiality,
there is undoubtedly evidence to support these allegations, at least in particular
circumstances. For instance, the US National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,
set up by Lyndon Johnson to investigate the urban unrest that broke out
in the USA during the ‘long hot summer’ of 1967, found that many of the
disturbances were linked to the grievances of black ghetto dwellers about abusive
or discriminatory police actions. The attack on Rodney King by four white Los
Angeles police officers, whose acquittal in 1992 sparked two days of rioting, kept
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 403
Community policing: A
style of policing in which a
constant police presence in the
community seeks to build trust
and cooperation with the
public.
Broken windows theory:
The theory that minor offences
(broken windows) that are not
speedily dealt with advertise
that an area is not cared for
and so lead to more, and more
serious, offenses.
this image alive. Similarly, in the UK, the Macpherson Report (1999) into the
murder of Stephen Lawrence concluded that the Metropolitan Police were guilty
of institutional racism.
The level of political policing, meaning the use of the police as a political,
rather than civil, instrument, has increased as societies have become more
complex and fragmented. Some observers challenge the very distinction between
civil and political areas of police work, arguing that all crime is ‘political’, in the
sense that it springs from, and seeks to uphold, the established distribution of
wealth, power and other resources in society. The neutrality of the police force
in the eyes of the public is particularly compromised when it is used to control
strikes, demonstrations and civil unrest that stem from deep divisions in society.
The threat of terrorism (see p. 416), especially since the events of 11 September
2001, has drawn policing into some particularly difficult areas. Not only have
many states strengthened national security legislation, and in the process
extended the powers of the police but, in the USA, the UK and elsewhere, policing
strategies have been adapted so as to take better account of particular threats
posed by terrorism. Both of these developments have led to allegations that civil
liberties have been compromised through the emergence of a national security
state.
Police states
However, the widening of police powers has been taken further in so-called
‘police states’. In a police state, the police force operates outside a legal framework
and is accountable to neither the courts nor the general public. Police
states have totalitarian (see p. 269) features, in that the excessive and unregulated
power that is vested in the police is designed to create a climate of fear
and intimidation in which all aspects of social existence are brought under
political control. However, a police state is not run by the police force in the
same way as a military regime is controlled by the armed forces. Rather, the
police force acts as a private army that is controlled by, and acts in the interests
of, a ruling elite.
This was clearly the case in Nazi Germany, which spawned a vast apparatus
of political intimidation and secret policing. The SA (Sturm Abteilung), or
‘Brownshirts’, operated as political bullies and street fighters; the Gestapo was a
secret police force; the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) carried out intelligence and security
operations; and the SS (Schutzstaffel) developed, under Himmler, into a state
within a state. Russia also relied heavily on the activities of the secret police.
Lenin formed the Cheka in 1917 to undermine his political opponents, and this
mutated into the OGPU, then the NKVD (Stalin’s personal instrument of
terror), in 1953 the KGB and, since 1991, the Federal Security Service (FSB).
At the same time, some states usually classified as ‘liberal’ have also found a
role for the secret police. The CIA in the USA has certainly engaged in a range of
covert external operations, including the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile, several
attempted assassinations of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and the supply of arms
to Contra rebels who are fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua
in the 1980s. It has also been subject to allegations of interference in domestic
affairs, not least in the form of the still unsubstantiated claim that it played a role
in the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Terroristic policing was used in
404 P O L I T I C S
Institutional racism: A
form of racism that operates
through the culture or
procedural rules of an
organization, as distinct from
personal prejudice.
Police state: A state that
relies on a system of arbitrary
and indiscriminate policing in
which civil liberties are
routinely abused.
CONCEPT
Civil liberty
Civil liberty refers to a
private sphere of
existence that belongs to
the citizen, not the state.
Civil liberty therefore
encompasses a range of
‘negative’ rights, usually
rooted in the doctrine of
human rights, which
demand non-interference
on the part of
government. The classic
civil liberties are usually
thought to include the
rights to freedom of
speech, freedom of the
press, freedom of religion
and conscience, freedom
of movement and
freedom of association.
These key freedoms are
generally seen as vital to
the functioning of liberaldemocratic
societies.
Northern Ireland in the late 1960s in the form of the B-Specials. This was an auxiliary
unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary formed to control civilian demonstrations
and fight the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The B-Specials engaged in
partisan and routine intimidation of the Catholic community and were
disbanded in 1969, but only as the British army took on a more prominent role
in policing ‘the troubles’.
The military and domestic politics
The development of modern armed forces can be traced back to the period
following the Middle Ages when European powers started to develop a standardized
form of military organization, usually based on a standing army.
During the nineteenth century, the military became a specialized institution
with a professional leadership separate from the rest of society. European colonialism,
in turn, ensured that this military model was adopted all over the
world, turning the military into a near-universal component of state organization.
Costa Rica is sometimes identified as the classic exception to this rule, but
its lack of armed forces is possible only because of the security provided by the
US military.
The military is a political institution of a very particular kind. Four factors
distinguish the military from other institutions and give it a distinct, and at
times overwhelming, advantage over civilian organizations. First, as an instrument
of war, the military enjoys a virtual monopoly of weaponry and substantial
coercive power. As the military has the capacity to prop up or topple a
regime, its loyalty is essential to state survival. Second, armed forces are tightly
organized and highly-disciplined bodies, characterized by a hierarchy of ranks
and a culture of strict obedience. They are, thus, an extreme example of bureaucracy
(see p. 361) in the Weberian sense. Third, the military is invariably characterized
by a distinctive culture and set of values, and an esprit de corps that
prepare its personnel to fight, kill and possibly die. Sometimes portrayed as
implicitly right-wing and deeply authoritarian (by virtue of its traditional
emphasis on leadership, duty and honour), military culture can also be
grounded in creeds such as revolutionary socialism (as in China), or Islamic
fundamentalism (as in Iran). Fourth, the armed forces are often seen, and
generally regard themselves, as being ‘above’ politics, in the sense that, because
they guarantee the security and integrity of the state, they are the repository of
the national interest.
The character of particular armed forces is nevertheless shaped by internal and
external factors. These include the history and traditions of the military and
specific regiments or units, and the nature of the broader political system, the
political culture and the values of the regime itself. For example, the political
orientation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China is deeply influenced
by the decisive role it played in establishing the communist regime in 1949 and
by strict party control at every level of the Chinese military. In Israel, the military
enjoys an unusual position of trust and respect, based on its role in absorbing
and socializing immigrants, and on its record of safeguarding the security of
the Israeli state. Finally, although all militaries serve as instruments of war
(examined later in the chapter), some militaries also play a major role in domestic
politics.
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 405
Guarantee of domestic order
Although military force is usually directed against other political societies, it may
also be a decisive factor in domestic politics. However, the circumstances in
which militaries are deployed, and the uses to which they are put, vary from
system to system and from state to state. One of the least controversial nonmilitary
tasks that armed forces may be called on to undertake is to act as an
emergency service in the event of natural and other disasters. This type of
involvement in domestic affairs is exceptional and is usually devoid of political
significance. However, the same cannot be said of circumstances in which the
armed forces are used to police domestic civil disturbances or disputes.
US troops, for instance, were deployed to implement federal racial desegregation
orders during the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. Similarly, in
the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, the army was brought in during industrial
disputes to provide emergency fire and ambulance services. Such actions provoke
criticism, not only because the military is used in ways that encroach on responsibilities
that usually belong to the police, but also because they compromise the
traditional neutrality of the armed forces. This highlights the difficulty of distinguishing
between the domestic use of the military as a‘public’ instrument serving
the national interest and its use as a ‘political’ weapon furthering the partisan
goals of the government of the day. This distinction becomes still more blurred
when the military is used to quell civil unrest or counter popular insurrection.
Certain states confront levels of political tension and unrest that are quite
beyond the capacity of the civilian police to contain. This occurs particularly in
the case of serious religious, ethnic or national conflict. In such circumstances,
the military can become the only guarantee of the integrity of the state, and may
even be drawn into what may amount to a civil war to achieve this end. In 1969,
UK troops were dispatched to Northern Ireland, initially to defend the beleaguered
minority Catholic community, but increasingly to contain a campaign of
sectarian terror waged by the IRA and opposing ‘loyalist’ groups such as the
Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Defence Force (UDF). The
Indian army has been used on a number of occasions to counter civil unrest and
restore political order. These have included the eviction of Sikh separatists from
the Golden Temple at Amritsar in 1984 at the cost of 1,000 lives, and the seizure
of Ayodhya from Hindu fundamentalists in 1992 following the destruction of
the ancient Babri mosque. Russian troops were dispatched to the republic of
Chechnya in 1994 to thwart its bid for independence in an operation that turned
into a full-scale war, later developing into an ongoing guerrilla struggle.
In cases in which political legitimacy has collapsed altogether, the military
may become the only prop of the regime, safeguarding it from popular rebellion
or revolution.When this occurs, however, all semblance of constitutionalism (see
p. 337) and consent is abandoned, as the government becomes an outright dictatorship.
Thus, in May 1989, the survival of the Chinese communist regime was
maintained only by the military assault on Tiananmen Square, which effectively
neutralized the growing democracy movement. Such circumstances place a
heavy strain on the loyalty of officers and the obedience of troops required to
inflict violence on civilian demonstrators. Trouble was taken to deploy in Beijing
only PLA divisions brought in from the countryside whose political loyalty could
be counted on. During the Egyptian revolution in 2011, the unwillingness of the
406 P O L I T I C S
Rebellion: A popular uprising
against the established order,
usually (unlike a revolution)
aimed at replacing rulers, rather
than the political system itself.
military to take action againt rioters in Cairo and elsewhere eventually forced
President Mubarak to step down and turn power over to the Supreme Council
of the Armed Forces, which prepared for the calling of elections.
Alternative to civilian rule
The military’s capacity to intervene directly in domestic politics can lead, in
extreme cases, to the establishment of military rule (as discussed in Chapter 12).
Just as the military can prop up an unpopular government or regime, it can also
remove and replace the governing elite, or topple the regime itself. The defining
feature of military rule is that members of the armed forces displace civilian
politicians, meaning that the leading posts in government are filled on the basis
of the person’s position within the military chain of command. One version of
military rule is the military junta. Most commonly found in Latin America, the
military junta is a form of collective military government centred on a command
council of officers whose members usually represent the three services (the army,
navy and air force). In its classic form, for example in Argentina in 1978–83,
civilians are excluded from the governing elite, and trade union and broader
political activity is banned. However, rivalry between the services and between
leading figures usually ensures that formal positions of power change hands relatively
frequently. In other cases, a form of military dictatorship emerges as a
single individual gains pre-eminence within the junta, as with Colonel
Papadopoulos in Greece in 1967–74, General Pinochet in Chile after the 1973
coup, and General Abacha in Nigeria, 1993–98.
It is difficult, however, for military rule to exist in a stable and enduring political
form. While military leaders may highlight the chronic weakness, intractable
divisions and endemic corruption (see p. 365) of civilian government, it is
unlikely that military rule will provide a solution to these problems, or that it will
be perceived as legitimate, except during temporary periods of national crisis or
political emergency. This is why military regimes are typically characterized by
the suspension of civil liberties and the suppression of all potential sources of
popular involvement in politics. Protest and demonstrations are curtailed, opposition
political parties and trade unions are banned, and the media are subjected
to strict censorship.As a result, the military often prefers to rule behind the scenes
and exercise power covertly through a civilianized leadership. This occurred in
Zaire under Mobutu, who came to power in a military coup in 1965, but later
allowed the army to withdraw progressively from active politics by ruling through
the Popular Movement of the Revolution, founded in 1967. In the 1960s and
1970s, Egypt’s transition from military government to authoritarian civilian rule
was achieved under Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadat, both military figures. The
appointment of civilian cabinets and the emergence of parties and interest group
politics not only strengthened the regime’s legitimacy, but also gave Nasser and
Sadat a greater measure of freedom from their own militaries.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
International security occupies a central position in the broader academic
discipline of international relations (IR). Indeed, a recurrent theme in IR has
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 407
International security:
Conditions in which the mutual
survival and safety of states is
secured through measures
taken to prevent or punish
aggression, usually within a
rule-governed international
order.
been the search for ways of countering the risk, uncertainty and deep insecurity
that are sometimes believed to be rooted in the international system itself. As
pointed out above, such thinking is based on the principle of state sovereignty,
which, in the domestic realm, implies order and stability (as no group or body
can challenge the supreme authority of the state), but in the international realm
implies disorder and possibly chaos (as no body stands above the state and can
impose order upon it). However, the issue of security in the international realm
has been the subject of considerable theoretical debate, with quite different
approaches to the prospects for international security being advanced by realist,
liberal and critical theorists. Moreover, since the end of the Cold War a series of
new security challenges have emerged that are particularly problematic, because,
in various ways, they exploit the greater interconnectedness of the modern
world. These include the shift from traditional, inter-state war to so-called ‘new’
wars, the rise of transnational terrorism and an increase in nuclear proliferation.
A further, and linked, development has been the tendency to rethink the concept
of security at a still deeper level, usually through a concern with what has been
called ‘human security’ (see p. 418), in contrast to ‘national’ or ‘state’ security.
Approaches to international politics
Realist approach
Realism (sometimes called ‘political realism’) has been the dominant perspective
on international politics since World War II. It claims to offer an account of
international politics that is ‘realistic’, in the sense that it is hard-headed and, as
realists see it, devoid of wishful thinking and deluded moralizing. For realists,
international politics is, first and last, about power and self-interest. This is why
it is often portrayed as a ‘power politics’ model of world affairs. As Hans
Morgenthau (1948) put it, ‘Politics is a struggle for power over men, and whatever
its ultimate aim may be, power is its immediate goal and the modes of
acquiring, maintaining and demonstrating it determine the technique of political
action’.
The theory of power politics is based on two core assumptions. The first is
that people are essentially selfish and competitive, meaning that egoism is the
defining characteristic of human nature. This is an idea that provides the foundation
for the political theories of Niccolò Machiavelli (see p. 5) and Thomas
Hobbes (see p. 61). However, whereas Machiavelli and Hobbes were primarily
concerned to explain the conduct of individuals or social groups, realist international
theorists have been concerned, above all, with the behaviour of states, seen
as the most important actors on the world stage. The fact that states are
composed of, and led by, people who are inherently selfish, greedy and powerseeking
means that state behaviour must exhibit the same characteristics, human
egoism implying state egoism. State egoism leads to international conflict, and
possibly war, because each state pursues its own national interest, and these are,
by their nature, incompatible.
From the 1970s onwards, new thinking within the realist tradition started to
emerge which was critical of ‘early’ or ‘classical’ realism. Under the influence of
Kenneth Waltz (see p. 409), ‘neorealists’ or ‘structural’ realists started to explain
the behaviour of states on the basis of assumptions about the structure of the
408 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Realism
Realism is a theory of
international politics
whose core theme can be
summed up as: egoism
plus anarchy equals
power politics. Some,
nevertheless, argue that
this formulation betrays a
basic theoretical fault line
within realism, dividing it
into two schools of
thought. Classical realism
explains power politics
largely in terms of human
selfishness or egoism,
suggesting that, as states
prioritize self-interest and
survival, the international
realm tends towards
unending conflict.
Neorealism (or structural
realism) explains power
politics in terms of the
structural dynamics of an
anarchic international
system that forces states
to rely on military self-
help.
Power politics: An approach
to politics based on the
assumption that the pursuit of
power is the principal human
goal; the term is sometimes
used descriptively.
Egoism: Greater concern
with one’s own interests or
well-being, or selfishness; the
belief that one’s own interests
are morally superior to those of
others.
National interest: Foreign
policy goals, objectives or policy
preferences that supposedly
benefit a society as a whole
(the foreign policy equivalent of
the ‘public interest’).
international system and, in particular, the fact that, in the absence of world
government, the international system is characterized by anarchy. Being, in
effect, an international‘state of nature’, the system tends towards tension, conflict
and the unavoidable possibility of war because states are forced to ensure
survival and security by relying on their own capacities and resources, rather
than any form of external support. This leads to the creation of a ‘self-help’
system in which states inevitably prioritize the build-up of military power as the
only strategy that promises to ensure survival.
The realist approach to international politics has important implications for
security. Indeed, Waltz (1979) presented security as the ‘highest end’ of international
politics. From the realist perspective, states have primary responsibility for
maintaining security, as reflected in the notion of ‘national security’. The major
threats to security therefore come from other states. In this way, the threat of
violence and other forms of physical coercion are intrinsically linked to the
prospects of inter-state war. National security is, thus, closely linked to the
prevention of such wars, usually through the build-up of military capacity to
deter potential aggressors. However, the fact that states are inclined to treat other
states as enemies does not inevitably lead to bloodshed and open violence.
Rather, realists believe that conflict can be contained by the balance of power.
Classical realists have thus advocated that the balance of power be embraced as
a policy which uses diplomacy, or possibly war, to prevent any state from achieving
a predominant position in the international system. Neorealists, for their
part, view the balance of power as a system, rather than as a policy; that is, as a
condition in which no one state predominates over others, tending to create
general equilibrium and discourage any state from pursuing hegemonic ambi-
tions.
Liberal approach
The key ideas and themes of liberal ideology are examined in Chapter 2.
However, liberalism has also had a major impact on the discipline of international
relations. This draws on a much older tradition of so-called ‘idealist’ theoS
E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 409
Kenneth Waltz (born 1924)
US international relations theorist. Waltz’s initial contribution to international relations,
outlined in Man, the State, and War (1959), adopted a conventional realist
approach and remains the basic starting point for the study of war. His Theory of
International Politics (1979) was the most influential book of international relations
theory of its generation. Ignoring human nature and the ethics of statecraft, Waltz
used system theory to explain how international anarchy effectively determines the
actions of states, with change in the international system occurring through changes
in the distribution of capabilities between and amongst states. Waltz’s analysis was
closely associated with the Cold War, and the belief that bipolarity provides a better
guarantee of peace and security than does multipolarity.
National security:
Conditions in which the survival
and safety of a particular
nation or state is secured,
usually through the build up of
military capacity to deter
aggression.
Balance of power: A
condition in which no one state
predominates over others,
tending to create general
equilibrium and curb the
hegemonic ambitions of states.
410 P O L I T I C S
rizing which dates back, via Kant’s belief in the possibility of ‘universal and
perpetual peace’, to the Middle Ages and the ideas of early ‘just war’ thinkers
such as Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). Liberalism offers an optimistic vision of
international politics, based, ultimately, on a belief in human rationality and
moral goodness (although liberals also believe that humans are naturally selfinterested
creatures). This inclines them to believe that the principle of balance
or harmony operates in all forms of social interaction. Individuals, groups and,
for that matter, states may pursue self-interest, but a natural equilibrium will
tend to assert itself. Just as, from a liberal perspective, natural or unregulated
equilibrium emerges in economic life (Adam Smith’s (see p. 130) ‘invisible hand’
of capitalism), a balance of interests develops amongst the states of the world.
This inclines liberals to believe in internationalism (see p. 117) and to hold that
realists substantially underestimate the scope for cooperation and trust to
develop within the international system (see p. 412).
Nevertheless, liberals do not believe that peace and international order
simply arise entirely on their own. Instead, mechanisms are needed to constrain
the ambitions of sovereign states, and these take the form of international
‘regimes’ or international organizations. This reflects the ideas of what is called
‘liberal institutionalism’. The basis for such a view lies in the ‘domestic analogy’,
the idea that insight into international politics can be gained by reflecting on the
structures of democratic politics. Taking particular account of social contract
theory, as developed by thinkers such as Hobbes and John Locke (see p. 31), this
highlights the fact that only the construction of a sovereign power can safeguard
citizens from the chaos and barbarity of the ‘state of nature’. If order can only be
imposed ‘from above’ in domestic politics, the same must be true of international
politics. This provided the basis for the establishment of an international
rule of law, which, as US President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) put it, would
turn the ‘jungle’ of international politics into a ‘zoo’. Liberals have therefore
generally viewed the trend towards global governance (see p. 432) in positive
terms (as discussed in Chapter 19). Against realist support for national security,
they have also supported the idea of ‘collective security’ (see p. 411), the notion
that underpinned the construction of the League of Nations and, later, the
United Nations.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
German philosopher. Kant spent his entire life in Königsberg (which was then in East
Prussia), becoming professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Königsberg
in 1770. His ‘critical’ philosophy holds that knowledge is not merely an aggregate of
sense impressions; it depends on the conceptual apparatus of human understanding.
Kant’s political thought was shaped by the central importance of morality. He
believed that the law of reason dictated categorical imperatives, the most important
of which was the obligation to treat others as ‘ends’, and never only as ‘means’. Kant’s
most important works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical
Reason (1788) and Critique of Judgement (1790).
Just war: A war that in its
purpose and content meets
certain ethical standards, and
so is (allegedly) morally
justified.
International regime: Sets
of norms or rules that govern
the interactions of states and
non-state actors in particular
issue areas.
Critical approaches
Since the late 1980s, the range of critical approaches to international politics has
expanded considerably. Until that point, Marxism had constituted the principal
alternative to mainstream realist and liberal theories. What made the Marxist
approach distinctive was that it placed its emphasis not on patterns of conflict
and cooperation between states, but on structures of economic power and the
role played in world affairs by international capital. It thus brought international
political economy, sometimes seen as a sub-field within IR, into focus.
However, hastened by the end of the Cold War, a wide range of ‘new voices’
started to influence the study of world politics, notable examples include
constructivism (see p. 16), critical theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism,
feminism and green politics. In view of their diverse philosophical underpinnings
and contrasting political viewpoints, it is tempting to argue that the only
thing that unites these ‘new voices’ is a shared antipathy towards mainstream
thinking. However, two broad similarities can be identified. The first is that,
albeit in different ways and to different degrees, they have tried to go beyond the
positivism of mainstream theory, emphasizing instead the role of consciousness
in shaping social conduct and therefore world affairs. Second, critical theories
are ‘critical’ in that, in their different ways, they oppose the dominant forces and
interests in modern world affairs and so contest the international status quo,
usually by aligning themselves with marginal or oppressed groups. Each of
them, thus, seeks to uncover inequalities and asymmetries that mainstream
theories tend to ignore.
The critical theories that have most clearly addressed the issue of security are
constructivism and feminism. Constructivism has been the most influential
post-positivist approach to international theory, and has gained significantly
greater attention since the end of the Cold War. Constructivists who follow in the
tradition of Alexander Wendt (1999), argue that interactions between states are
mediated by beliefs, values and assumptions that structure both how states see
themselves and how they understand, and respond to, the structures within
which they operate. This implies, for instance, that state behaviour is not determined,
as neorealists assert, by the structural dynamics of international anarchy,
but by how they view that anarchy. As Wendt (1992) put it,‘anarchy is what states
make of it’. While some states view anarchy as dangerous and threatening, others
may see it as the basis for freedom and opportunity. An ‘anarchy of friends’ is
thus very different from an ‘anarchy of enemies’. Constructivists argue that this
leaves open the possibility that states may transcend a narrow conception of selfinterest
and embrace the cause of global justice, even cosmopolitanism (see
pp. 51–2). Feminists, on the other hand, have criticized the realist view of security
on two other grounds. In the first place, it is premised on masculinist
assumptions about rivalry, competition and inevitable conflict, arising from a
tendency to see the world in terms of interactions amongst a series of powerseeking,
autonomous actors. Second, feminists have argued that the conventional
idea of national security tends to be self-defeating as a result of the
security paradox. This creates what has been called the ‘insecurity of security’.
For many feminists, the gendered nature of security is also reflected in the
gendered nature of war and armed conflict, as highlighted by, amongst others,
Jean Bethke Elshtain (see p. 413).
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 411
CONCEPT
Collective
security
The idea of collective
security, simply stated, is
that aggression can best
be resisted by united
action taken by a number
of states. It suggests that
states, as long as they
pledge themselves to
defend one another, have
the capacity either to
deter aggression in the
first place, or to punish
the transgressor, if
international order has
been breached. Successful
collective security
depends (1) on states
being roughly equal, (2)
on all states being willing
to bear the cost of
defending one another,
and (3) on the existence
of an international body
that has the moral
authority and military
capacity to take effective
action.
Security paradox: The
paradox that a build up of
military capacity designed to
strengthen national security
may be counter-productive, in
that it encourages other states
to adopt more threatening and
hostile postures.
412 P O L I T I C S
International relations is centrally concerned with the balance between cooperation and conflict in world affairs, traditionally
linked to the issues of war and peace. While realists argued that the tendency towards international conflict and, probably,
war are ultimately irresistible, liberals and others highlight the possibility of trust and cooperation amongst states.
Why are state relations so often characterized by fear and hostility, and can this fear and hostility ever be overcome?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Is peace and cooperation amongst states
destined to remain elusive?
Absence of world government. The tragedy of international
politics is that the only way of ensuring enduring
peace and order – the establishment of world government
– is either starkly unrealistic (states will never sacrifice
their sovereignty to a higher body), or profoundly
undesirable (it will lead to global despotism). As neorealists
point out, international anarchy tends towards
conflict because states are forced to survive through military
self-help, and this is only contained by a fortuitous,
but always temporary, balance of power. For ‘offensive’
realists (who believe that states seek to maximize power
and not merely security), when the balance of power
breaks down, war is the likely outcome (Mearsheimer,
2001).
The security dilemma. Conflict and, even, war are
inevitable because relations between states are always
characterized by uncertainty and suspicion. This is best
explained through the security dilemma. This is the
dilemma that arises from the fact that a build-up of military
capacity for defensive reasons by one state is always
liable to be interpreted as aggressive by other states. The
irresolvable uncertainty about these matters leads to
arms races and a ratcheting-up of tension between states,
especially because states are likely to assume that the
actions of other states are aggressive because misperception
in this respect risks national disaster.
Relative gains. International conflict is encouraged by
the fact that the primary concern of states is to maintain
or improve their position relative to other states; that is,
to make ‘relative’ gains. Apart from anything else, this
discourages cooperation and reduces the effectiveness of
international organizations because, although all states
may benefit from a particular action or policy, each state
is actually more worried about whether other states
benefit more than it does. In this view, international politics
is a zero-sum game: states can only improve their
position within the power hierarchy at the expense of
other states.
An interdependent world. Realism’s narrow preoccupation
with the military and diplomatic dimensions of
international politics, the so-called ‘high politics’ of security
and survival, is misplaced. Instead, the international
agenda is becoming broader with greater attention being
given to the ‘low politics’ of welfare, environmental
protection and political justice. Of particular importance
is the growing tendency for states to prioritize trade over
war, recognizing both that this opens up a non-military
route to state progress and, by deepening economic interdependence,
makes war perhaps impossible. States are
concerned with making ‘absolute’ gains, engaging in
cooperation in order to be better off in real terms, rather
than a self-defeating struggle for ‘relative’ gains.
International society. The realist emphasis on power
politics has been modified by the recognition that interacting
states constitute a ‘society’ and not merely a
‘system’. To a growing degree, international society is
rule-governed and biased in favour of order and
predictability, rather than risk and uncertainty. This
occurs because, as states interact with one another, they
develop norms and rules enabling trust and cooperation
to emerge, a tendency supported by international law,
diplomacy and the activities of international organiza-
tions.
Democratic peace thesis. Liberals have long argued that
state relations are structured as much by the internal,
constitutional structure of the state as they are by external
factors such as the structural dynamics of the international
system. In particular, strong empirical evidence
that democratic states do not go to war against one
another suggests a link between peace and democracy.
‘Democratic peace’ is upheld by the fact that public
opinion normally favours the avoidance of war; that
democracies are inclined to use non-violent forms of
conflict resolution in all of their affairs; and that cultural
ties develop amongst democracies, encouraging them to
view each other as friends not enemies.
New security challenges
From traditional wars to ‘new’ wars
International security has usually implied a search for the conditions in which
traditional, inter-state wars can be ended or prevented. Since the birth of the
modern international system through the Peace of Westphalia (1648), war has
been seen as an instrument of state policy, a means through which states gained
ascendancy over one another, or sought to resist other states’ bid for ascendancy.
As the Prussian general and military theorist Karl von Clausewitz (1780–1831)
put it, ‘War is merely a continuation of politics (or policy) by other means’.
However, war and warfare have changed. Since World War II, the number of
inter-state wars with 20 or more deaths per year rose to 9 in 1987, then dropped
to 1 in 2002, 2 in 2003 and zero in 2004. Starting with the tactics employed in the
1950s and 1960s by national liberation movements in places such as Algeria,
Vietnam and Palestine, and then extending to conflicts in countries such as
Somalia, Liberia, Sudan and the Congo, a new style of warfare has developed,
possibly even redefining war itself. Following the break-up of the USSR and
Yugoslavia in the 1990s, such ‘new’ wars occurred in Bosnia and in the Caucasus,
particularly Chechnya, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, often seen as part of
the larger ‘war on terror’.
‘New’ wars tend to be civil wars, rather than inter-state wars. About 95 per
cent of armed conflicts since the mid-1990s have occurred within states, not
between states. Civil wars have become common in the postcolonial world, where
colonialism (see p. 122) has often left a heritage of ethnic or regional rivalry,
economic underdevelopment and weakened state power; hence the emergence of
‘quasi-states’ or‘failed states’ (see p. 76). These states are weak, in that they fail the
most basic test of state power: they are unable to maintain domestic order and
personal security, meaning that civil strife, and even civil war, become routine.
This is the point, however, where domestic security becomes entangled with international
security, as the only effective protection for the domestic population may
come from external sources in the form of humanitarian intervention (see
p. 424). The complex and problematic nature of such interventions can be examined
through the example of intervention in Libya in 2011 (see p. 414).
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 413
Civil war: An armed conflict
between politically organized
groups within a state, usually
fought to gain (or retain)
control over the state, or to
establish a new state.
Jean Bethke Elshtain (born 1941)
US political philosopher. Elshtain’s Public Man, Private Woman (1981) made a major
contribution to feminist scholarship in examining the role of gender in fashioning the
division between public and private spheres in political theory. In Women and War
(1987), she discussed the perceptual lenses that determine the roles of men and
women in war, interweaving personal narrative and historical analysis to highlight the
myths that men are ‘just warriors’ and women are ‘beautiful souls’ to be saved. In Just
War Against Terror (2003), Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’ was just, in that it
was fought against the genocidal threat of ‘apocalyptic’ terrorism, a form of warfare
that made no distinction between combatants and non-combatants.
414 P O L I T I C S
Events: In February 2011, a popular uprising erupted
against President Gaddafi, as part of the Arab Spring
(see p. 88). However, unlike earlier events in Tunisia
and Egypt, the Gaddafi regime launched a brutal
crackdown and pro-Gaddafi forces started to push
eastward, threatening the rebel stronghold of
Benghazi. Fearing a bloodbath, the international
community responded swiftly. By the end of
February, the UN Security Council had placed sanctions,
an arms embargo and an asset freeze on Libya,
and referred Gaddafi’s crimes against humanity to
the International Criminal Court in the Hague. On 17
March, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973,
which mandated that ‘all necessary measures’ be
taken to protect civilians’. Two days later, a US-led
coalition launched air and missile strikes against
Libyan forces, responsibility for what was dubbed
Operation Unified Protector quickly being transferred to
NATO. In policing the arms embargo and patrolling the
no-fly zone over Libya through aerial attacks on proGaddafi
forces and military equipment, NATO’s intervention
helped to tip the balance in the conflict in favour of
the Libyan opposition. By early October, the Libyan
National Transitional Council had secured control over the
entire country and rebels had captured and killed Gaddafi.
‘Operation Unified Protector’ ended on 31 October, 222
days after it had begun (Daalder and Stavridis, 2012).
Significance: The fact that major humanitarian interventions
had not occurred since Kosovo and East Timor in
1999, and Sierra Leone in 2000 had encouraged some to
believe that the era of humanitarian intervention was
over, a reflection of the unusual set of circumstances that
prevailed during the early post-Cold War period. The USA’s
involvement in prolonged counter-insurgency wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan also served to highlight the danger of
states getting bogged down in military interventions,
especially as, sooner or later, the so-called ‘body bag
effect’ tends to weaken domestic support. The 2011
Libyan intervention, nevertheless, went ahead for two
main reasons. First, the political leaderships in the USA,
France and the UK, the key supporters of intervention,
feared the political cost of being seen to stand passively
by while widespread slaughter took place in Libya, particularly
as they had given such clear support to earlier Arab
Spring uprisings. Second, and crucially, the intervention
was deemed to be militarily feasible, both because of the
relative weakness of the pro-Gaddafi forces once they
were deprived of their aerial capacity, and in view of the
calculation that intervention could be accomplished with
minimal NATO losses, as a land invasion (‘boots on the
ground’) could be avoided.
The key moral justification for the Libyan intervention
arose from the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’
(R2P), even though the notion was not specifically cited in
Resolution 1973. The core theme of R2P is that the international
community is bound by a humanitarian imperative
to intervene to protect civilians in the event of either
an actual or apprehended large-scale loss of life, or largescale
ethnic cleansing, if the resources exist to do so and
the cost is not disproportionate. As moral responsibilities
extend, potentially, to the whole of humanity, we have an
obligation to ‘save strangers’. In the case of Libya, this
moral justification was bolstered by the legitimacy the
intervention derived from its authorization by the Security
Council and the support of key regional bodies such as the
Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Critics of
the intervention have nevertheless portrayed Libya as an
example of neocolonialism, on the grounds that it was
significantly motivated by the desire to gain control of oil
and other resources, and also reflected a continuing
attempt by western powers to control the destiny of
developing states. In this light, R2P merely provides a
moral cloak for self-seeking behaviour, and it is invoked
only when it suits the purposes of western powers. In
cases such as Syria during 2011–12 it is conveniently
ignored. Others have portrayed the Libyan intervention as
a violation of international law, in that it violated the
principle of state sovereignty.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
Intervention in Libya: a responsibility to protect?
However,‘new’ wars often pose a wider and more profound threat to civilian
populations than did the inter-state wars of old. The civilian/military divide –
which had been symbolized by the fact that traditional wars were fought by
uniformed, organized bodies of men (national armies, navies and air forces) –
has been blurred in a variety of ways. The wide use of guerrilla tactics and the
emphasis on popular resistance, or insurgency, has given modern warfare a
diffuse character. As it tends to involve a succession of small-scale engagements,
rather than set-piece, major battles, the conventional idea of a battlefield has
become almost redundant. War has developed into ‘war amongst the people’
(Smith, 2006), a tendency that has been deepened by the ‘collateral damage’ that
has sometimes been caused by counter-insurgency operations. The blurring has
also occurred because civilian populations have increasingly been the target of
military action (through the use of landmines, suicide bombs, vehicle bombs
and terrorism generally), its objective being to create economic and social dislocation,
and to destroy the enemy’s resolve and appetite for war. Modern warfare
is therefore often accompanied by a refugee crisis in which thousands, and sometimes
millions, of displaced people seek shelter and security, either on a temporary
or permanent basis.
The civilian/military divide has been further blurred by the changing nature
of armies and security forces. Guerrilla armies, for instance, consist of irregular
soldiers or armed bands of volunteers, and insurgency often comes close to
assuming the character of a popular uprising. Finally,‘new’ wars have often been
more barbaric and horrific than old ones, as the rules that have constrained
conventional inter-state warfare have commonly been set aside. Practices such as
kidnapping, torture, systematic rape and indiscriminate killings that result from
landmines, car bombs and suicide attacks have become routine features of
modern warfare. This is sometimes explained in terms of the implications of
militant identity politics, through which the enemy is defined in terms of their
membership of a particular group, rather than in terms of their role or actions.
An entire people, race or culture may therefore be defined as ‘the enemy’,
meaning that they are seen as worthless or fundamentally evil, and that military
and civilian targets are equally legitimate.
Transnational terrorism
During much of the post-1945 period, terrorism generally had a nationalist
orientation. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was associated with Third World anticolonial
struggles in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, later being taken up by
national liberation movements such the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and groups such as Black September. Terrorism was also used by disaffected
national or ethnic minorities in developed western societies, notably by
the IRA in Northern Ireland and on the UK mainland, by ETA (Euzkadi ta
Askatsuna) in the Basque region of Spain and by the FLQ (Front de libération du
Québec) in Quebec. Nevertheless, the September 11 terrorist attacks convinced
many people that terrorism had been reborn in a new and more dangerous form,
leading some to conclude that it had become the principal threat to international
peace and security.
The most obvious way in which terrorism has become more significant is
that has acquired a transnational, even global, dimension. Although the internaS
E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 415
CONCEPT
War
War is a condition of
armed conflict between
two or more parties
(usually states). The
emergence of the
modern form of war as
an organized and goaldirected
activity stems
from the development of
the European statesystem
in the early
modern period. War has a
formal or quasi-legal
character, in that the
declaration of a state of
war need not necessarily
be accompanied by the
outbreak of hostilities. In
the post-Cold War era it
has been common to
refer to ‘new’ wars. These
have been characterized,
variously, by intra-state
ethnic conflict, the use of
advanced military
technology, and the use
of terrorist and guerrilla
strategies.
Guerrilla war: (Spanish)
Literally, ‘little war’; an
insurgency or ‘people’s’ war,
fought by irregular troops using
tactics that are suited to the
terrain and emphasize mobility
and surprise, rather than
superior fire power.
Insurgency: An armed
uprising, involving irregular
soldiers, which aims to
overthrow the established
regime.
tional character of terrorism can be traced back to the advent of airplane hijackings
in the late 1960s, carried out by groups such as the PLO, 9/11 and other alQaeda,
or al-Qaeda-linked, attacks in Madrid, London and elsewhere have taken
this process to a new level. Transnational terrorism is generally associated with
the advance of globalization, in that it takes advantage of increased cross-border
flows of people, goods, money, technology and ideas, and thereby creates the
impression that terrorists can strike anywhere, at any time. Such terrorism has
also been dubbed ‘catastrophic’ terrorism or ‘hyper-terrorism’, highlighting its
radical and devastating impact, as well as the greater difficulties experienced in
counteracting it.
This applies for at least three reasons. First, an increased emphasis has been
placed on terrorist tactics that are particularly difficult to defend against,
notably, suicide terrorism. How can protection be provided against attackers
who are willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to kill others? This
contributes to the idea that, although it may be possible to reduce the likelihood
of terrorist attacks, the threat can never be eradicated. Second, the potential
scope and scale of terrorism has greatly increased as a result of modern technology,
and particularly the prospect of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
falling into the hands of terrorists. Since 9/11, governments have been trying to
plan for the possibility of terrorist attacks using chemical or biological weapons,
with the prospect of nuclear terrorism no longer being dismissed as a fanciful
idea. Third, it is sometimes argued that modern terrorists not only have easier
access to WMD, but also have a greater willingness to use them. This, allegedly is
because they may be less constrained by moral and humanitarian principles than
previous generations of terrorists. In the case of Islamist terrorism, this is
supposedly explained by the radical politico-religious ideology which inspires it,
in which western society and its associated values are viewed as evil and intrinsically
corrupt, an implacable enemy of Islam.
Upholding international security in an age of transnational terrorism has
been a particularly difficult task. Three main counter-terrorism strategies have
been employed in the modern period. The first strategy involves the revision and
strengthening of arrangements for state security, usually by extending the legal
powers of government. States, for example, have asserted control over global
financial flows; immigration arrangements have been made more rigorous, especially
during high-alert periods; the surveillance and control of domestic populations,
but particularly members of ‘extremist’ groups or terrorist sympathizers,
has been significantly tightened; and, in many cases, the power to detain terrorist
suspects has been strengthened. However, state security measures have often had
an extra-legal or, at best, quasi-legal character. In the early post-9/11 period, the
Bush administration in the USA took this approach furthest, notably by establishing
the Guantánamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, and by practices such as
‘extraordinary rendition’.
The second strategy is the use of force-based or repressive counter-terrorism,
which, in recent years, has been associated with the ‘war on terror’. Military
responses to terrorism have been designed to deny terrorists the support or‘sponsorship’
of regimes that had formerly given them succour (such as Sudan and
Afghanistan), or to launch direct attacks on terrorist training camps and terrorist
leaders. Nevertheless, as demonstrated by the US-led ‘war on terror’, military
repression may sometimes be counter-productive, especially when military action
416 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest
sense, is a form of
political violence that
aims to achieve its
objectives by creating a
climate of fear,
apprehension and
uncertainty. The most
common forms of
terrorist action include
assassinations, bombings,
hostage seizures and
plane hijacks, although
9/11 and the advent of
terrorism with a global
reach has threatened to
redefine the
phenomenon. The term is
highly pejorative and
tends to be used
selectively (one person’s
terrorist is another’s
freedom fighter). Often
portrayed as a specfically
anti-government activity,
some portray the use by
governments of terror
against their own or
other populations as
‘state terrorism’.
Weapons of mass
destruction: A category of
weapons that covers nuclear,
radiological, chemical and
biological weapons, which have
a massive and indiscriminate
destructive capacity.
against terrorism is seen to be insensitive to human rights and the interests of
civilian populations. The third strategy is the use of political deals to encourage
terrorists to abandon violence by drawing them into a process of negotiation and
diplomacy. Although this is sometimes seen as an example of appeasement, a
moral retreat in the face of intimidation and violence, the fact is that most terrorist
campaigns have political endings. In part, this is because leading figures in
terrorist movements tend to gravitate towards respectability and constitutional
politics once they recognize that terrorist tactics are generally ineffective.
Nuclear proliferation
The ‘nuclear age’ was born on 6 August 1945, when the USA dropped an atomic
bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A second bomb was dropped three
days later on Nagasaki. The unprecedented destructive potential of nuclear
weapons explains why the issue of nuclear proliferation has been at the forefront
of the international security agenda since World War II. During the Cold War
period, sometimes dubbed the ‘first nuclear age’, nuclear proliferation was
primarily ‘vertical’ (the accumulation of nuclear weapons by established nuclear
states) rather than ‘horizontal’ (the acquisition of nuclear weapons by more
states or other actors). The ‘nuclear club’ contained only the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council (the USA, the USSR, China, France and the
UK), but, during this period, the USA and the USSR built up the capacity to
destroy the world many times over. By 2002, the joint US and Russian nuclear
capacity amounted to 98 per cent of all nuclear warheads that had been built.
This nuclear arms race was fuelled, in particular, by the profound deterrence
value of nuclear weapons. In view of the devastating potential of nuclear
weapons, an attack on a nuclear power is almost unthinkable. A nuclear balance
of power therefore developed in which both the USA and the USSR acquired socalled
‘second-strike’ nuclear capabilities that would enable them to withstand
an enemy’s attack and still destroy major strategic targets and population
centres. By the early 1960s, both superpowers had an invulnerable second-strike
capability which ensured that nuclear war would result in Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD), sometimes seen as a ‘balance of terror’.
However, although the end of the Cold War and the cessation of East–West
rivalry produced early, optimistic expectations or declining concerns about
nuclear proliferation, the ‘second nuclear age’, has proved, in certain respects, to
be more troubling than the first. For one thing, established nuclear powers
continue to use nuclear strategies. Thus, even though the new START Treaty,
signed in 2010 by the USA and Russia, agreed to reduce the number of strategic
nuclear missile launchers by half, both countries would still possess 1,550
nuclear warheads. The greatest concern has, nevertheless, arisen over further
horizontal nuclear proliferation, fuelled by regional rivalries and the fact that,
particularly since the break-up of the USSR, nuclear weapons and nuclear technology
have become more readily available. India and Pakistan joined the
‘nuclear club’ in 1998, as did North Korea in 2006. Israel has been an undeclared
nuclear power, possibly since 1979, and it is widely believed that Iran is in the
process of developing an independent nuclear capacity.
Anxieties over proliferation have intensified because of the nature of the
states and other actors that may acquire nuclear capabilities. This particularly
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 417
Nuclear weapons: Weapons
that use nuclear fission (atomic
bombs) or nuclear fusion
(hydrogen bombs) to destroy
their targets, through the effect
of blast, heat and radiation.
Deterrence: A tactic or
strategy designed to prevent
aggression by emphasizing the
scale of the likely military
response (the cost of an attack
would be greater than any
benefit it may bring).
Mutually Assured
Destruction: A condition in
which a nuclear attack by
either state would only ensure
its own destruction, as both
possess an invulnerable secondstrike
capacity.
applies in the case of so-called ‘rogue states’, in which military-based dictatorial
government combines with factors such as ethnic and social conflict, and
economic underdevelopment, to dictate an aggressive foreign policy, particularly
in the context of regional instability. North Korea is widely portrayed as a potential
rogue nuclear state, which poses a threat not only to South Korea, but also to
Japan and even the USA. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran has been
seen as a profound threat to international security for a number of reasons.
These include the possibility that Israel may launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack
against Iran before it acquires nuclear capability; that Iran itself may launch an
unprovoked nuclear attack on Israel; and that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear
weapons may spark a destabilizing nuclear arms race across the entire Middle
East, with increased pressure on states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey to
acquire nuclear weapons. However, others have argued that such concerns are
alarmist and that the acquisition of nuclear weapons tends to foster caution,
even statesmanship, based on the sense of security and national prestige that
they bring, rather than nuclear adventurism. According to Waltz (2012) a
nuclear Iran would bring stability to the Middle East, as Israel and Iran would
then deter each other, without giving other countries in the region a greater
incentive to acquire their own nuclear capability.
Human security
The post-Cold War period has not only seen the emergence of new threats to
international and global security, but it has also witnessed the emergence of new
thinking about the nature of security, as such. The key shift has been from
viewing security as essentially an attribute of a state (as in ‘state security’ or
‘national security’) to viewing it as a matter for the individual, as implied by the
idea of ‘human security’. Human security has recast the concept of security by
taking on board the idea of human development, which has been used in the
UN’s Human Development Reports since 1994. This switched attention from
economic-based conceptions of poverty (for example, using an income of ‘a
dollar a day’ as a standard of poverty) to conceptions built around human capabilities,
such as the ability to acquire knowledge, access resources, achieve gender
equality and so forth. Human security thus takes account not only of the extent
to which threats posed by armed conflict have changed and, in some senses,
intensified (as discussed earlier, in relation to ‘new’ wars), but also the degree to
which modern armed conflict is entangled with issues of poverty and underdevelopment.
Economic disruption and widening inequality, which stem, amongst
other things, from disparities in the global trading system, are seen to heighten
the vulnerability of states to civil war, terrorism and warlord conflict, while, at
the same time, armed conflict disrupts economies and trade and leads to other
forms of human misery. In addition, human security takes account of non-military
sources of insecurity, bringing issues such as the lack of an assured basic
income, inadequate access to basic food and environmental degradation within
the international security agenda.
A growing concern about human security has also, at times, encouraged the
international community to assume a more interventionist stance. This can be
seen in a greater willingness to undertake humanitarian interventions since the
early 1990s, and in support for the establishment of international tribunals and,
418 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Human security
Human security refers to
the security of
individuals, rather than of
states. As such, it
embraces the notions of
both ‘freedom from fear’
and ‘freedom from want’.
Human security,
nevertheless, has a
variety of dimensions.
These include economic
security (having an
assured basic income),
food security (access to
basic food) health
security (protection from
disease and unhealthy
lifestyles), environmental
security (protection from
human-induced
environmental
degradation), personal
security (protection from
all forms of physical
violence), community
security (protection for
traditional identities and
values), political security
(the maintenance of
political rights and civil
liberties).
Rogue state: A state whose
foreign policy poses a threat to
neighbouring or other states,
through its aggressive intent,
build-up of weapons, or
association with terrorism.
Human development: A
standard of human well-being
that takes account of people’s
ability to develop their full
potential, and lead fulfilled and
creative lives in accordance
with their needs and interests.
since 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC). The conviction of Charles
Taylor – the former president of Liberia, who was found guilty in 2012 of aiding
and abetting murder, rape, enslavement and the use of child soldiers by the
Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone – was thus meant to ensure that other heads of
government or state would be less likely to act in such ways in the future. The
Landmines Treaty (1997) was, similarly, designed to deter the use, stockpiling,
production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
However, the concept of human security has also been criticized. Some have
argued, for instance, that human security has deepened and widened the concept
of security to such an extent that it has become virtually meaningless. This
particularly applies as it extends security beyond the conventional idea of
‘freedom from fear’ to include the much broader notion of ‘freedom from want’.
Furthermore, the notion may create false expectations about the international
community’s capacity to banish violence and insecurity. In other cases, however,
intervention by the international community intended to promote human security
has proved to be highly controversial, not uncommonly provoking charges
of ‘neocolonialism’. As of 2012, for example, the ICC had arrested only Africans.
S E C U R I T Y : D O M E S T I C A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L 419
Questions for discussion
Why did the USA respond to 9/11 with a ‘war on
terror’ rather than a police action against international
murderers?
Is all policing political?
If all states rest on coercive power, why do armed
forces so rarely intervene directly in politics?
When, if ever, is it justifiable to use the military as
an instrument of domestic policy?
Which approach to international politics provides
the soundest basis for understanding the prospects
for international security?
Are ‘new’ wars really more barbaric and horrific
than traditional wars?
Is transnational terrorism a greater threat to international
security than nuclear proliferation?
What have been the implications of thinking about
security in ‘human’ terms?
SUMMARY
The central role of the police is to enforce criminal law and maintain civil order. The police force may nevertheless
have a political character if social or other biases operate within it, if it is deployed in the event of
civil unrest or political disputes, and if there is a police state in which the police force is turned into a private
army that serves only the interests of the ruling elite.
The key purpose of the military is to be an instrument of war that can be directed against other political
societies. However, the military may also help to maintain domestic order and stability when civilian mechanisms
are unable or unwilling to act, and it may, in particular circumstances, displace civilian government
with a form of military rule. Military regimes, nevertheless, tend to be short-lived because they rely on coercive
power in the absence of legitimacy.
Realists advance a power politics model of world affairs in which security is primarily understood in terms of
‘national security’ and war is kept in check by the balance of power. The liberal belief in interdependence and
balance in world affairs inclines them to place their faith in ‘collective security’, while critical theorists have
either emphasized the extent to which state interactions are mediated by beliefs, values and assumptions, or
exposed masculinist biases in the conventional realist paradigm.
A variety of new security challenges have arisen in the post-Cold War era. These include: the shift from traditional,
inter-state war to ‘new’ wars, in which the civilian/military divide is typically blurred; the advent of
transnational terrorism which threatens to strike anywhere, at any time, and possibly with devastating effect;
and increased horizontal nuclear proliferation, especially linked to fears about nuclear weapons getting into
the ‘wrong’ hands.
The concept of ‘human security’ has shifted thinking about security away from the state and towards the
individual. By extending the notion of security beyond ‘freedom from fear’ to include ‘freedom from want’, it
has deepened and widened the notion of security, and thereby, potentially, extended the responsibilities of
the international community. Critics, however, argue that this risks making the concept of security virtually
meaningless, and creates false expectations about the international community’s capacity to banish violence
and insecurity.
420 P O L I T I C S
Further reading
Brewer, J., A. Guelke, I. Hume, E. Moxon-Browne and R.
Wilford, The Police, Public Order and the State
(1996). A good comparative introduction to the role
of the police in eight states.
Kaldor, M., Human Security: Reflections on
Globalization and Intervention (2007). A wideranging
and stimulating discussion of human security
in the context of the changing nature of
economic relations and armed conflict.
Silva, P. (ed.) The Soldier and the State in South America:
Essays in Civil–Military Relations (2001).A collection
of essays that examine the political impact of the
military in South America in the past and the present.
Smith, M. E., International Security: Politics, Policy,
Prospects (2010). A clear and comprehensive
account of modern threats to international security
and how such threats are managed.
CHAPTER 19 World Order and Global
Governance
‘We shall have world government whether or not you like it,
by conquest or consent.’
Statement by the US Council on Foreign Relations, February 1950
P R E V I E W The issue of world order is central to an understanding of international politics. The
shape of world order affects both the level of stability within the global system and
the balance within it between conflict and cooperation. However, since the end of
the Cold War, the nature of world order has been the subject of significant debate
and disagreement. Early proclamations of the establishment of a ‘new world order’,
characterized by peace and international cooperation, were soon replaced by talk of
a unipolar world order, with the USA taking centre stage as the world’s sole superpower.
This ‘unipolar moment’ may nevertheless have been brief. Not only did the
USA’s involvement in difficult and protracted counter-insurgency wars following
September 11 strengthen the impression of US decline, but emerging powers,
notably China, started to exert greater influence on the world stage. The notion
that unipolarity is giving way to multipolarity has, moreover, been supported by
evidence of the increasing importance of international organizations, a trend that is
sometimes interpreted as emerging ‘global governance’. Of particular importance in
this respect have been the major institutions of global economic governance – the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization –
and the centrepiece of the global governance system, the United Nations. Although
some argue that the trend in favour of global governance reflects the fact that, in
an interdependent world, states must act together to address the challenges that
confront them, others dismiss global governance as a myth and raise serious questions
about the effectiveness of international organizations.
K E Y I S S U E S What were the implications for world order of the end of the Cold
War?
Is the USA a hegemonic power, or a power in decline?
How is rising multipolarity likely to affect world politics?
Is global governance a myth or a reality?
How effective is the system of global economic governance?
Is the UN an indispensable component of the modern international
system?
422 P O L I T I C S
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY WORLD ORDER
The ‘new world order’ and its fate
Although there is considerable debate about the nature of twenty-first-century
world order, there is considerable agreement about the shape of world order
during the Cold War period. Its most prominent feature was that two major
power blocs confronted one another, a US-dominated West and a Sovietdominated
East. In the aftermath of the defeat of Germany, Japan and Italy in
World War II, and with the UK weakened by war and suffering from long-term
relative economic decline, the USA and the USSR emerged as ‘superpowers’.
Cold War bipolarity was consolidated by the formation of rival military
alliances – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 and the
Warsaw Pact in 1955, and was reflected in the division of Europe – symbolized
by the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961. Although the Cold War remained ‘cold’, in
the sense that the adversaries avoided direct confrontation, the period was characterized
by a by protracted – and, at times, extreme – tension, reflected both in
covert operations and proxy warfare and, most dramatically, in the build up by
both parties of massive armouries of nuclear weapons, creating a ‘balance of
terror’.
However, when the Cold War came to an end, the end was dramatic, swift
and quite unexpected. Over seventy years of communism collapsed in just two
years, 1989–91, and where communist regimes survived, as in China, a process
of radical change took place. During the momentous year of 1989, communist
rule in Eastern Europe was rolled back to the borders of the USSR by a series
of popular revolutions; in 1990, representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact
met in Paris formally to end the Cold War; and, in 1991, the USSR itself
collapsed. While most explained these developments in terms of the structural
weaknesses of Soviet-style communism, emphasis has also been placed on the
disruption caused in the USSR by the accelerating programme of economic
and political reform, initiated by President Gorbachev from 1985 onwards, and
on President Reagan’s so-called ‘second Cold War’ in the 1980s, when increased
military spending put massive pressure on the fragile and inefficient Soviet
economy.
The end of the Cold War produced a burst of enthusiasm for the ideas of
liberal internationalism (see p. 117). The idea that the post-Cold War era would
be characterized by a ‘new world order’ had first been mooted by Gorbachev in
a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1988. In addition to proposing a
strengthening of the United Nations and a reinvigoration of its peacekeeping
role, Gorbachev called for the ‘de-ideologization’ of relations amongst states to
achieve greater cooperation and reduce the use of force in international affairs.
In his ‘Towards a New World Order’ speech to Congress in September 1990,
President Bush Sr outlined his version for the post-Cold War world – its features
included US leadership to ensure the international rule of law, a partnership
between the USA and the USSR including the integration of the latter into the
world economic bodies, and a check on the use of force by the promotion of
collective security. This post-Cold War world order appeared to pass its first
series of major tests with ease. Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait in August 1990 led to
the construction of a broad western and Islamic alliance that, through the Gulf
CONCEPT
Superpower
A superpower (a term
first used by William Fox
in 1944) is a power that
is greater than a
traditional ‘great power’.
For Fox, superpowers
possessed great power
‘plus great mobility of
power’. As the term tends
to be used specifically to
refer to the USA and the
USSR during the Cold
War period, it is of more
historical than
conceptual significance.
Nevertheless,
superpowers are generally
assumed to have: (1) a
global reach, allowing
them to operate
anywhere in the world;
(2) a predominant
economic and strategic
role within an ideological
bloc or sphere of
influence; and (3)
preponderant military
capacity, especially in
terms of nuclear
weaponry.
World order: The
distribution of power between
and amongst states and other
key actors, giving rise to a
relatively stable pattern of
relationships and behaviours.
Bipolarity: The tendency of
the international system to
revolve around two poles
(major power blocs).
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 423
Focus on . . .
Humanitarian intervention
Humanitarian intervention is military intervention that
is carried out in pursuit of humanitarian rather than
strategic objectives. The growth in humanitarian intervention
reflects the wider acceptance of universalist
doctrines such as human rights (see p. 342) and the
fact that democratic support for warfare can increasingly
be mobilized only on the basis of a moral cause.
Supporters of humanitarian intervention see it as
evidence of the inability of states in a global age to
restrict their moral responsibilities to their own people.
Humanitarian intervention has been seen as justified
in the following circumstances:
In the case of gross abuses of human rights (such as
the expulsion or extermination of large numbers of
defenceless people).
When such abuses threaten the security of neighbouring
states.
When the absence of democracy weakens the principle
of national self-determination.
When diplomatic means have been exhausted and
the human cost of intervention is less than that of
non-intervention.
Critics of humanitarian intervention, however, make the
following points:
Any violation of state sovereignty weakens the
established rules of world order.
Aggression has almost always been legitimized by
humanitarian justification (examples include
Mussolini and Hitler).
Military intervention invariably leaves matters
worse, not better, or draws intervening powers into
long-term involvement.
War of 1991, brought about the expulsion of Iraqi forces. The advent of a new
moral consciousness in foreign affairs was also evident in the wider use of
‘humanitarian intervention’, notably in NATO’s campaign of aerial bombing that
removed Serb forces from Kosovo in 1999.
However, the wave of optimism and idealism that greeted the post-Cold War
world did not last long. Many were quick to dismiss the‘new world order’ as little
more than a convenient catchphrase, and one that was certainly not grounded in
a developed strategic vision. Much of how this‘new world’ would work remained
vague. Moreover, alternative interpretations of the post-Cold War world order
were not slow in emerging. Some heralded the rise not of a new world order but,
rather, a new world disorder. The reason for this was the release of stresses and
tensions that the Cold War had helped to keep under control. By maintaining the
image of an external threat (be it international communism or capitalist encirclement),
the Cold War had served to promote internal cohesion and given societies
a sense of purpose and identity. However, the collapse of the external threat
helped to unleash centrifugal pressures, which usually took the form of ethnic,
racial and regional conflict. This occurred in many parts of the world, but was
particularly evident in Eastern Europe, as demonstrated in the prolonged bloodshed
in the 1990s amongst Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.
Far from establishing a world order based on respect for justice and human
rights, (see p. 342), the international community stood by in former Yugoslavia
and, until the Kosovo crisis, allowed Serbia to wage a war of expansion and
perpetrate genocidal policies reminiscent of those used in World War II.
Genocide: An attempt to
eradicate a people – identified
by their nationality, race,
ethnicity or religion – through
acts including mass murder,
forced resettlement, and forced
sterilization.
424 P O L I T I C S
Hyperpower: A power that
commands much greater power
than any of its potential rivals,
and so dominates world
politics.
Unipolarity: An
international system in which
there is one pre-eminent state;
the existence of a single great
power.
Clash of civilizations
thesis: The theory that twentyfirst
century conflict would not
primarily be ideological or
economic, but rather cultural: it
would be conflict between
nations from ‘different
civilizations’.
Nevertheless, the greatest weakness of the idea of an emerging liberal world
order was a failure to take account of the shifting role and status of the USA. The
main significance of the end of the Cold War was the collapse of the USSR as a
meaningful challenger to the USA, leaving the USA as the world’s sole superpower,
a hyperpower or ‘global hegemon’. Indeed, talk of a ‘new world order’
may have been nothing more than an ideological tool to legitimize the global
exercise of power by the USA. In other words, the ‘liberal moment’ in world
affairs turned out to be the ‘unipolar moment’. However, the implications of a
unipolar world order only emerged over a period of time.
The ‘war on terror’ and beyond
September 11, 2001 is often seen as a defining moment in world history, the
point at which the true nature of the post-Cold War era was revealed and the
beginning of the period of unprecedented global strife and instability. In that
sense, the advent of the ‘war on terror’ (see p. 401), rather than the collapse of
communism, marked the birth of the ‘real’ twenty-first century. On the other
hand, it is possible to exaggerate the impact of 9/11. As Robert Kagan (2004) put
it, ‘America did not change on September 11. It only became more itself’.
A variety of theories have been advanced to explain the advent of global, or
transnational, terrorism (see p. 416) and the nature of the ‘war on terror’. The
most influential and widely discussed of these is Samuel Huntington’s (see p.
425) theory of a clash of civilizations. Huntington argued that the major civilizations
(western, Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Latin American
and Orthodox Christian) would become, in the absence of the East–West ideological
conflict and in reaction to globalization (see p. 142), the principal actors
in world affairs. Such an analysis contrasted sharply with the expectation of ‘end
of history’ theorists such as Francis Fukuyama (see p. 271) that politico-cultural
divisions would narrow and ultimately evaporate as all parts of the world
converged around support for liberal-democratic values and systems.
Huntington particularly warned about the likelihood of conflict between China
(wedded to distinctive Sinic cultural values, despite rapid economic growth) and
the West, and between the West and Islam.
Huntington’s thesis has nevertheless been widely criticized. The most
common criticism is that it fails to recognize the extent to which globalization
and other forces have already blurred cultural differences in many parts of the
world. For instance, the notion of an ‘Islamic civilization’ or a ‘western civilization’
fails to take account of either the extent of political, cultural and social division
within each ‘civilization’, or the extent to which Islam and the West have
influenced one another, and continue to do so. Moreover, the link between
cultural difference and political antagonism is, at best, questionable, as most
wars take place between states from the same, rather than different, civilizations.
Finally, conflict between civilizations may be more an expression of perceived
economic and political injustice than of cultural rivalry. The rise of political
Islam, for instance, may be better explained by tensions and crises (in the Middle
East in general and the Arab world in particular) linked to the inheritance of
colonialism, the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the survival of unpopular
but often oil-rich autocratic regimes, and urban poverty and unemployment,
than by cultural incompatibility between western and Islamic value systems.
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 425
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008)
US academic and political commentator. Huntington made influential contributions
in three fields: military politics, strategy and civil–military relations; US and comparative
politics; and political development and the politics of less-developed societies.
In The Third Wave (1991) he coined the notion of ‘waves of democratization’ and
linked the process of democratization after 1975 to two earlier waves, in 1828–1926
and 1943–62. His most widely discussed work, The Clash of Civilizations and the
Making of World Order (1996), advanced the controversial thesis that, in the twentyfirst
century, conflict between the world’s major civilizations would lead to warfare
and international disorder.
Alternative explanations highlight the significance of changes in world order.
According to Robert Cooper (2004), the East–West confrontation of the old
world order has given way to a world divided into three parts:
In the ‘premodern’ world, by which Cooper meant those post-colonial states
that have benefited neither from political stability nor from economic
development, chaos reigns. Examples of such states include Somalia,
Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sometimes seen as
‘weak states’, ‘failed states’ (see p. 76) or rogue states.
In the ‘modern’ world, states continue to be effective and are fiercely protective
of their own sovereignty (see p. 58). Such a world operates on the basis
of a balance of power, as the interests and ambitions of one state are only
constrained by the capabilities of other states.
In the ‘postmodern’ world, which Cooper associated primarily with Europe
and the European Union (EU), states have evolved ‘beyond’ power politics,
and have abandoned war as a means of maintaining security in favour
of multilateral agreements, international law and global governance (see
p. 432).
This view of the emerging world order, however, highlights a range of challenges
and new security threats. Not the least of these arises from the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which, in the premodern world,
can easily get into the hands of ‘rogue’ states or non-state actors (such as terrorist
organizations). Particular concern has been expressed about nuclear proliferation,
the membership of the so-called ‘nuclear club’ having expanded from five
(the USA, Russia, China, France and the UK) to nine, with the acquisition of
nuclear weapons by India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, and with other
countries, such as Iran, thought to be close to developing them (as discussed in
Chapter 18). Although Europe may be a ‘zone of safety’, outside Europe there is
a ‘zone of danger and chaos’ in which the instabilities of the premodern world
threaten to spill over into the modern – and even the postmodern – worlds.
Cooper (2004) acknowledged that a kind of ‘new’ imperialism (see p. 427) may
be the only way of bringing order to chaos. Such an analysis overlaps at significant
points with the neoconservative (or ‘neo-con’) ideas that had a particular
426 P O L I T I C S
Bush doctrine: The doctrine,
outlined by President George
W. Bush in 2002, that the USA
had a right to treat states that
harbour, or give aid to, terrorists
as terrorists themselves.
CONCEPT
Pre-emptive
attack
A pre-emptive attack (or
preventative war) is
military action that is
designed to forestall or
prevent likely future
aggression – ‘getting your
retaliation in first’. The
attractions of preemptive
attack include
that greater destruction
may be avoided and that
military action is taken
before a potential
aggressor becomes too
strong to be challenged.
Its drawbacks include
that calculations about
future actions or threats
may be flawed and that
the notion may simply be
a cloak for aggression.
Pre-emptive attack is
almost certainly illegal
under the UN Charter,
which authorizes war
only in the case of self-
defence.
impact on the Bush administration in the USA in the years following 9/11, and
which were reflected in what came to be known as the Bush doctrine.
Neoconservatives thus sought to preserve and reinforce what was seen as the
USA’s ‘benevolent global hegemony’ (Kristol and Kagan, 2004). Its key features
included a build-up of the USA’s military strength to achieve a position of
‘strength beyond challenge’ and an assertive, interventionist foreign policy that
set out to promote liberal-democratic governance through a process of ‘regime
change’, achieved by military means if necessary.
After 9/11, the USA’s approach to the ‘war on terror’ quickly started to take
shape. Its opening act was the US-led military assault on Afghanistan that
toppled the Taliban regime within a matter of weeks. The ‘war on terror’,
however, moved in a more radical and controversial direction as it became clear
that ‘regime change’ in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was the Bush administration’s
next objective. This led to the 2003 Iraq War, fought by the USA and a ‘coalition
of the willing’.What made the Iraq War controversial was that, whereas the attack
on Afghanistan had been widely seen as a form of self-defence (Afghanistan had
provided al-Qaeda with the closest thing to a home base), the war against Iraq
was justified using the doctrine of pre-emptive attack. Although the Bush
administration alleged (with little substantiation) that there were links between
the Saddam regime and al-Qaeda, and asserted (contrary to subsequent
evidence) that Iraq was in possession of WMD, the central justification was that
a ‘rogue’ regime such as Saddam’s that actively sought, and may have acquired,
WMD could not be tolerated in the twenty-first century.
In both Afghanistan and Iraq, despite early dramatic successes (the overthrow
of the Taliban and Saddam regimes), the USA and its allies found themselves
fighting wars that proved to be more problematic and protracted than
anticipated. Both developed into complex counter-insurgency wars against
enemies whose use of the tactics of guerrilla warfare, terrorism and suicide
bombings highlighted the limitations of preponderant US military power. As in
the Vietnam War (1959–76), guerrilla warfare tactics proved to be highly effective
against a much more powerful and better resourced enemy, but the use of
military means had also weakened the USA’s ‘soft’ power (see p. 428) and
damaged its reputation across the Middle East. In that sense, the USA was in
danger of creating the very ‘arc of extremism’ that it had set out to destroy. In
addition, the strategy of imposing ‘democracy from above’ had proved to be
naïve at best – failing, in particular, to recognize the difficulties involved in the
process of ‘state-building’ (as discussed in Chapter 3).
Significant shifts occurred in the ‘war on terror’ once President Obama was
inaugurated in January 2009, building on a drift towards multilateralism (see p.
435) during Bush’s second term in office, 2005–09. In line with the advice of
soft-power theorists for the USA to ‘learn to cooperate, and to listen’ (Nye,
2004), Obama altered the tone of the USA’s engagement with world affairs
generally, and with the Muslim world in particular. In a keynote speech in Cairo
in June 2009, he called for a ‘new beginning’ between the USA and Muslims
around the world, acknowledging that ‘no system of government can and
should be imposed upon one nation by another’. However, even though the
rhetoric of the ‘war on terror’ was quickly toned down and soon abandoned,
and the strategic approach to it was revised, military engagement continued to
play an important role under Obama. This was reflected in a significant shift of
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 427
Hegemon: A leading or
paramount power.
Multipolarity: An
international system in which
there are three or more power
centres, creating a bias in
favour of fluidity and, perhaps,
instability.
Imperial over-reach: The
tendency for imperial
expansion to be unsustainable
as wider military responsibilities
outstrip the growth of the
domestic economy.
CONCEPT
Imperialism
Imperialism is, broadly,
the policy of extending
the power or rule of a
state beyond its borders.
In its earliest usage,
imperialism was an
ideology of conquest and
expansion, designed
either to extend dynastic
authority or to further
nationalist ambitions. The
term is now more
commonly used to
describe any form of
external domination, and
includes both the
imposition of direct
political control through
colonialism (see p. 122)
and economic
exploitation in the
absence of political rule,
or neocolonialism.
Marxists and realists
disagree over whether
imperialism is essentially
an economic or a
political phenomenon.
emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the form of what became
known as the ‘Af-Pak’ policy. Thanks to the success of the ‘surge’ in US troops,
which started in 2007, in reducing levels of civil strife and civilian deaths in
Iraq, responsibility for maintaining security in Iraqi towns and cities was passed
from US and allied troops to Iraqi forces in 2009, and the USA’s combat mission
in Iraq ended in August 2010. Under Obama's redrawn battle strategy for
Afghanistan, a similar ‘surge’ was initiated in early 2010, in an attempt to
refocus and re-energize NATO’s deeply problematic mission there. At the same
time, July 2011 was set as the date that US forces in Afghanistan would start to
withdraw, with a commitment that by the end of 2014 the USA’s ‘combat’
mission will have ceased.
From unipolarity to multipolarity?
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq raised major questions about the nature and
extent of the USA’s global leadership. In sharp contrast to the image of the USA
as the ‘indispensable nation’, a benevolent hegemon whose widening influence
brought peace and prosperity, radical theorists such as Noam Chomsky (see p.
181) portrayed the USA as a ‘rogue superpower’, the principal source of terrorism
and violence across the globe. Whether its hegemony (see p. 174) was benevolent
or malign, the difficulty the USA experienced in achieving its military and
political goals through the ‘war on terror’ convinced many that its global leadership
was faltering, a conclusion supported by the 2007–09 global financial crisis
(as discussed in Chapter 6). These developments, indeed, have been seen as part
of a wider process; namely, a significant redistribution of global power, with
unipolarity giving way to multipolarity. Rising multipolarity has been associated
with three main trends:
the decline of the USA
the rise of China and other ‘emerging powers’
the changing nature of power and power relations.
Decline of the USA?
Debates about the decline of the USA’s global hegemony are nothing new. They
date back to the late 1950s and the launch by the USSR of the Sputnik satellite.
During the 1970s and 1980s, it became fashionable to proclaim that the USA had
been eclipsed by resurgent Japan and Germany, the USA succumbing to a
tendency, common amongst earlier great powers, to imperial over-reach
(Kennedy, 1989). However, the issue has resurfaced with renewed force in the
early twenty-first century. Although judgements about a state’s ranking within a
hierarchy are bedevilled by the complex and multifaceted nature of global power
(see p. 428), the idea of US decline has been linked to a number of developments.
The USA’s military dominance over the rest of the world is, undeniably, huge. By
2007, the USA accounted for 46 per cent of the world’s military spending, and
had a nine-fold lead over China, the second largest military spender. The USA
has some 700 military bases in over 100 countries, as well as an unchallengeable
lead in hi-tech weaponry and airpower. Yet, preponderant military power may
no longer be a secure basis for hegemony. There is a huge gap between the
428 P O L I T I C S
destructive capacity of the US military machine and what it can achieve politically.
The forced withdrawals of the USA from Lebanon in 1984 and Somalia in
1993, and the difficulty of winning asymmetrical wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
demonstrate how the use of terrorist, guerrilla and insurrectionary tactics can
thwart even the most advanced power.
A major component of the debate about US power is the focus on its relative
economic decline. Although the USA remains the world’s largest economy, its
Focus on . . .
Dimensions of global power
There is no agreement about the precise factors that
allow states and other key actors to exert influence on
the world stage. Nevertheless, global power can be
seen to have a number of dimensions:
Military power: For many commentators, power in
international politics boils down to military capacity.
Realist theorists, for example, have traditionally
favoured a ‘basic force’ model of power, on the
grounds that military capacity enables a country
both to protect its territory and people from
external aggression, and to pursue its interests
abroad through conquest and expansion. Key
factors are therefore the size of the armed forces;
their effectiveness in terms of morale, training,
discipline and leadership; and, crucially, their access
to advanced weaponry and equipment.
Nevertheless, military capabilities may not translate
into genuine political efficacy, as the ‘unusability’ of
nuclear weapons in most circumstances demon-
strates.
Economic power: The ‘weight’ of states in international
affairs is closely linked to their wealth and
economic resources. This applies, in part, because
economic development underpins military capacity,
as wealth enables states to develop large armies,
acquire modern weapons, and wage costly or
sustained wars. Modern technology and a vast
industrial base also gives states political leverage in
relation to trading partners, especially if their
national currency is so strong and stable that it is
used as a means of international exchange. Liberals
tend to argue that, in an age of globalization, trade
had displaced war as the chief currency of international
politics.
‘Soft’ power: Thinking about global power has
conventionally focused on ‘hard’ power – the ability
to affect the behaviour of others through the use of
inducements (carrots) or threats (sticks); in effect, a
combination of economic and military power. ‘Soft’
power is ‘co-optive power’; it rests on the ability to
shape the preferences of others by attraction, rather
than coercion (Nye, 2004). Whereas hard power
draws on resources such as force, sanctions,
payments and bribes, soft power operates largely
through culture, political ideals and foreign policies
(especially policies imbued with moral authority).
However, soft power strategies are seldom effective
on their own – hard and soft power typically reinforcing
one another through what has been called
‘smart power’ (Nye, 2008).
Structural power: Structural power is the power to
decide ‘how things are done’, reflected in the ability
to shape the frameworks within which states relate
to one another, relate to people, or relate to corporate
enterprises (Strange, 1996). Of particular
significance, in this respect, is the influence states
exert through their participation within regimes and
international organizations, allowing them to have a
wider, if less tangible, impact on matters ranging
from finance and trade to security and development.
Nevertheless, structural power usually operates
alongside ‘relational’ power (the direct
influence one actor has on another actor), providing
alternative ways of explaining how outcomes in
international politics are determined.
Asymmetrical war: War
fought between opponents
with clearly unequal levels of
military, economic and
technological power, in which
warfare strategies tend to be
adapted to the needs of the
weak.
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 429
competitors, notably China and India, have been growing much more quickly in
recent decades, with the Chinese economy being predicted to outstrip the US
economy, perhaps by 2020. The 2007–09 global financial crisis may have further
weakened the USA, exposing the flaws of the US economic model and bringing
the dollar’s position as the world’s leading currency into question. On the other
hand, the USA continues to account for about 40 per cent of world spending on
research and development, giving it an almost unassailable technological lead
over other countries and ensuring high productivity levels. China is generations
away from rivalling the USA in the technologically advanced sectors of the
economy. Moreover, just as the British Empire remained a global hegemon until
the mid-twentieth century, despite being overtaken in economic terms by the
USA and Germany in the late nineteenth century, the USA may continue to retain
global leadership in a world in which it is no longer the economic number one.
US power, nevertheless, may have declined more in terms of ‘soft’ power than
in terms of ‘hard’ power. This has happened in a number of ways. The USA’s
reputation has been damaged by its association with corporate power and by
widening global inequality, with resentment developing against what has been
seen as ‘globalization-as-Americanization’. As discussed above, serious damage
has also been done to the USA’s moral authority by the ‘war on terror’ generally
and the Iraq War in particular, made worse by the treatment of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib and in the Guantánamo detention camp. Such developments are nevertheless
counterbalanced by the USA’s continued and unrivalled structural power.
The USA exercises disproportional influence over the institutions of global
economic governance (see p. 436) and over NATO. Despite the growing influence
of the developing world and of emerging economies, no country is close to
challenging the USA’s influence over global economic decision-making. Indeed,
although – as demonstrated by the 2011 intervention in Libya (see p. 414) – the
USA’s global leadership is no longer so consistent or forthright, US involvement
in matters related to intervention and economic, military or political affairs
remains indispensable. Without the USA, nothing happens.
Rise of China and ‘the rest’
Of all the powers that may rival, or even eclipse, the USA, the most significant is
undoubtedly China. Indeed, many predict that the twenty-first century will
become the ‘Chinese century’, just as the twentieth century had been the
‘American century’. The basis for China’s great power status is its rapid economic
progress since the introduction of market reforms in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping
(1904–97), the most dramatic phase of which began only in the 1990s. Annual
growth rates of between 8 and 10 per cent for almost thirty years (about twice
the levels achieved by the USA and other western states) meant that China
became the world’s largest exporter in 2009, and, in 2010, it overtook Japan to
become the world’s second largest economy. With the world’s largest population
(1.3 billion in 2007), China has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap
labour, making it, increasingly, the manufacturing heart of the global economy.
China’s emerging global role is evident in the influence it now exerts within the
World Trade Organization (WTO) and the G20 over issues such as climate
change in its burgeoning resource links with Africa, Australia and parts of the
Middle East and Latin America. An often neglected aspect of China’s growing
Climate change: A shift in
long-term or prevalent weather
conditions; the term is almost
always used to refer to the
phenomenon of 'global
warming'.
influence is the extraordinary rise of its ‘soft’ power. This reflects both the significance
of Confucianism (see p. 278) in providing a cultural basis for cooperation
in Asia, and the attraction of its anti-imperialist heritage in Africa and across
much of the global South.
Nevertheless, the rise of China is often seen as part of a larger shift in the
balance of global power from West to East, and specifically to Asia, and maybe
from the USA to the BRICs countries, sometimes dubbed‘the rest’. Initial predictions
of the growing economic might of the BRICs countries suggested that they
would exceed the combined strength of the industrialized G7 countries by the
middle of the twenty-first century, although this has been repeatedly revised and
could occur as early as 2021. An alternative scenario is that the twenty-first
century will not so much be the ‘Chinese century’ as the ‘Asian century’, with
India, Japan and South Korea also being key actors. The transformation of India
into an emerging power has been based on economic growth rates only marginally
less impressive than China’s. It is estimated that, if recent trends persist, by
2020 China and India will jointly account for half of the world’s GDP.
However, the continued forward march of a Chinese-led Asia, or the BRICs
countries, cannot be taken for granted. In addition to showing signs of an
economic slowdown in 2011 and 2012, the Chinese economy remains heavily
dependent on supplies of cheap labour, and a transition to a more highlytechnologized
economy based on advanced skills and production techniques has
yet to be achieved. The most serious challenge facing China, however, may be
how it reconciles tensions between its political and economic structures. While
the Chinese political system remains firmly Stalinist, based on single-party rule
by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its economic system is increasingly
market-orientated and firmly embedded in the global capitalist system.
Although authoritarianism (p. 277) may have advantages in terms of managing
large-scale economic change and, for instance, pushing through audacious infrastructure
programmes, it may be unable to cope with the pluralizing and liberalizing
pressures generated by a market capitalist system.
Moreover, neither China nor any of the other BRICs countries shows a capacity
for, or willingness to demonstrate, political or diplomatic leadership by
openly challenging the USA. This is both because they recognize that US hegemony
has a variety of advantages (not least that the USA contributes disproportionately
to maintaining the international frameworks through which they
increasingly exert influence) and because their desire for economic development
takes precedence over geopolitical leadership. Finally, the capacity of the BRICS
countries to act as a single entity is severely restricted by political, ideological and
economic differences among its members. Indeed, the principal significance of
the BRICS countries may be less that they reflect the common interests of ‘the
rest’ and more that they represent a device through which China can bolster its
position in relation to the USA, without risking a direct confrontation that may
endanger its ‘peaceful rise’ (see p. 431).
Changing nature of power and power relations
Multipolar trends are not evident only in the decline of old powers and the
growth of new powers, but also in the wider diffusion of power beyond the
control of any state. This has been evident in globalization’s tendency to
430 P O L I T I C S
The BRICs countries: A
collective term for the four
large, fast-growing economies
of Brazil, Russia, India and
China.
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 431
China’s emergence is customarily referred to by Chinese authorities as a its ‘peaceful rise’. This confounds the conventional
expectation that emerging powers become great powers largely by building up military power and through the use
of war. In this view, major shifts in world order are seldom accomplished peacefully, suggesting that war, in particular
between ‘rising’ China and the ‘declining’ USA, is likely, if not inevitable. Is China a rising power of a different kind? Has
military power become redundant in world affairs?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Will China’s rise continue to be peaceful?
Implications of interdependence. The key reason why
China’s rise has been, and will continue to be, peaceful is
that it is taking place within an international system
shaped by globalization. Globalization reduces the incidence
of war in two main ways. First, rising states such as
China no longer need to make economic gains by
conquest because globalization offers a cheaper and
easier route to national prosperity, in the form of trade.
Second, by significantly increasing levels of economic
interdependence, globalization makes a Chinese recourse
to war almost unthinkable. This is because of the
economic costs that war would involve – destroyed trade
partnerships, lost external investment, and so on.
‘Soft’ balancing. Neorealist theorists argue that,
confronted by a rising or major power, other states will
tend to ‘balance’ (oppose or challenge that power for fear
of leaving itself exposed), rather than ‘bandwagon’ (side
with that power; that is, ‘jump on the bandwagon’).
However, China’s inclination to ‘balance’ against the USA
will be confined to the adoption of ‘soft’ (non-military)
balancing strategies, because the latter’s huge military
dominance is unlikely to be abandoned in the near
future. Similarly, the likelihood that the USA will adopt
‘hard’ (military) balancing strategies against China has
greatly reduced due to the difficulties it experienced in
waging the ‘war on terror’.
Sino–US bipolar stability. As the twenty-first century
progresses, world order may be reshaped on a bipolar,
rather than multipolar, basis. The military, economic and
structural strengths of the USA are not going to fade
soon, and China, already an economic superpower, is
clearly not merely one of ‘the rest’. Sino–US relations
may, as a result, come to replicate US–USSR relations
during the ‘long peace’ of the Cold War period. In other
words, bipolarity will, once again, prove to be the surest
way of preventing rivalry and hostility spilling over into
aggression, as it provides the most favourable conditions
for a stable balance of power.
Multipolar instabilities. China’s rise is part of a wider
restructuring of world order, in which global power is
being distributed more widely. Neorealists argue that such
multipolarity creates conditions that are inherently prone
to conflict and instability, making it increasingly unlikely
that China will maintain its ‘peaceful rise’. As multipolarity
favours fluidity and uncertainty, shifting alliances and
power imbalances, it creates opportunities (just as in the
run-up to World War I and World War II) for ambitious
states to make a bid for power through conquest and
expansion. As states seek to maximize power, and not
merely security, such circumstances make great powers
prone to indiscipline and risk-taking (Mearsheimer, 2001).
Cultural and ideological rivalry. Sino–US bipolarity may
pose a greater threat to global peace than did Cold War
bipolarity. Whereas antagonism between the USA and the
USSR was primarily ideological in character, in the case
of ‘liberal-democratic’ USA and ‘Confucian’ China ideological
differences are rooted in deeper cultural divisions.
These may provide the basis for growing enmity and
misunderstanding, in line with the ‘clash of civilizations’
thesis. The transfer of hegemony from the British Empire
in the nineteenth century to the USA in the twentieth
century may, thus, have remained peaceful only because
of cultural similarities that allowed the UK to view the
‘rising’ USA as essentially unthreatening.
Flashpoints. There are various flashpoints that have the
potential to turn tension and hostility into aggression.
Chief amongst these is Taiwan, where US support for
an independent and ‘pro-western’ Taiwan clashes with
China's quest to incorporate Taiwan into ‘greater China’
(Carpenter, 2006). Other issues that may inflame Sino–US
relations include Tibet, where Beijing’s policy of aggressive
‘Sinofication’ conflicts with Washington’s unofficial
support for Tibetan independence; human rights generally,
but especially China’s treatment of ‘pro-democracy’ dissidents;
and the future of disputed islands in the East and
South China Seas.
strengthen the role of non-state actors. Transnational corporations (TNCs) (see
p. 149), for example, increasingly dominate the global economy, accounting for
about 50 per cent of world manufacturing production and over 70 per cent of
world trade. Moreover, TNCs are able to elude political control because of the
ease with which they can locate investment and production. Similarly, nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) (see p. 248) have proliferated since the
1980s, coming to exercise powerful influence within international organizations
such as the European Union and the United Nations.
As well as power being reapportioned amongst the states of the world, and
between states and non-state actors of various kinds, there are reasons for thinking
that the nature of power is changing in ways that make its concentration in a
small number of hands increasingly difficult to sustain. This has happened in two
main ways. First, due to technology, and in a world of global communications,
and rising literacy rates and educational standards, ‘soft’ power has become as
important as ‘hard’ power in influencing political outcomes. Military power, the
traditional currency of world politics, has certainly not become irrelevant, but its
use is greatly undermined when it is not matched by‘hearts and minds’strategies.
For instance, the use of ‘shock and awe’ tactics by the US military in Iraq, and
other demonstrations of US coercive power, have proved to be counter-productive,
in the sense that they damaged the USA’s reputation and its moral authority,
particularly across the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Second, new technology has, in a number of ways, altered power balances
both within and between societies, often empowering the traditionally powerless.
For instance, al-Qaeda influence on world politics after 9/11 was out of all
proportion to its organizational and economic strength, because modern technology,
in the form of bombs and airplanes, had given its terrorist activities a
global reach. Advances in communication technology, particularly the use of
mobile phones and the internet, have also improved the tactical effectiveness of
loosely organized groups, ranging from terrorist bands to protest groups and
social movements. Finally, public opinion around the world, and thus the behaviour
of governments, is affected by the near-ubiquitous access to television and
the wider use of satellite technology. This ensures, for example, that pictures of
devastation and human suffering – whether caused by warfare, famine or natural
disasters – are shared across the globe almost instantaneously. (The political
influence of new forms of information and communication technology is examined
in greater detail in Chapter 8.)
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Rise of global governance
The issue of world order tends to focus on an image of international politics in
which states are assumed to be the primary actors, world affairs largely being
determined by the (sometimes shifting) distribution of power amongst states.
However, this only gives us partial insight into the workings of the modern international
system. A further major component is the framework of global governance,
which, to a greater or lesser extent, helps to shape interactions amongst
states. But what is global governance? Why has it developed, and how significant
432 P O L I T I C S
International
organization: An institution
with formal procedures and a
membership comprising three
or more states, sometimes
called an ‘international
governmental organization’
(IGO).
CONCEPT
Global
governance
Global governance refers
to a broad, dynamic and
complex process of
interactive decisionmaking
at the global
level, involving formal
and informal
mechanisms, as well as
governmental and nongovernmental
bodies.
Global governance is
characterized by
polycentrism (different
institutional frameworks
and decision-making
mechanisms operate in
different issue areas),
intergovernmentalism
(states and national
governments retain
considerable influence
within the global
governance system) and
mixed actor involvement
(the public/private divide
is blurred through the
involvement of NGOs,
TNCs and the like).
is it? Global governance has been described as a ‘collection of governance-related
activities, rules and mechanisms, formal and informal, existing at a variety of
levels in the world today’ (Karns and Mingst, 2009). Global governance hovers
somewhere between the traditional idea of international anarchy (in which
states interact in the absence of a supranational authority) and the fanciful idea
of world government (in which all of humankind is united under one common
political authority). As such, global governance is a process of interactive decision-making
that allows still-sovereign states to engage in sustained cooperation
and, at times, undertake collective action. The growth in the number and importance
of international organizations has certainly been a key factor in the emergence
of a system of global governance, to such an extent that global governance
is sometimes, in effect, used as a collective term describing the international
organizations currently in existence. However, global governance and an international
organization are not synonymous, as the former has mixed actor
involvement, featuring (in addition to states and international organizations)
NGOs, TNCs and other institutions of global civil society (see p. 106).
The rise of international organizations nevertheless provides an indication of
the growing significance of global governance. The end of World War II marked
the emergence of a global governance system with the creation of the United
Nations and the institutions of the Bretton Woods system (examined in the next
section). By 1949, the number of international organizations stood at 123,
compared with 49 in 1914. By the mid-1980s, the total number of such bodies
had reached 378, with the average membership per organization standing at over
40 (compared with 18.6 in 1945, and 22.7 in 1964). Although their number
subsequently declined, largely due to the dissolution of the Soviet bloc organizations
at the end of the Cold War, this masks a substantial growth in international
agencies and other institutions, as the number of bodies spawned by international
organizations themselves has continued to grow. Liberals such as Robert
Keohane (see p. 434) tend to explain such developments in terms of growing
interdependencies amongst states, associated with concerns about power politics,
economic crises, human rights violations, development disparities and environmental
degradation. International organizations are therefore a reflection of
the extent of interdependence in the global system, an acknowledgement by
states that, increasingly, they can achieve more by working together than by
working separately. In this view, states will cooperate when each calculates that it
will make ‘absolute’ gains as a result.
Realists, in contrast, tend to explain the growth of global governance in terms
of the emerging hegemonic role of the USA, which saw the pursuit of US national
interests and the promotion of international cooperation as mutually sustaining
goals. International organization is linked to hegemony because only a hegemonic
state possesses the power to tolerate the ‘relative’ gains that other states may
make, so long as they make ‘absolute’ gains themselves. From this perspective, a
hegemon needs not only to be able to enforce the ‘rules of the game’, but also to
be committed to a system that brings benefit to the mass of states. Critical theorists,
for their part, tend to view international organizations as devices constructed
to serve the dominant interests of the global system – the hegemonic power;
western industrialized states generally; TNCs and social, ethnic and gender elites
across the global North. In this view, international organizations reflect and, to
some degree, exist to consolidate global inequalities and asymmetries.
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 433
CONCEPT
Interdependence
Interdependence’ refers
to a relationship between
two parties in which each
is affected by decisions
that are taken by the
other. Interdependence
implies mutual influence,
even a rough equality
between the parties in
question, usually arising
from a sense of mutual
vulnerability. Keohane
and Nye (1977) advanced
the idea of ‘complex
interdependence’ as an
alternative to the realist
model of international
politics. This highlights
the extent to which (1)
states have ceased to be
autonomous
international actors; (2)
economic and other
issues have become more
prominent in world
affairs; and (3) military
force has become a less
reliable and less
important policy option.
Absolute gains: Benefits
that accrue to states from a
policy or action regardless of
their impact on other states.
Relative gains: Benefits that
improve a state’s position
relative to other states,
promoting their position within
a hierarchy.
434 P O L I T I C S
The extent to which the modern world conforms to the features of a global
governance system is nevertheless a source of debate. Liberal theorists, in particular,
not only argue that global governance is a meaningful development, providing
an alternative to the international anarchy of old, but also claim that the
trend in its favour is unmistakable and, perhaps, irresistible. This is based on two
factors. First, thanks to globalization and the development of a generally more
interconnected world, states are increasingly confronted by challenges that are
beyond their capacity to deal with when acting alone. In short, global problems
require global solutions. Second, the growth of international organizations
fosters further cooperation by strengthening trust (see p. 87) amongst states,
accustoming them to rule-governed behaviour. This suggests that the trend in
favour of global governance generates an internal momentum, making it difficult
to reverse. However, the extent to which the world as a whole has become
orderly and norm-governed should not be exaggerated. It is more accurate to
refer to an emerging global governance process, rather than an established global
governance system. Moreover, the norms and rules of global governance are
better established in some parts of the world than in others. For instance, Europe
has been portrayed as the heart of the so-called ‘postmodern’ world, by virtue of
the EU’s success in‘pooling’ sovereignty and banishing balance-of-power politics
(Cooper, 2004). Europe, nevertheless, is an exception and many parts of the
world are still little-affected by international norms and rules, as demonstrated
by the existence of ‘rogue’ states and pariah states.
Global economic governance
Evolution of the Bretton Woods system
The trend towards global governance has been particularly evident in the sphere
of economic policy-making. This is because economics is the most obvious area
of interdependence amongst states, and the area where the failure of international
cooperation can cause the clearest damage. Since 1945, a system of global
economic governance has emerged through a thickening web of multilateral
agreements, formal institutions and informal networks, with the most important
institutions being those established by the Bretton Woods agreement, negotiated
Robert Keohane (born 1941)
US international relations theorist. With his long-time collaborator, Joseph S. Nye,
Keohane questioned some of the core assumptions of realist analysis in Transnational
Relations and Wold Politics (1971), highlighting the increasing importance of nonstate
actors and of economic issues in world affairs. In Power and Interdependence:
World Politics in Transition (1977), Keohane and Nye set out the theory of ‘complex
interdependence’ as an alternative to realism. Since the publication of After
Hegemony (1984), however, Keohane has attempted to synthesize structural realism
and complex interdependence, creating a hybrid dubbed either ‘modified structural
realism’ or ‘neoliberal institutionalism’.
Pariah state: A state whose
behaviour places it outside the
international community,
leading to diplomatic isolation
and widespread condemnation.
just before the end of World War II. Known, in due course, collectively, as the
‘Bretton Woods system’, these bodies were:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD),
better known as the World Bank
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was replaced
in 1995 by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Bretton Woods agreement is a clear example of the multilateralism that
was to become increasingly prominent in the post-1945 period. However, it
would be a mistake to portray Bretton Woods simply in terms of multilateralism
and the recognition of mutual interests. This would be to ignore the crucial role
played by the USA, which emerged from World War II as the world’s predominant
military and economic power, and which linked its continuing prosperity
to the establishment of an open and stable international economic system. At the
centre of the Bretton Woods system was a new monetary order, overseen by the
IMF, which sought to maintain stable exchange rates. This was achieved by
fixing all currencies to the value of the US dollar, which acted as a ‘currency
anchor’, with the US dollar being convertible to gold at a rate of $35 per ounce.
For at least two decades, the Bretton Woods system appeared to be a remarkable
success. Instead of the end of World War II, and the consequent drop in military
expenditure, bringing back, as some had feared, the dark days of the Great
Depression, it heralded the onset of the ‘long boom’ of the postwar period, the
longest period of sustained economic growth the world economy had ever expe-
rienced.
However, the ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 1960s was followed by the
‘stagflation’ of the 1970s, in which economic stagnation and rising unemployment
was linked to high inflation. In this context, and with the US economy
struggling to cope with spiralling spending of home and abroad, in 1971 the
USA abandoned the system of fixed exchange rates – signalling, in effect, the
end of the Bretton Woods system in its original form. The advent of ‘floating’
exchange rates initiated a major policy and ideological shift. In policy terms, it
gave rise to the Washington consensus. In ideological terms, the IMF, GATT
and the World Bank were converted during the 1970s and 1980s to the idea of
an international economic order based on free-market and free-trade principles.
The replacement of GATT by the World Trade Organization in 1995
strengthened the free trade agenda and helped to accelerate the advance of
economic globalization.
Evaluating global economic governance
In its initial mission, as the guarantor of exchange rates stability, the IMF was
highly successful for at least two decades. Nevertheless, the IMF became an
increasingly controversial institution from the 1980s onwards. This was because
it linked the provision of loans to developing and transition countries to conditions
for ‘structural adjustment’ that reflected an unqualified faith in free
markets and free trade. Supporters of the IMF argue that, despite short-term
instability and insecurities, an adjustment to an open and market-based
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 435
CONCEPT
Multilateralism
Multilateralism can
broadly be defined as a
process that coordinates
behaviour amongst three
or more countries on the
basis of generalized
principles of conduct
(Ruggie, 1992). For a
process to be genuinely
multilateral, it must
conform to three
principles. These
principles are nondiscrimination
(all
participating countries
must be treated alike),
indivisibility (participating
countries must behave as
if they were a single
entity, as in collective
security (see p. 411)) and
diffuse reciprocity
(obligations amongst
countries must have a
general and enduring
character, rather than
being examples of oneoff
cooperation).
Exchange rate: The price at
which one currency is
exchanged for another.
Washington consensus: A
policy package that sought to
reduce intervention in the
market through measures of
deregulation, privatization and
fiscal constraint.
Structural adjustment
programmes: Devices used to
bring about market-orientated
‘structural adjustment’ of
economies through
‘conditionalities’ attached to
loans made by the IMF and the
World Bank.
436 P O L I T I C S
Focus on . . .
Global economic governance
The International Monetary Fund (IMF): The IMF
was set up to oversee the global rules governing
money in general and, in particular, to maintain
currency stability through a system of fixed
exchange rates. Since 1971, the IMF has embraced a
neoliberal economic model, and requires countries
to carry out stringent market-based reforms as a
condition for receiving assistance. The IMF has
grown from its original 29 members to 188
members. Its headquarters are in Washington.
The World Bank: The World Bank (formerly the
International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development) was designed to reduce the element
of risk in foreign lending, thereby underpinning
economic stability. Since the 1980s the Bank has
geared its lending to ‘structural adjustment’, the
reorientation of economies around market principles
and their integration into the global economy.
The World Bank’s headquarters are in Washington.
The World Trade Organization (WTO): The WTO
was established in 1995, replacing the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Created by
the ‘Uruguay round’ of negotiations (1986–95), the
WTO has wider and stronger powers than those of
the GATT. The WTO’s mission is to ‘liberalize’ world
trade and create an ‘open’ global trading system.
However, the ‘Doha round’, which started in 2001,
broke down in 2006 because of disagreements
between developed and developing states. The
WTO had 157 members in 2012, with a further
27 countries applying to join. Its headquarters are
in Geneva.
economy is the only reliable road to long-term economic success. Other
strengths of the IMF are that it will often provide loans to countries that can find
no other source of finance, and that its interest rates may be more competitive
than those otherwise available. However, critics have seen the IMF, and global
economic governance generally, as the political arm of neoliberal globalization,
forcing poor and vulnerable countries to accept a US business model that better
caters to the needs of western banks and corporations than it does to long-term
development needs. The fact that IMF intervention has often caused more problems
than it has solved stems, critics allege, from its flawed development model,
which fails to recognize the possibility of market failure or the drawbacks of
economic openness. In the wake of the 2007–09 global financial crisis, the IMF
was roundly criticized for not having prevented the crisis by highlighting the
instabilities and imbalances that had produced it. This led to calls for the reform
of the IMF, particularly with a view to strengthening its ability to regulate the
global financial system. However, this has so far resulted in little more than a
minor adjustment of voting rights in favour of developing states.
In the early period, the World Bank concentrated on promoting postwar
reconstruction. However, over time, promoting development became the principal
focus of its work. During the 1970s, under the presidency of Robert
McNamara, 1968–81, the Bank placed an increased emphasis on poverty reduction.
This involved, for example, promoting projects in rural development and
concentrating on meeting basic needs. From the early 1980s onwards, and in
conjunction with the IMF, the Bank embraced a strategy of ‘structural adjustment’.
The market reforms that its programmes sought to promote were
designed to re-establish as quickly as possible the credit-worthiness of developing
countries in order to allow them to focus once again on the fight against
poverty. During the 1990s, in face of growing criticism and the failure of many
of its structural adjustment programmes, the Bank started to place less emphasis
on macro-economic reform and greater emphasis on the structural, social and
human aspects of development. This new strategy has been dubbed the ‘postWashington
consensus’. Supporters of the World Bank highlight its success in
transferring resources, through development projects, from wealthy countries to
poorer ones. However, critics argue, variously, that its financing of development
is insufficient; that its record of reducing poverty has often been poor; and that,
together with the IMF and the WTO, it tends to uphold the imbalances and
disparities of the global economic order, rather than challenge them.
In many ways, the emergence of the WTO was a response to the changing
imperatives of the international trading system in the 1980s. The triumph of
neoliberalism (see p. 144) and the acceleration of globalization created stronger
pressure to advance the cause of free trade through a more powerful trade organization
with broader responsibilities. The WTO is seen by some as a global
economic government in the making. Its supporters argue that, in encouraging
trade liberalization, it has made a major contribution to promoting sustainable
growth in the world economy. Such a view is largely based on the belief that free
and open trade is mutually beneficial to all the countries that engage in it. Trade
liberalization is, thus, seen to sharpen competition, foster innovation and breed
success for all. Nevertheless, the WTO has been no less controversial an organization
than the IMF and the World Bank.
Many of the WTO’s critics focus on its basic principles, arguing that, far from
bringing benefit to all, trade liberalization is responsible for structural inequalities
and the weakening of workers’ rights and environmental protection.
Furthermore, although decision-making within the WTO is based on consensusbuilding
(as opposed to the system of weighted votes used by both the IMF and
the World Bank, which are biased in favour of the USA and industrialized countries
generally), it is widely argued that consensus decision-making favours states
that have sizeable, well-resourced and permanent representation in the WTO’s
Geneva headquarters. A final criticism highlights the weakness of the WTO, and
specifically its inability to reconcile strongly-held opposing views. This is evident
in the near-collapse of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which
commenced in 2001. Negotiations have stalled because of disagreements, mainly
over agricultural subsidies, between, on the one hand, developing countries and
emerging economies, including China, and developed countries on the other
hand. Such a failure has enabled the USA and the EU to maintain agricultural
protectionism, while penalizing developing countries and the world’s poor, who
would benefit most from reducing barriers and subsidies in farming.
The United Nations
Role of the United Nations
The United Nations is, without doubt, the most important international organization
created to date and the heart of the emerging system of global governance.
Established through the San Francisco Conference of 1945, it is the only
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 437
CONCEPT
Free trade
Free trade is a system of
trading between states
not restricted by tariffs
or other forms of
protectionism. In line
with the theory of
‘comparative advantage’,
liberals argue that
international trade
benefits all countries that
participate in it, not least
through greater
specialization. The
political case for free
trade is that, in
deepening economic
interdependence and
fostering international
exchange, it makes war
less likely and, perhaps,
impossible. Critics point
out that free trade
widens economic
inequalities by giving
dominant powers access
to the markets of weak
states, while having little
to fear themselves from
foreign competition.
438 P O L I T I C S
Focus on . . .
How the United Nations works
The Security Council: This is the most significant
UN body. Its key purpose is to ensure the maintenance
of international peace and security, and so it
is responsible for the UN’s role as a negotiator,
observer and peacekeeper. The Security Council has
15 members, but it is dominated by the P-5, its
permanent ‘veto powers’ (the USA, Russia, China,
the UK and France), which can block decisions made
by other members of the Council.
The General Assembly: This is the main deliberative
organ of the UN, sometimes dubbed the ‘parliament
of nations’. The Assembly consists of all
members of the UN, each of which has a single
vote. The Assembly can debate and pass resolutions
on any matter covered by the Charter, but it has no
legislative role and does not oversee or scrutinize, in
any meaningful sense, the Security Council or the
Secretariat.
The Secretariat:This serves the other principal organs
of the UN and administers the programmes and policies
laid down by them.At its head is the SecretaryGeneral
(since 2007, Ban Ki-moon), who functions as
the public face of the UN, as well as its chief administrative
officer.The main activities of the Secretariat
take place in the UN’s headquarters in New York.
The Economic and Social Council: The ECOSOC
consists of 54 members elected by the General
Assembly. Its chief role is to coordinate the
economic and social work of the UN. This involves
overseeing the activities of a large number of
programmes, funds and specialized agencies, such
as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and
the World Health Organization. Its main areas of
concern are human rights, development and
poverty reduction, and the environment.
The International Court of Justice: The ICJ is the
principal judicial organ of the UN. Its primary role is
to settle, in accordance with international law, legal
disputes submitted to it by states. Located in The
Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ is composed of 15
judges elected by the General Assembly and the
Security Council, voting separately.
truly global organization ever constructed, having a membership of 193 states
and counting. The UN is, nevertheless, a sprawling and complex organization,
described by its second Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, as ‘a weird
Picasso abstraction’. Beyond its five major organs, it encompasses the so-called
‘three sisters’ – the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO – and also bodies such as
the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), and the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR). Although this has created an organization that is highly
cumbersome, often conflict-ridden and, some say, inherently inefficient, it also
enables the UN to respond to myriad interests and to address an ever-widening
global agenda.
The principal aims of the UN,spelled out by its founding Charter,are as follows:
To safeguard peace and security in order ‘to save succeeding generations
from the scourge of war’.
To ‘reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights’.
To uphold respect for international law.
To ‘promote social progress and better standards of life’.
Maintaining peace and security
The chief purpose of the UN is to maintain international peace and security, with
responsibility for this being vested in the Security Council. Indeed, the performance
of the UN can largely be judged in terms of the extent to which it has saved
humankind from deadly military conflict. It is, nevertheless, difficult to assess the
extent of the UN’s contribution to ensuring that the two world wars of the twentieth
century have not been followed by World War III when other factors, not
least the‘balance of terror’ between the USA and the USSR, have also contributed.
However, what is clear is that, being a creature of its members, the UN’s capacity
to enforce a system of collective security (see p. 411) is severely limited. It can do
no more than its member states, and particularly the permanent members of the
Security Council, permit. As a result, its role has essentially been confined to
providing mechanisms that facilitate the peaceful resolution of international
conflicts. During the Cold War, the UN was routinely paralyzed by superpower
rivalry that led to deadlock in the Security Council. The UN, therefore, was a
powerless spectator when the USSR invaded Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia
(1968) and Afghanistan (1979), and it failed to curtail the USA’s escalating military
involvement in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s. A further weakness is
that the UN has never been able to develop an armed force of its own, so that it
has always had to rely on troops supplied by individual member states.
The end of the Cold War, however, produced optimism about the capacity of
an activist UN to preside over the ‘new world order’. The UN approved the USled
expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, and, in a few short years,
the number of UN peacekeeping operations had doubled, and the annual budget
for peacekeeping had quadrupled. Hopes for a more effective UN in the postCold
War period were nevertheless dashed, both by a declining willingness of
states, freed from East–West rivalry, to accept neutral, multilateral intervention,
and by the eroding support, financial and military, of the USA. Despite some
genuine successes in peacekeeping (such as in Mozambique and El Salvador) and
in peace-building (East Timor), the UN’s reputation was badly damaged by its
failure to prevent large-scale slaughter in the mid-1990s in Rwanda and Bosnia.
Economic and social development
As the membership of the UN expanded as a result of decolonization in the
1950s and 1960s, giving the developing world much greater influence over the
General Assembly, the promotion of economic and social development became
an increasingly prominent UN concern. The main areas of UN economic and
social responsibility are human rights, development and poverty reduction, and
the environment. In the case of human rights, the centrepiece of the international
regime that has developed since World War II to promote and protect such
rights has been the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in
1948. The incorporation of the Declaration into a legally-binding codification of
human rights – in effect, human rights law – was achieved through the adoption
in 1966 of the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Collectively, the 1948 Declaration and the
two covenants are commonly referred to as the ‘International Bill of Human
Rights’. However, the UN’s record of standing up to dictators, condemning
human rights violations and intervening to prevent genocide and other compaW
O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 439
440 P O L I T I C S
Events: The 1992 Rio ‘Earth Summit’ (the UN
Conference on Environment and Development)
was the first international conference to give
significant attention to the issue of climate
change. It did so by establishing the Framework
Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), and by
calling for greenhouse gases to be stabilized at
‘safe’ levels. Although it was accepted by 181
governments, the FCCC was no more than a
framework for further action and contained no
legally binding targets. The Kyoto Protocol to the
FCCC, negotiated in 1997, went further, in that,
for the first time, legally binding targets were set
(for the period to 2012) for states to limit or
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Its chief
limitation was that the USA (the world’s largest
emitter) failed to ratify the treaty. In addition, as
targets were only set for developed states,
emerging powers such as China (which, in 2008, overtook
the USA to become the world’s largest emitter) and India
were excluded. In 2009, the UN Climate Change
Conference was convened in Copenhagen to develop a
successor to the Kyoto Protocol.The conference, nevertheless,
merely agreed to ‘take note of’ the so-called
‘Copenhagen Accord’.This pledged to prevent rises in global
temperature of more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels,
but failed to create any new legally binding obligations on
any country to cut emissions, or even to set a global target
for emissions cuts.The final opportunity to extend the
Kyoto process came with the 2012 Doha conference.
Significance: Some have argued that Rio, Kyoto and
Copenhagen mark a record of steady, if unspectacular,
international progress on the issue of climate change. Rio
created a framework within which the issue could be
addressed; Kyoto set binding targets for the developed
world; and Copenhagen, for all its limitations, moved
beyond Kyoto in that it was marked by the participation
of the two biggest players, the USA and China. Yet, the
dominant response to these events has been one of frustration
and disappointment, with some warning that the
failure of the international community to take robust
action over climate change will ultimately have catastrophic
implications. Why, when some argue that climate
change is the most urgent and important challenge
currently confronting the international community, has
international cooperation over the issue been so difficult
to achieve?
A number of obstacles stand in the way of concerted
international action over climate change. First and foremost,
although all states acknowledge the threat posed
by climate change, tackling the issue imposes major
costs on individual states, in terms of investment in
sometimes expensive strategies, and accepting lower
levels of economic growth. In such circumstances, states
are encouraged to be ‘free riders’, enjoying the benefits
of a healthier environment without having to pay for
them. A second obstacle is tension between developed
and developing states, based on what the FCCC refers to
as their ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and
respective capabilities’. Many in the developing world
believe that targets should be set to reflect the fact that
developed countries have a historic responsibility for the
accumulated stock of carbon emitted since the beginning
of the industrial age, which has provided the basis
for their level of economic growth and prosperity.
Attempts by the developed world to ensure that the
costs of tackling climate change are shared globally, are,
therefore, seen as morally unfounded and a denial of the
developing world’s right to prosperity. Finally, many in
the green movement trace increased emissions levels, or
‘carbon industrialization’, back to the spread of materialist
and consumerist values that ensure that economic
and political systems have come to be geared towards
growth and rising living standards. Unless this ideological
and cultural dimension of the problem is addressed,
international action is destined to remain weak and
ineffective.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
Tackling climate change: doomed to failure?
rable acts has been poor – a product, perhaps, of the moral relativism (see p. 453)
that has taken hold as the UN’s membership has expanded.
In the case of development and poverty reduction, the principal vehicle has
been the UN Development Programme (UNDP), created in 1965. The UNDP
has a presence in some 177 countries, working with them on their own solutions
to global and national development challenges, and also helps developing countries
to attract and use aid effectively. By focusing on the notions of ‘human
development’ and ‘human security’ (see p. 418), the UNDP has fostered innovative
thinking about poverty and deprivation, moving away from a narrowly
economic definition of poverty. In the case of the environment, the UN’s
Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 laid the foundations
for environmental action at an international level and prepared the way for
the launch of the UN’s Environmental Programme (UNEP). Over time, the issue
of climate change has come to dominate the UN’s environmental agenda, as a
succession of high-profile conferences on the issue has been convened, albeit
often with disappointing outcomes (see p. 440).
An indispensable body?
The UN is no stranger to controversy and criticism. Some, indeed, regard it as
fundamentally flawed. In this view, the UN is a proto-world government, and has
all the drawbacks of a would-be world government – a lack of legitimacy,
accountability and democratic credentials. Not only does the UN interfere in the
affairs of states, thereby eroding their sovereignty, but it also disrupts the workings
of the balance-of-power system, thus endangering the very peace and stability
that it was set up to maintain. Others decry the UN’s ineffectiveness, rather
than its capacity to meddle in world affairs. As is commonly pointed out, there
have been more wars since the creation of the UN than there had been before,
and the organization is routinely sidelined as major world events unfold, not
least because the Security Council can be so easily paralyzed by conflict amongst
the ‘Big Five’. Further criticisms highlight the dysfunctionality of a body that
functions as ‘two UNs’, one of which serves as a voice for the great powers and
operates through the Security Council, while the other articulates the interests of
the developing world and operates through the General Assembly. While the
former has huge potential power but seldom exercises it, the latter acts as little
more than a debating society.
For all its flaws and failings, one central fact must be borne in mind: the world
is a safer place with the UN than it would be without it.Although the UN will never
be able to prevent all wars and resolve all conflicts, it provides an indispensable
framework for cooperation, should the international community choose to use it.
The UN serves, however imperfectly, to increase the chances that international
conflict can be resolved without a resort to war and that, if war breaks out, military
conflict will quickly lead to peacemaking and peace-building.Moreover,the UN did
not fossilize around its initial mission but, rather, succeeded in redefining itself in
the light of new global challenges. Not only has the UN developed into the leading
organization promoting economic and social development worldwide, but it has
also helped to shape the agenda as far as new global issues are concerned, ranging
from climate change and gender equality to population control and dealing with
pandemics. In short, if the UN did not exist, it would have to be invented.
W O R L D O R D E R A N D G L O B A L G O V E R N A N C E 441
Questions for discussion
Was the idea of a ‘new world order’ merely a tool
to legitimize US hegemony?
How has the ‘war on terror’ affected the global
status of the USA?
Is China in the process of becoming the next
global hegemon?
Is tension between the USA and ‘the rest’ a
growing fault line in world politics?
Should emerging multipolarity be welcomed or
feared?
How far does modern world politics operate as a
functioning global governance system?
Why is global governance most advanced in the
economic sphere?
How effective has the UN been in maintaining
peace and security?
What impact has the UN had on economic and
social issues?
SUMMARY
The end of the Cold War led to proclamations about the advent of a ‘new world order’; however, this new
world order was always imprecisely defined, and the idea quickly became unfashionable. Instead, bipolarity
came to be seen to have been replaced by unipolarity – the USA, as the sole remaining superpower, having
become a ‘global hegemon’.
The implications of US hegemony became particularly apparent following September 11, as the USA
embarked on the so-called ‘war on terror’. This, nevertheless, drew the USA into deeply problematic military
interventions, which highlighted the limitations of the USA’s unrivalled military strength.
Twenty-first century world order increasingly has a multipolar character. This is evident in the relative decline
of the USA and rise of so-called ‘emerging powers’, notably China; however, it is also a consequence of wider
developments, including the advance of globalization and global governance, and the growing importance of
non-state actors.
Global governance is a broad, dynamic and complex process of interactive decision-making at the global
level. Liberal theorists argue that there is an unmistakable (and perhaps irresistible) trend in favour of global
governance, reflecting growing interdependence and a greater willingness of states to engage in collective
action. However, the USA’s role in promoting global governance for reasons of national interest has also been
significant.
The trend towards global governance has been particularly prominent in the economic sphere, where it has
been associated with three bodies: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization. These bodies have, nevertheless, each, in their different ways, been drawn into controversy
through their association with neoliberal globalization.
The United Nations is the only truly global organization ever constructed, and it operates as the heart of the
emerging global governance system. Its principal aims have been to maintain international peace and security,
and to promote economic and social development. Although the UN has been no stranger to controversy
and criticism, it is widely regarded as an indispensable framework for cooperation, should the
international community choose to use it.
442 P O L I T I C S
Further reading
Parmar, I. and M. Cox (eds) Soft Power and US Foreign
Policy (2010). A wide-ranging and insightful collection
of essays on the role of soft power in affecting
the balances of world order.
Weiss, T. G. What’s Wrong with the United Nations (and
How to Fix it) (2009). A stimulating diagnosis-andcure
approach that considers why the United
Nations and its system of related agencies seem to
be perpetually in crisis.
Whitman, J. (ed.) Global Governance (2009). An
authoritative and incisive collection of essays that
examine the nature and implications of global
governance.
Young, A., J. Duckett and P. Graham (eds) Perspectives
on the Global Distribution of Power (2010). A collection
that reviews the shifting global distribution of
power and examines the changing power resources
of key protagonists.
CHAPTER 20 A Crisis in Politics?
‘Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards’
MA X W E B E R , ‘Politics as a vocation’ (1919)
P R E V I E W In this concluding chapter, we return to some of the themes discussed in Chapter 1,
and, in the process, draw together some of the themes set out at different points in
the book. This is done by examining the nature and health of politics itself, taking
particular account of how and why politics – and especially conventional, or
‘mainstream’, politics – has been subject to increasing criticism. Of course, there is
nothing new about politics being viewed in a negative light – the term has long
been used as a ‘dirty’ word, implying an activity that is distasteful, even demeaning
– but criticism seems to have risen to unprecedented levels in recent decades.
Politicians, needless to say, have usually borne the brunt of these attacks, with
popular associations with ‘politician’ commonly including 'liar', 'corrupt', 'careerist'
and 'untrustworthy'. Politics, moreover, appears to be losing its ability to engage
and enthuse, as witnessed by declining levels of voter turnout and falling party
membership – trends that are most pronounced in mature democracies and
particularly affect younger people. However, this may be a deeply misleading
picture. Anxieties about growing civic disengagement, for instance, may ignore the
extent to which political participation is not declining but changing, through,
amongst other things, the rise of protest movements of various kinds or the spread
of internet-based activism. It is also far from clear that the trends mentioned above
can be laid at the door of politics and politicians; other possible culprits include
the media and, perhaps, the public themselves. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with
politics may have a deeper, even philosophical, dimension, in the form of confusion
about what, exactly, politics is ‘for’, and how the performance of political systems
should be judged. These questions, however, touch on some of the most intractable
normative debates within the discipline of itself.
K E Y I S S U E S Is civic engagement in crisis?
What do the phenomena of ‘new politics’ and ‘anti-politics’ tell us?
Who, or what, is to blame for civic disengagement?
What are the most important outcomes of the political process?
How do different political systems perform in relation to these
outcomes?
444 P O L I T I C S
POLITICS UNDER ASSAULT?
On the face of it, it seems odd to suggest that politics is in crisis. In some respects,
politics has never been healthier. Dramatic demonstrations of ‘people power’
have brought authoritarian regimes to their knees, as occurred in the Eastern
European Revolutions of 1989–91 and the Arab Spring (see p. 88), and the seemingly
remorseless advance of democratization (see p. 272) has led to a major
expansion of political and civic rights. Insofar as politics (in the sense of
compromise and consensus-building, see pp. 8–9) constitutes a distinctively
non-violent means of resolving conflict, the long- and short-term decline in
violence that has occurred mainly, but not only, in western societies (Pinker,
2011) surely provides evidence of both the effectiveness of politics and its wider
use. Yet, in other respects, a heavy cloud hangs over politics. In particular,
growing numbers of people appear to be disengaging from the political process,
or expressing disenchantment with it. Why is politics coming under attack? Has
politics become a problem, rather than a solution?
Declining civic engagement?
It has long been assumed that the level of civic engagement is an indication of
the health of a political system. Democratic theorists have certainly argued that
one of the key strengths of democratic rule (examined more fully in the final
section of this chapter) is that it offers wider opportunities for popular participation
than any other form of rule, ensuring not merely government for the
people, but also government by the people. Yet, however hard-won the rights of
political participation may have been, especially the right to vote in free and fair
elections, there is evidence (from mature democracies in particular) that citizens
are becoming less interested in using these rights.
For instance, in the period 1945–97, average voter turnout in UK general
elections usually remained above 75 per cent, with a postwar high of 84 per cent
being achieved in 1950. The turnout in the 2001 general election nevertheless fell
to 59 per cent, the lowest figure since 1918. Although the turnouts in 2005 and
2010 rose marginally (to 61 per cent and 65 per cent, respectively), these figures
were still more than 10 per cent below the 1945–97 average, and occurred despite
the wider use of postal voting (in 2005) and the first use of televised leaders’
debates (in 2010). In Canada, voter turnout in federal elections plummeted
during the 1990s from levels, once again, usually above 75 per cent to an average
of 61.5 per cent in the elections held between 2000 and 2011. As elsewhere,
declining voter turnout in Canada has been particularly evident amongst
younger voters, creating a situation in which only about one third of first-time
voters now actually vote, half the rate of a generation ago. Similar trends can be
found across Western Europe, in Japan and in parts of Latin America, leading to
the estimate that voter turnout has decreased globally by about 5 percentage
points since the 1950s (Lijphart, 1996).
Civic disengagement goes well beyond non-voting, however. As discussed in
Chapter 10, political parties in many parts of the world appear to be failing in
their traditional role as agents of popular mobilization and political participation.
This has been evident at a number of levels. Fewer people ‘identify’ with
political parties than they once did, in the sense of having a psychological attach-
CONCEPT
Political
participation
Political participation is
the act of taking part in
the formulation, passage
or implementation of
public policies, regardless
of whether these acts are
successful or effective.
However, political
participation takes place
at very different levels.
Citizens have been
divided into ‘apathetics’
(who do not engage in
formal politics),
‘spectators’ (who rarely
participate beyond
voting) and ‘gladiators’
(who fight political
battles) (Milbrath and
Goel, 1977). Conventional
participation comprises a
number of ‘modes’,
notably voting, party
campaigning, communal
activity and contacting a
representative or official
about a particular
personal matter (Verba,
Nie and Kim, 1978).
Civic engagement: The
participation of citizens in the
life of their community,
although this may range from
formal political participation to
wider communal activities or
even ‘civic-mindedness’.
ment or loyalty towards a party. This trend is called partisan dealignment (see p.
217), and has been associated with more volatile voting behaviour and a growing
willingness to vote for ‘fringe’ parties. There is also evidence of a major longterm
decline in party membership across established democracies. During the
1980s and 1990s, party membership dropped by one million or more in Italy,
France and the UK, around half a million in Germany, and close to half a million
in Austria. Norway and France have lost well over half their party members since
the 1980s, while fewer than 1 per cent of adults in the UK belong to political
parties, down from 7 per cent some fifty years ago.
Declines in party membership are also matched by declines in levels of party
activism. Party members have increasingly become ‘cheque book members’, who
are prepared to pay their membership fees but are less inclined to attend regular
meetings or, in particular, get involved in canvassing or campaigning. Civic
disengagement may nevertheless go beyond conventional forms of political
participation, such as voting, party membership and campaigning, and affect
wider civic participation, in the form of church attendance, membership of
professional societies, sports clubs, youth groups and parent-teacher associations,
and the like. Robert Putnam (see p. 176) has interpreted such trends as
evidence of declining ‘social capital’ (see p. 175) in the USA and, by extension,
other industrialized countries, and of the emergence of a ‘post-civic’ generation.
However, the notion that modern societies suffer from a ‘participation crisis’
has also been criticized. The problem may not be so much that the overall level
of political participation has fallen, but that there has been a shift from one kind
of participation to another. In particular, as disillusionment and cynicism with
mainstream politics has grown, there has been an upsurge in interest in pressure
group politics, protest movements and the use of ‘new media’ to facilitate
political debate and activism (see p. 190). The rise of what has been called the
‘new politics’ – reflecting more fluid, participatory, non-hierarchical and, possibly,
more spontaneous styles of political participation – has been linked, variously,
to the emergence of post-industrial societies (as discussed in Chapter 7)
and to the spread of ‘postmaterialist’ values (as discussed in Chapter 8). As such,
it may reflect a shift from a traditional conception of citizenship to a kind of
‘reflexive’ citizenship, through which citizens seek a more critical and reciprocal
relationship with the structures of power.
The politics of ‘anti-politics’
The perception that politics is in crisis arises not merely from concerns about
civic disengagement, but also from evidence of growing cynicism about, and
even anger towards, mainstream political parties and politicians. What appears
sometimes to be a breakdown in trust (see p. 87) between the public and the
political class in general, sometimes seen as the rise of ‘anti-politics’, does not
simply encourage citizens to turn away from politics and retreat into private
existence. Instead, it has spawned new forms of politics, which, in various ways,
seek to articulate resentment or hostility towards conventional political structures.
Although such hostility is based on a common perception that established
political elites are ‘out-of-touch’,‘privileged’,‘corrupt’ or ‘self-serving’, anti-political
groups and movements have taken very different forms. Certain forms of
anti-politics clearly overlap with ‘new politics’, as in the case of the upsurge in
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 445
CONCEPT
Citizenship
Citizenship is a
relationship between the
individual and the state
in which the two are
bound together by
reciprocal rights and
duties. Citizens differ
from subjects and aliens
in that they are full
members of their
political community or
state by virtue of their
possession of basic rights.
Liberals advance the
principle of a ‘citizenship
of rights’ that stresses
private entitlement and
the status of the
individual as an
autonomous actor.
Communitarians, in
contrast, advance the
principle of a ‘citizenship
of duty’ that highlights
the role of the state as a
moral agency and the
importance of
community or social
existence.
Mainstream politics:
Political activities, processes
and structures that are
regarded as normal or
conventional; the dominant
trend in politics.
446 P O L I T I C S
Although the link between political participation and democratic rule is widely accepted, there is significant debate about
the desirable level of citizens’ engagement with politics. Why have some seen virtues in low-participation societies, and
even warned against the dangers of ‘excessive’ political participation? But why, also, have exponents of ‘participatory
democracy’ viewed participation as a good in itself, and called for political participation to be widened and deepened
whenever this is possible?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Should political participation be widened and
deepened whenever possible?
Making better citizens. Political participation is often
defended on educational or developmental grounds.
Participatory democrats, such as J. S. Mill (see p. 198)
and, more recently, Pateman (1970), argue that the great
benefit of citizens becoming directly involved in making
political decisions is that it extends their moral, social
and political awareness, and even their intellectual development.
As people participate in the life of their community,
they not only acquire a better appreciation of their
own and others’ civic rights and responsibilities; they are
also encouraged to reflect on often complex moral issues
and to gain a better understanding of how their society
works.
Meaningful democracy. A direct link can be made
between the level of political participation and the health
of a democratic system. This is based on the instrumental
argument in favour of participation, which is that participation
is a means of promoting or defending the interests
of ordinary citizens. Quite simply, the more people
participate in politics, the louder their voice becomes. A
strong participatory culture therefore forces politicians to
act in line with the public interest. By the same token,
low levels of participation lead to a ‘hollowed-out’ democratic
system, in which politicians become self-serving
and, increasingly, heedless of public opinion.
Common good before private good. Political participation
can also be justified on communitarian grounds.
By participating in making collective decisions on behalf
of their community, people acquire a stronger sense of
social belonging, recognizing that there is more to life
than their own narrow or selfish existence. Such arguments
can be traced back to Aristotle’s (see p. 6) assertion
that human beings are ‘political animals’, who can only
live the ‘good life’ as members of a political community.
In Rousseau’s (see p. 97) view, the direct and continuous
participation of all citizens in political life
helps to bind the state to the common good.
Virtues of apathy. High levels of popular participation
may be a recipe for discord, incivility and the breakdown
of social order. This is because as people become more
involved in politics, they take their loyalties and allegiances
more seriously and pursue their views with
greater passion and determination. A high-participation
society may, therefore, be a society of political zealots.
The great virtue of apathy and political passivity is, thus,
that they increase the likelihood that citizens will ‘put up
with’ political decisions with which they disagree, or
which conflict with their interests, something that is
essential to any stable and peaceful political system.
Manageable democracy. Democratic systems may function
best when political participation extends little
beyond the act of voting every few years. For theorists
such as Schumpeter (see p. 202), the essence of democracy
is not popular participation, but a competition for
leadership that forces those in power to act broadly in
accordance with the public interest. Similar thinking is
evident in the ‘sleeping dogs’ theory of democratic
culture, which implies that low participation indicates
broad satisfaction with government (Almond and Verba,
1989). Thus, as the performance of government
improves, not least through the promotion of economic
growth, participation rates are likely to fall.
The right to disengage. Low-participation or non-participation
is not a cause for concern because it results from
choices made by free individuals. Non-voting, for
instance, may be perfectly rational, as it reflects the fact
that a single vote is highly unlikely to affect the outcome
of an election. Infrequent and brief civic engagement,
what has been called ‘attention deficit democracy’
(Berger, 2011), may occur simply because people calculate
that they have better things to do with their time and
energy than engage in politics. While ‘private’ life is seen
as vibrant and stimulating, ‘public’ activities are deemed
to be worthy but essentially boring.
anti-capitalist or anti-globalization protests since the late 1990s. The anti-capitalist
movement has embraced an activist-based, theatrical style of politics that
is sometimes called the ‘new’ anarchism. Its attraction, particularly to young
people, is its resistance to compromise for the sake of political expediency, borne
out of a suspicion of structures and hierarchies of all kinds (including governmental
arrangements and conventional parties), and the fact that it offers a form
of politics that is decidedly ‘in the moment’.
However, anti-politics has also been articulated though a range of rightwing
groups and movements that have arisen in recent decades. In many parts
of Europe, for example, far right or ‘neo-fascist’ groups have emerged that mix
an appeal based on opposition to immigration, multiculturalism (see p. 167)
and globalization (see p. 142) with avowed support for the‘common man’ in the
face of ‘corrupt’ economic and political elites. Similar tendencies have been
evident in the Tea Party movement in the USA, which has emerged since
2009–10. Taking its name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party (a political protest
against colonial British tax policies, in which tea was thrown into Boston
Harbour), the Tea Party has built a separate and distinct political identity for
itself around the commitment to tax cuts, reductions in federal government’s
spending, support for unregulated markets, limited government and a strictly
literal interpretation of the US constitution. The overwhelming target of the Tea
Party’s lobbying and agitation has been ‘Washington’, represented both by the
Obama administration and its supposed imposition of ‘big government’, and
‘weak willed’, mainstream conservatives in the Republican Party, in both
Congress and the states. Nevertheless, there has been disagreement about the
extent to which the Tea Party should be viewed as a genuine spontaneous, grassroots
‘anti-political’ movement, or as the creation of wealthy interests, intent on
using populism (see p. 307) to further the agenda of a small number of rich
individuals in the USA.
Explaining civic disengagement
Although there is ongoing, and possibly irresolvable, debate about whether the
overall level of political participation has declined, evidence of voter apathy
cannot be lightly dismissed. As all modern democracies are representative democracies,
elections lie at their very core. The level of voter turnout must, therefore, be
an important indication of the health of the larger democratic system. But who,
or what, is to blame for declining participation rates and, in particular, for falling
voter turnout? A number of possible culprits have been identified, as follows:
politics
politicians and parties
the media
the public
modern society.
Blame politics
Although it is common for civic disengagement to be laid at the feet of politicians
– they, after all, are the target of most of the criticism and abuse – the chief
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 447
Apathy: The absence of
interest in or enthusiasm for
things that are generally
considered to be interesting.
culprit may be politics itself. It is easy to defend politics as a beautiful and civilizing
activity, as, following Aristotle (see p. 6), political thinkers have done
through the ages. Apart from its other virtues, politics allows people to live
together in, at least, relative peace despite their differing views, values, ideas and
interests. When politics fails, the result is likely to be fear, death, destruction and
tyranny. Despite this, politics is ‘consistently disappointing’ (Dunn, 2000).
Politics is doomed to disappoint: as the activity through which people make,
preserve and amend the general rules under which they live, compromise – and,
therefore, dissatisfaction – lie at its very heart. Indeed, politics may be most effective
when this dissatisfaction is universalized, no group in society getting exactly
what it wants. Moreover, the political process, the process through which
competing claims and demands are discussed and assessed, is necessarily messy
and cumbersome. Nevertheless, although this may help to explain why politics
can be dismissed as boring, even as distasteful, it fails, at least in itself, to explain
the trend in favour of civic disengagement, as the nature of politics has not
changed over time. Other factors, then, must be considered.
Blame politicians and parties
Although the reputation of politicians may be tainted by the frustrations and
disappointments that inevitability attaches to politics as an activity, there are at
least three further reasons why politicians are held in low regard. The first and, in
a sense, ‘classical’ attack on politicians stresses the link between power and
corruption, famously expressed in Lord Acton’s aphorism: ‘Power tends to
corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ (quoted in Lazarski (2012).
But how does power corrupt? According to Blaug (2010), it corrupts by
distorting people’s perceptions in ways that include a:
growing personal aggrandisement, arrogance and loss of control
progressive contempt for subordinates, suspicion and arbitrary cruelty
gradual separation from others and a choice of advisors who always agree
total lack of awareness that any corruption is happening.
For Acton, the association between power and corruption followed naturally
from liberal assumptions about human nature. Human beings are, first and foremost,
individuals, inclined to place their own interests ahead of anyone else’s
interests. If placed in a position of power, they will therefore use their post or office
to benefit themselves, in all likelihood at the expense of others. In simple terms,
egoism plus power equals corruption. According to Acton’s logic, corruption will
grow as the span of a politician’s power increases. This analysis suggests that all
politicians, but especially political leaders, are not to be trusted, and that government
is, as Thomas Paine (see p. 199) put it, a ‘necessary evil’. Our only protection
from politicians comes from constitutional devices that fragment or check political
power. Anarchists take such thinking further than liberals, in viewing all forms
of political rule, including constitutional rule, as nakedly tyrannical.
Second, politicians cannot avoid having ‘dirty’ hands. This is because they
make the difficult decisions that the public would rather not think about, and
certainly not wish to make themselves. Decision-making in the political sphere
invariably involves grappling with practical and moral dilemmas, and making
448 P O L I T I C S
trade-offs that are, at best, ethically imperfect (Flinders, 2012). So embedded in
political life are hypocricy, deception and double-dealing, that the public is
routinely left with a choice between, in Runciman's (2008) words, ‘different
kinds of lies and different kinds of truth’.
Third, democratic systems create further difficulties for politicians by forcing
them to operate in a market in which each seeks to out-bid the others, inflating
expectations and making disappointment yet more certain. In short, democratic
politicians are always likely to promise more than they can deliver. In view of
this, it is no surprise that attempts have sometimes been made to replace politics
with technocracy, as has occurred in Italy (see p. 450). Once again, however, the
unchanging nature of these tendencies and pressures suggests that they are not
the cause of the modern trend towards civic disengagement. Nevertheless, there
are a number of reasons why may be held in their public standing may have
fallen even further in recent decades. These include the following:
Lack of vision. The shift from programmatic political parties to so-called
‘catch-all’ or ‘de-ideological’ parties (as discussed in Chapter 10) helps to
explain why modern politicians often appear to lack vision and a sense of
moral purpose. As modern politicians and political parties increasingly seem
to believe in nothing except getting elected, politics has become an end in
itself, and being a politician has become just another professional career.
Age of ‘spin’. One of the consequences of the modern media-obsessed age is
that politicians have become over-concerned about communication and
news management (as discussed in Chapter 8). The growth of what is called
‘spin’ creates the impression that politicians are less trustworthy than
before, and more willing to be ‘economical with the truth’.
‘All the same’. The declining significance of the left/right divide and the
emergence of managerial politics in place of ideological politics, means
that, regardless of their party allegiance, all politicians have come to look
the same and sound the same. The problem with this is both that, by abandoning
major issues and ‘big’ choices, electoral battles have become less
gripping and less meaningful, and that politicians have maintained their
adversarial rhetoric by dramatically over-stating minor or technical divisions
– a psychological tendency that Sigmund Freud referred to as ‘the
narcissism of small differences’.
‘In it for themselves’. The growth, in recent decades, of an industry of
professional lobbying has focused greater attention on politicians’‘outside
interests’ and on their sources of revenue other than from politics. This has
strengthened the image of politicians as self-serving and dishonest, and
created anxiety, generally, about declining standards in public life.
Blame the media
As discussed in Chapter 8, the media is sometimes charged with having created a
climate of cynicism amongst the public, leading to growing popular disenchantment
with politics generally, and a lack of trust in governments and politicians of
all complexions (Lloyd, 2004). This has occurred, in large part, because increasingly
intense commercial pressures have forced the media to make their coverage
of politics‘sexy’and attention-grabbing. Routine political debate and policy analyA
C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 449
Technocracy: Literally, ’rule
by the skilled’; government or
control by an elite of technical
experts.
450 P O L I T I C S
Events: On 12 November 2011, Mario Monti was
appointed prime minister of Italy, following the resignation
of Silvio Berlusconi. Monti, however, was not a politician
and had never held elective office. He was a
respected economist who had been an EU Commissioner
during 1994–2004, serving, in his final five years, as
Competition Commissioner, one of the most powerful
positions on the Commission. Monti went on to appoint a
cabinet entirely composed of technocrats like himself.
The Monti government, nevertheless, comfortably passed
motions of confidence in both the Italian Senate and the
Chamber of Deputies, with only members of the
Northern League voting against. During December 2011,
the Monti government outlined a package of austerity
measures, which included increased taxes, pension
reforms and steps to curtail tax evasion. In January 2012,
a further package of measures, dealing in particular, with
labour market flexibility were unveiled.
Significance: These exceptional events took place in
highly pressured circumstances. Their backdrop was the
2007–09 global financial crisis, and the eurozone crisis
(see p. 396) that it precipitated. With EU–IMF bailouts
having already been agreed for Greece and Ireland, 10year
interest rates in Italy had risen above 7 per cent,
creating the ‘unthinkable’ prospect of a bailout for the
eurozone’s third largest economy. In this context, a
recourse to technocracy had a number of advantages. The
key justification for Monti’s appointment was, quite
simply, that ‘politics as normal’ had ceased to work. Italy’s
highly-fragmented party system, long viewed as dysfunctional,
had engendered such political paralysis (referred to
by Monti as a ‘deficiency of government’) that the
Berlusconi government was incapable of taking the bold
measures thought necessary in the face of a mounting
financial and economic crisis. At the same time, no alternative
coalition of parties appeared to have enough
popular support, or sufficient unity of purpose, to take its
place. Monti’s appointment calmed financial markets,
reassured by the fact that, unlike an elected government,
a technocratic government would do ‘what had to be
done’, unhindered by political in-fighting and unconcerned
about short-term unpopularity. Moreover, it highlighted
the seriousness of the crisis that Italy faced,
thereby helping to prepare the Italian public for the
exceptional – and, inevitably, painful – political actions
that were to come. Some have even suggested that technocracy
may have the deeper advantage that, by pushing
popular delusions and the ‘madness of crowds’ to one
side, it allows public policy to be informed by reason,
rather than partisanship, ensuring that national interests
prevail over party interests.
Nevertheless, serious concerns have been raised about
Monti’s appointment and Italy’s substitution of technocracy
for democracy. The most obvious of these was that
the principles of popular control and public accountability
were effectively abandoned. It is possible to see Monti’s
appointment as a kind of ‘regime change’ imposed on Italy
by pressure from financial markets that were unchecked by
the European Central Bank (ECB). In this view, the ECB
orchestrated the fall of an elected political leader and, in
the process, usurped the role of the Italian electorate.
Lacking any democratic authority, the ECB went well
beyond the legitimate role of a central bank, in acting to
manipulate a stubborn citizenry. Furthermore, the notion
that technocrats make decisions that are somehow more
rational or enlightened than democratic politicians is
highly questionable. If this were the case, technocrats and
other experts would tend to think alike, their views
converging around a set of agreed, wise beliefs. This,
patently, is not the case, especially in the field of economics,
a discipline notorious for disagreement over both theoretical
and policy matters.What made Monti an attractive
appointee from the perspective of the ECB and financial
markets was not so much his expertise, as his support for
the policy options they favoured; that is, bold austerity.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
Italian government: technocracy displaces politics?
sis therefore receive less and less attention, as the media focuses instead on – or
‘hypes’ – scandals of various kinds and allegations of incompetence, policy failure
or simple inertia. No longer are there‘problems’,‘challenges’or‘difficulties’in politics;
everything is a‘crisis’. Although the tabloid press in the UK is often seen as the
most advanced example of a media-driven‘culture of contempt’, similar trends are
evident elsewhere.Healthy scepticism,which serves the interests of democracy and
freedom, may, thus, have turned into corrosive and aggressive negativity.
Blame the public
Are ‘we’ the problem? Is civic disengagement a ‘demand-side’ problem (stemming
from the attitudes and behaviour of the public), rather than a ‘supply-side’
problem (stemming from the performance of politics or politicians)? The argument
that ordinary citizens bear much of the blame for civic disengagement is
rooted in the allegation that consumerist attitudes and instincts, already widely
evident in society at large, are increasingly being applied to politics. It is in the
nature of consumerism (see p. 159) that people seek to acquire as much as possible,
but pay as little as possible in return. Insofar as citizenship is in the process
of being remodelled on consumerist lines, this implies that citizens are becoming
ever-more demanding of politics and politicians whilst, at the same time, being
less and less prepared to contribute to the maintenance of the political system in
which they live. Are we becoming a society of politically-apathetic ‘free-riders’,
who enjoy all the benefits of citizenship (schools, roads, free speech, economic
progress, public order and so forth) without accepting the associated costs, and,
especially, without bothering to vote? If this is the case, it is difficult to see how
the people can complain about the behaviour of politicians, or about allegedly
declining standards in public life – we get the politicians we deserve. Those who
explain civic disengagement in such terms, either wholly or in part, tend to advocate
one of two solutions. Either they call for improved education (for example,
compulsory citizenship classes in schools) to counteract consumerism, or they
support ways in which political participation can be made easier and more
convenient (such as postal voting or ‘e-voting’).
Blame modern society
The weakness in blaming the public for civic disengagement is that it suggests
that popular attitudes and perceptions emerge in a vacuum, when they are, in
important ways, shaped by the character of modern society. The social and
economic circumstances of modern society may have fostered civic disengagement
in two main ways. First, the spread of consumerist attitudes towards politics
– and, for that matter, other things – is less a consequence of rational
decision-making by independent citizens, and more a by-product of the growth
of consumer capitalism combined with modern technology. The advance of
neoliberal economic structures (as discussed in Chapter 6), which emphasize
aspiration and individual self-striving, weaken people’s capacity to think collectively
and tend to make forms of communal activity – the basis of civic engagement
– progressively less meaningful. The spread of neoliberalism (see p. 144)
has, moreover, damaged the image of politics in at least two ways. First, by
suggesting that political involvement in matters of economics and social
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 451
Free-rider: A person or
group that enjoys collectivelyprovided
benefits without
needing to pay associated
costs, which are shouldered by
others.
exchange is non-legitimate, it has forced political debate to revolve around technical
or managerial issues, rather than major projects of social transformation.
Second, it has associated politics with inefficiency and unwarranted interference,
certainly by comparison with the supposedly ‘higher’ sphere of private enterprise.
Modern information technologies have contributed to such tendencies, in
particular by allowing communication to take place without the need for faceto-face
interaction. Robert Putnam (2000), for instance, associated the decline of
social capital with, in particular, the growth of television.
The second major social and economic trend that has been linked to civic
disengagement is globalization. Globalization is often said to have contributed to
the advance of a culture of consumer capitalism, which has, as discussed above,
tended to‘hollow out’citizenship. Of no less significance, however, is the tendency
of globalization to diminish the capacity of political actors to ‘deliver the goods’,
leading to a profound crisis of both legitimacy and confidence in the process of
political deliberation (Hay, 2007). National politicians have thus been placed in
the uncomfortable position that, while they are confronted by rising demands
and expectations on the part of the population at large, their ability to respond to
these has shrunk, as domestic circumstances have increasingly been shaped by
events that are beyond their control. The ‘tyranny’ that global markets appear to
exercise over national economic decision-making may be the most obvious, but
certainly is not the only, example of this.
ASSESSING POLITICAL PERFORMANCE
Anxieties about politics that stem from trends in civic engagement and questions
about who, or what, may be responsible, reflect concern about the circumstances
in which modern politics takes place. However, underlying these issues are
deeper and abiding questions about the purpose of politics and, therefore, about
how governments and political systems should be assessed. What, in short, is the
political process ‘for’? Such questions uncover some of the most intractable
issues in political theory. For example, it is impossible to know what the political
process is for without addressing issues such as the nature of justice and the
desirable balance between freedom and authority – in other words, without
having a vision of the ‘good society’.
As views about such matters differ fundamentally, the standards against which
political performance can be judged vary greatly. Four contrasting standards can,
however, be identified, each shedding a very particular light on the purpose of
politics and the assessment of political performance. These are as follows:
stability and order
material prosperity
citizenship
democratic rule.
Stability performance
It can reasonably be claimed that the maintenance of stability and order (see p.
400) is the most basic function of politics. With the exception of anarchists, who
452 P O L I T I C S
argue that social order will emerge from the spontaneous actions of free individuals,
all political thinkers and philosophers have endorsed the political process, and
especially government, as the only means of keeping chaos and instability at bay.
In Thomas Hobbes’s (see p. 61) words, in the absence of government, life would be
‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. From this perspective, the core purpose of
government is to govern, to rule, to ensure stability through the exercise of authority.
This, in turn, requires that government is able to perpetuate its own existence
and ensure the survival of the broader political system. System performance can
thus be judged on the basis of criteria such as longevity and endurance, as the
simple fact of survival indicates a regime’s ability to contain or reconcile conflict.
However, there are differing views about how this goal can best be achieved.
These views fall into two broad categories. The first stems from the essentially
liberal belief that a stable system of rule must be rooted in consensus (see p. 8)
and consent. In this view, what ensures the long-term survival of a political
system is its responsiveness to popular demands and pressures. This is expressed
in the language of systems theory as the ability to bring the ‘outputs’ of government
into line with the various ‘inputs’. This capacity has often been identified as
a particular strength of western liberal democracies. Advocates of liberal democracy
(see p. 270) stress that, as it is based on consent, it embodies mechanisms that
ensure that it is responsive, and so guarantees a high degree of systemic equilibrium.
Government power is won through a competitive struggle for the popular
vote, and can be lost when that support diminishes. A vigorous civil society also
allows citizens to exert influence through autonomous groups and associations.
To some extent, it has been the ability of liberal democracy to generate
political stability that explains the seemingly ever-wider adoption of liberaldemocratic
practices such as electoral democracy and party competition in the
modern world. Nevertheless, liberal democracy also has its drawbacks in this
respect. Chief amongst these is that responsiveness may generate instability,
insofar as it heightens popular expectations of government and fosters the illusion
that the political system can meet all demands and accommodate all ‘inputs’.
From this perspective, the central dilemma of stable government is that responsiveness
must be balanced against effectiveness. Government must be sensitive to
external pressures, but it must also be able to impose its will on society when
those pressures threaten to generate irreconcilable conflict.
This latter fear underpins the alternative view of stability and order.
Conservative thinkers have traditionally linked stability and order, not to responsiveness,
but to authority. Thomas Hobbes presented this idea as a stark choice
between absolutism (see p. 268) and anarchy, between the acceptance of an
unquestionable and sovereign power and a descent into the chaos and disorder
of the state of nature. However, conservatives have been particularly concerned
to stress the degree to which political authority is underpinned by shared values
and a common culture. In this view, stability and order are largely the product of
social and cultural cohesion, underpinning the capacity of society to generate
respect for authority and maintain support for established institutions.
This position is clearly reflected in neoconservative fears about permissiveness
and moral and cultural relativism, leading to calls for the restoration of
‘traditional’,‘family’ or‘Christian’ values. It is also possible, from this perspective,
to suggest that East Asian states that subscribe to some form of Confucianism
(see p. 278), as well as Islamic states, have a greater capacity to maintain political
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 453
CONCEPT
Relativism
Relativism is a position
that denies the existence
of objective or ‘absolute’
standards, and so holds
that statements can be
judged only in relation to
their contexts. Cultural
relativism is the belief
that moral codes can
only be understood in the
context of the societies
in which they operate.
Moral, or normative,
relativism refers to the
belief that there are no
authoritative ethical
principles (usually
because each individual is
a morally autonomous
being). Cognitive, or
epistemological,
relativism holds that
different modes of
knowing are equally valid,
and thus dismisses the
universalist pretensions
of, say, science (see
p. 12).
stability than do western liberal-democratic systems. However, the weakness of
this view of stability is that, since it relies on authority being exerted from above,
it may not place effective constraints on the exercise of government power. If
stability is seen as an end in itself, divorced from considerations such as democratic
legitimacy, social justice and respect for human rights (see p. 342), the
result may simply be tyranny and oppression. Saddam Hussein, after all, was able
to perpetuate the existence of his Iraqi regime, despite economic sanctions and
opposition from Shi’a Moslems and Kurds, largely through systematic terror and
brutal repression, until US intervention brought the regime down in 2003.
Material performance
The idea that political systems can and should be judged by their material
performance is a familiar one. Electoral politics, for example, is invariably dominated
by economic issues and the so-called ‘feel good’ factor. Governments are
usually re-elected in periods of growth and widening prosperity, and defeated
during recessions and economic crises. Similarly, there can be little doubt that
the success of the broader political system is linked to its capacity to ‘deliver the
goods’. Widespread poverty and low levels of economic growth in developing
states have deepened social and ethnic tensions, fuelled corruption, and undermined
attempts to establish constitutional and representative government. The
collapse of the state socialist regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR was also
linked to the failure of central planning and, in particular, to its inability to
deliver the levels of material prosperity and range of consumer goods that were
available in the capitalist West. Moreover, it is no coincidence that advanced
industrialized states have enjoyed both the greatest levels of political stability and
the highest living standards in the world.
Considerable debate has taken place about the most reliable means of generating
wealth and achieving material prosperity. In some senses, this debate reflects
the traditional ideological divide between capitalism and socialism; the former
places its faith in the market and competition, and the latter relies on nationalization
and planning. However, the Eastern European revolutions of 1989–91
dramatically changed the terms of this debate by (apparently) undermining the
validity of any form of socialism qualitatively distinct from market capitalism. In
other words, even socialists came to accept that the market, or at least some form
of market competition, is the only reliable mechanism for generating wealth. The
‘capitalism or socialism?’debate has therefore developed into a‘what kind of capitalism?’
debate, as examined in Chapter 5. However, this issue is not merely about
how wealth can be generated, but also about how it is distributed; that is, it is about
who gets what. As such, it is closely linked to debate about the desirable balance
between the market and the state, and the degree to which government can, and
should, modify market outcomes to achieve greater equality.
The central dilemma that arises from the use of material prosperity as a performance
indicator is that economic growth must be balanced against fairness.
This is the difficulty of being concerned both about the size of the cake and about
how the cake is cut. Two contrasting views of this problem can be identified. The
free-market view, advanced by theorists such as Friedrich von Hayek (see p. 37)
and Milton Friedman (see p.138),holds that general prosperity is best achieved by
a system of unregulated capitalism. This is what Titmuss (1968) referred to as the
454 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Equality
Equality is the principle
of uniform
apportionment, but does
not imply sameness. The
term ‘equality’ has
differing implications,
depending on what is
being apportioned.
Formal equality means
the equal distribution of
legal and political rights,
and is usually based on
the assumption that
human beings are ‘born’
equal. Equality of
opportunity means that
everyone has the same
starting-point, or equal
life chances, but may
justify social inequality
because talent and the
capacity for hard work
are unequally distributed.
Equality of outcome refers
to an equal distribution
of income, wealth and
other social goods.
‘industrial–achievement’ performance model. From this perspective, economic
growth is best promoted by material incentives that encourage enterprise and
endeavour, and penalize laziness. The welfare state should therefore only act as a
safety net that protects individuals from absolute poverty, in the sense that they
lack the basic means of subsistence.Although this system is likely to increase social
inequality, the theory suggests that it benefits even the less well-off, who receive a
smaller proportion of a much larger cake, so ending up better off. Free-market
economists refer to this theory as the ‘trickle down’ effect. Such policy priorities
have guided New Right governments since the 1980s in their attempts to break
away from the ‘fiscal crisis of the welfare state’. In this view, burgeoning social
budgets led to a growing tax burden that, in turn, hampered wealth generation.
The rival social-democratic view, which Titmuss called the ‘institutional–
redistributive’ model, highlights the moral and economic benefits of equality.
Not only is unregulated competition condemned for promoting greed and
conflict, it is also seen as inefficient and unproductive. The virtue of social justice
is that, by taking the distribution of wealth away from the vagaries of the market,
it ensures that all citizens have a stake in society and that each of them has an
incentive to contribute. In tolerating wide social inequality, free-market policies
thus run the risk of promoting social exclusion, reflected in the growth of an
underclass that is a breeding ground for crime and social unrest. Long-term and
sustainable prosperity therefore requires that material incentives operate within
a broader framework of fair distribution and effective welfare.
Citizenship performance
The idea that citizenship is the proper end of government can be traced back to
the political thought of Ancient Greece. For instance, in 431 BCE, in his famous
funeral oration, Pericles stated that:
An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his
own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very
fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public
affairs, not as harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators,
we are all sound judges of policy.
A citizen is a member of a political community or state, endowed with a set of
rights and a set of obligations. Citizenship is therefore the ‘public’ face of individual
existence. People are able to participate in the life of their communities to
the extent that they possess entitlements and responsibilities. Civil participation
is, in turn, linked to the advance of constitutional government, as reflected in the
extension of political rights and civil liberties (see p. 404).
In his classic contribution to the study of citizenship rights, T. H. Marshall
(1950) distinguished between three ‘bundles of rights’: civil rights, political
rights and social rights. Civil rights were defined by Marshall as ‘rights necessary
for individual freedom’. These include freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience, the right to equality
before the law, and the right to own property. Civil rights are therefore rights
that are exercised within civil society; they are ‘negative’ rights in the sense
that they limit or check the exercise of government power. Political rights
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 455
provide the individual with the opportunity to participate in political life. The
central political rights are thus the right to vote, the right to stand for election,
and the right to hold public office. The provision of political rights clearly
requires the development of universal suffrage, political equality (see p. 90),
and democratic government. Finally, and most controversially, Marshall
argued that citizenship implies social rights that guarantee the individual a
minimum social status and, in so doing, provide the basis for the exercise of
both civil and political rights. Marshall defined these ‘positive’ rights, somewhat
vaguely, as the right ‘to live the life of a civilized being according to the
standards prevailing in society’.
As the concept of citizenship is usually seen as a distinctively western invention,
it is perhaps not surprising that liberal democracies have performed particularly
well in this respect (previously discussed concerns about declining civic
engagement notwithstanding). Civil and political rights clearly imply the form
of constitutional and representative government commonly found in the industrialized
West. The idea of social rights, however, has stimulated significant divisions,
because it implies a level of welfare provision and redistribution that (as
discussed earlier) classical liberals and the New Right regard as unjustifiable and
economically damaging. Marxists and feminists have also criticized the idea of
citizenship; the former on the grounds that it ignores unequal class power, and
the latter because it takes no account of patriarchal oppression.
A major dilemma nevertheless confronts those who employ citizenship as a
performance criterion: the need to balance rights against duties and, thereby,
apportion responsibilities between the individual and the community. Since the
early 1980s, this issue has been taken up in the growing debate between liberals
and communitarians. Communitarian theorists such as Alisdair MacIntyre
(1981) and Michael Sandel (1982) have dismissed the idea of an unencumbered
self, arguing that the ‘politics of rights’ should be replaced by a ‘politics of the
common good’. In this view, liberal individualism (see p. 158), in effect, eats
itself. By investing individuals with rights and entitlements, it simply breeds
atomism and alienation, weakening the communal bonds that hold society
together. From this perspective, non-western societies that may appear to
perform poorly in relation to citizenship indicators (for example, having poor
records on human rights) may nevertheless succeed in creating a strong sense of
community and social belonging.
Democracy performance
Whereas stability, material prosperity and citizenship are all outcomes, or products,
of the political process, democracy is concerned essentially with the process
itself, with how decisions are made, rather than with what decisions are made.
Democracy means popular rule – in crude terms, the widest possible dispersal of
political power and influence. From the democratic perspective, the purpose of
politics is to empower the individual and enlarge the scope of personal autonomy
(see p. 457). Autonomy has been seen as both an end in itself and a means
to an end. Classical theorists of democracy, such as J.-J. Rousseau (see p. 97) and
J. S. Mill (see p. 198), portrayed political participation as a source of personal
development and self-realization. Democracy is thus the stuff of freedom, or, as
Rousseau put it, freedom means ‘being one’s own master’.
456 P O L I T I C S
Taken to its logical extreme, the idea of popular self-government implies the
abolition of the distinction between the state and civil society through the establishment
of some form of direct democracy (see p. 92). For example, Athenian
democracy (see p. 95) amounted to a form of government by mass meeting, in
which citizens were encouraged to participate directly and continuously in the
life of their polis, or city-state. Modern notions of democracy, however, have
shifted away from this utopian vision and, instead, embrace democracy more as
a means to an end. The more familiar machinery of representative democracy –
universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and competitive elections – tends to be
defended on the grounds that, for example, the existence of voting rights checks
the abuse of government power, and party competition helps to generate social
consensus. The ability of the people to ‘kick the rascals out’ therefore helps to
ensure that government is limited and that there is, at least, a measure of public
accountability.
However, most political systems fare poorly by the standards of personal
autonomy and popular rule. What passes for democracy in the modern world
tends to be a limited and indirect form of democracy: liberal democracy. This
operates as an ‘institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in
which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle
for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter, 1942). This ‘institutional arrangement’
has been criticized by radical democrats for reducing popular participation to a
near meaningless ritual: casting a vote every few years for politicians who can be
removed only by replacing them with another set of politicians. In short, the
people never rule, and the growing gulf between government and the people is
reflected, as we have seen, in the spread of inertia, apathy and a breakdown of
community.
This perspective is, therefore, linked to calls for radical, even revolutionary,
political and social change. For example, government power should be decentralized
so as to bring power ‘closer’ to the people. This could, for instance,
require the break-up of the nation-state, as it is difficult, in practical terms, to see
how a community the size of a modern nation could govern itself through direct
and continuous participation. Similarly, insofar as the democratic principle is
applied in modern societies, it is confined to a narrowly ‘political’ set of decisions.
If democracy is understood as self-mastery – the ability to shape decisions
that affect one’s life – surely economic power must also be democratized,
presumably through the machinery of workers’ control and self-management.
As with the performance criteria examined above, democracy also poses its
own set of dilemmas. The most important of these is the need for a balance
between the twin goals of government by the people and government for the
people. This highlights the tension between the competing virtues of popular
participation and rule in the public interest. The most fundamental objection to
all forms of participatory democracy is simply that ordinary people lack the
time, maturity and specialist knowledge to rule wisely on their own behalf. The
earliest version of this argument was put by Plato (see p. 13), who advanced the
idea of rule by the virtuous; that is, government by a class of philosopher kings.
In this form, the case for government for the people amounts to an argument in
favour of an enlightened despotism. The concern about the capabilities of ordinary
people can, however, be dealt with more modestly, through the provision of
representative processes that allow for a division of labour in political life. A
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 457
CONCEPT
Autonomy
Autonomy (from the
Greek, meaning ‘law unto
oneself’) literally means
self-rule. States,
institutions or groups can
be said to be
autonomous if they enjoy
a substantial degree of
independence, although
autonomy in this
connection is sometimes
taken to imply a high
measure of selfgovernment,
rather than
sovereign independence.
Applied to the individual,
autonomy is closely
linked to freedom (see
p. 339). However, since it
suggests being rationally
self-willed, autonomy is
classified as a form of
positive freedom. By
responding to inner or
‘genuine’ drives, the
autonomous individual
may be seen to achieve
authenticity.
further dilemma is that the empowerment of the individual must be balanced
against the empowerment of the community. To give priority to personal autonomy
is necessarily to place limits on public authority. However, to extol the
virtues of popular rule is to risk subordinating the individual to the will of the
public, or the majority. The tension between the individual and society not only
raises major practical difficulties, but also highlights what some would argue has
always been, and remains, the central issue in political theory.
458 P O L I T I C S
SUMMARY
Concerns about a crisis in politics stem largely from evidence of growing civic disengagement, reflected, in
particular, in declining rates of voter turnout and falling levels of party membership and campaigning.
However, such trends may not so much betoken a crisis in political participation, as indicate a shift from one
kind of participation to another – as, for instance, protest movements rise in importance and ‘new media’ are
more widely used to facilitate political debate and activism.
Growing cynicism about, and even anger towards, mainstream political parties and politicians has been
expressed in the phenomenon of ‘anti-politics’. ‘Anti-politics’, nevertheless, does not encourage citizens to
turn away from politics and retreat into private existence. Instead, it tends to spawn new groups and movements
that express resentment or hostility towards established political structures, although these may range
from anti-capitalist protests to far-right anti-immigration campaigns.
Evidence of growing voter apathy cannot easily be disregarded, as modern democracies are all representative
democracies, in which elections play a vital role. However, the task of explaining declining levels of formal
political participation is fraught with difficulties, not least because of the number of possible culprits. The
most significant of these are politics, politicians and parties, the public, the media and modern society.
Political systems can be judged only in terms of their impact on the larger society, for good or ill. However, as
this raises normative questions, there is no consensus about the desirable ‘outcomes’ of the political process.
The most commonly used indexes of a government’s or system’s performance include its ability to maintain
stability and order, deliver material prosperity, promote citizenship and foster democratic rule.
Evaluating political systems is difficult because each performance indicator embodies complexities. Stability
can be promoted through consent and popular responsiveness, or through a shared culture and greater
respect for authority. The quest for material prosperity may be hampered by policies designed to ensure that
wealth is more equally distributed. The spread of citizenship rights may undermine civic duty and weaken the
sense of community. The extension of democratic rule may simply lead to a majoritarian despotism that
places restrictions on individual freedom or personal autonomy.
A C R I S I S I N P O L I T I C S ? 459
Questions for discussion
Is the ‘participation crisis’ in modern politics largely
a myth?
What is the significance of the rise of ‘anti-political’
groups and movements?
Why is politics ‘doomed to disappoint’?
Do we get the politicians we deserve?
Is there such a thing as a right of non-
participation?
Are consumerism and citizenship incompatible?
Is there an inevitable tension between democracy
and liberty?
Are people the best judges of what is good for
them?
Which political system comes closest to achieving
the ‘good society’?
Further reading
Bauman, Z. In Search of Politics (1999). An examination
of how a growing sense of transience and insecurity
is undermining meaningful social bonds and threatening
the ‘private/public’ space.
Flinders, M. Defending Politics:Why Democracy Matters
in the 21st Century (2012). A fresh and engaging
analysis of the nature of political rule, and a
defence of politics against its key threats.
Hay, C. Why We Hate Politics (2007). An investigation
into the origins of growing cynicism and negativity
about politics, which focuses particularly on the
impact of neoliberalism and globalization.
Stoker, G. Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy
Work (2006). A stimulating analysis of why democratic
politics is doomed to disappoint and how
civic participation can be revived.