Alternative Globalisations/Advanced Global Politicsr. James Ferguson 2007

Alternative Globalisations/Advanced Global PoliticsR. James Ferguson © 2007

Lecture 1:

The New Global Politics:

Alternative Outlooks in a Period of Contested Globalisation

Topics: -

1. Transition Beyond the Old Inter-National Relations

2. Change: The Expected and Unexpected

3. Global Politics: The Basic Description of Globalisation

4. Incomplete Globalisation as Global-Dialogue

5. Alternative Outlooks and Institutions

6. Bibliography, Resources, and Further Reading

1. Transition Beyond the Old Inter-National Relations

International relations at all levels were rapidly changing in the last quarter of the 20th century and in the early 21st century. Likewise, ‘International Relations’ and ‘International Politics’ as disciplines have been undergoing rapid change during the last two decades, with a large range of alternative viewpoints being developed by practitioners, scholars and activists. Ironically, the thinking of academics, foreign policy advisers, political activists, mainstream economic advisers (see Davies 2004; Soros 2002) and government policy groups have probably been adapting more slowly that the real changes they have to face in the world around them.

International Relations, as the term ‘inter-national’ indicates, was a discipline which concerned itself originally with the relations among states. It was therefore concerned with issues such as war, diplomacy, power politics and state order. These issues of ‘high politics’ were viewed as the most important shapers of the world, past, present, and into the foreseeable future. The state was focused on because it was viewed as the main international actor, and as religious authority declined, as the main source of legitimacy. With the disastrous outcomes of World War I and World War II, the main issue seemed to resolve itself on the theme of power, a trend entrenched in thinkers such as Hans Morgantheau (1985), policy practitioners such as Henry Kissinger (1994), and the realist and neo-realistic schools of thought (taken further in lecture 2). These views were entrenched and developed further during the Cold War superpower competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

Such ‘realist’ thinkers argued that the state was the main international actor, the only source of genuine legitimacy, and that in a basically anarchical world order of high competition and regular conflict, the state and its interests had to be preserved at all cost. The term anarchical here refers to the concept that no true source of authority or legitimacy existed above the self-interest of states, leading to a lack of genuine international society, a concept developed by Hedley Bull (Bull 2000). The idea here was that in spite of some inter-governmental and supra-national actors (the UN, the EU etc.), there was no higher source of global order than states and agreements made among them, based on national interest. International Relations, therefore, particularly in British and U.S. scholarship, tended to be viewed as an extension of foreign affairs, foreign relations and foreign policy. International Relations was therefore studied mainly to allow the proper formulation and prescription of foreign policy, e.g. how the U.S. could retain hegemonic control in the Persian Gulf or help chart a road towards a wider Middle Eastern settlement, remain the dominant power in the Pacific, or how other nations can be coerced on particular issues (for a sophisticated account of coercive bargaining, see Lebow 1998). Countries had to either develop their own power resources, or align with those who had power. On this basis, the main issue for national leaders remained the issue of developing, maintaining and using power, conceived of primarily in political and military terms, with a secondary recognition of the role of wealth in support of these kinds of power.

However, by the late 1980s several trends began to emerge which shifted international relations, in the factual arena and in its ideas, away from this dominant theme of the nation and hard-power relations. These revisionist themes, include the following: -

• The Cold War itself, which dominated European and then world affairs from 1949-1989, was based on the notion of hostile camps armed with nuclear weapons. Though small, useable weapons (which one might dare use) were conceived of in the second half of this period, the basic concept of deterrence was dominant. In classical nuclear deterrence, this assumed that a major conflict between nuclear powers could lead to atomic war, and in the classical system of deterrence lead to mutually-assured destruction (MAD). The problem that this scenario was it involved the development of enormous nuclear arsenals and military power which by definition could not be used. If the policy of deterrence was working, there should never be a need to ‘nuke’ anybody. In effect, this moved the whole issue of power onto the development of a massive military potential, backed by a sophisticated notion of game-theory in which you assumed that the enemy was just as rational as you were. In other words, the theory could only work for the Americans (or British and French) if they correctly understood the thinking and strategies of their Soviet and Chinese opponents. Strategists were led back to thinking about strategic culture, leadership styles, and political systems in opposing as well as allied countries. As a result, hard-headed ‘independent’ policy institutes which helped provide research that was utilised by Western governments, e.g. the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institute, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London) began analysing a wide range cultural, historical, and political and social factors (see for example Langer 1972; Boylan 1982; Harding 1984; Harding 1987; Harding 1993; Harding 1994; Dupont 1996). The first move in this direction was a paper studying ‘strategic culture’ of the Soviets made by Synder in 1977, published by the RAND corporation, and this became a major secondary theme in even conservative journals in the 1990s (See Synder 1977; Dellios 1997b, pp202-204). From 2001, we may see a return to a more sophisticated version of this contest through the debate over the deployment of a Missile Defence system by the U.S. (as well as possible extended missile defences - TMD, Theatre Missile Defence Systems, for Japan and possibly even Taiwan). Such a system has serious implications for China, Russia, and Europe, leading to another round of analysis of motivation, strategic culture and capability among the nuclear powers (see Lieber & Press 2006; Wilkening 2000; Evans 2004). Likewise, there is now a major effort to understand the motivation of thinking of government actions in states such as India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea (especially through 2003-2007). From 2006, debate has begun to emerge as to whether a new system of nuclear balance is emerging in Asia, in large measure outside the old nuclear club and outside of effective regulation by the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), a trend still developing due even as India and North Korea have engaged in very different types of dialogue on this issue. If Iran or North Korea's leadership is viewed as inherently 'unpredictable', this might lead to a more robust effort to contain or erode their ability to project power. Ironically, such defence systems can cause a period severe instability before they are fully deployed, and do not deal with other threats such as international terrorism, nor a host of other transnational problems (see further below; for limitations of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RIM) for the low intensity conflicts (LICs) that may become more common in the 21st century, see Jordaan & Vrey 2003). Likewise, strategic culture has also had engage with the ideas and motivations of non-state actors who have emerged as political and military opponents over the last seventy years, including revolutionary, guerrilla and terrorist groups. At the same time, this trend indicates that military and technological power, in new forms, remain important elements of power for some states.

• The end of the Cold War lead to massive changes in the international system, as well as greatly surprising most politicians, strategists, and international relations thinkers. Almost no one predicted the major changes of the 1988-1992 period, at least not so early. With the slowing and end of the Cold War (though tensions among Russia, the ‘West’ and China and the U.S. have been somewhat revived through 2005-2007, they are of a totally different order to the 1949-1987 period), several major changes have occurred. Although security and defence issues remain important, military power is now viewed as one potential among many sources of strength and influence. The dominant conception of power which has emerged since the 1980s has been the priority of economic power, based on national wealth, trade, technological innovation, and influence in the international financial system. Ralph Pettman has characterised one version of this system as the ‘balance of productivity’ (see Pettman 1991). Other approaches try to combine economic and resources issues as part of a more broadly based notion of power, conceptualised either as comprehensive national strength, and comprehensive security, including a wide range of factors: population, resources, economic strength, military forces, education levels, diplomatic prestige (these concepts have been deployed at different times by China, Japan, and NATO, Li 1990). Likewise, the international news of the 1990s is full of discussions of international trade and finance organisations (the World Trade Organisation – WTO; the International Monetary Fund – IMF), of economic crises (Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Argentina), economic trends (e.g. trade and investment flows), and growing energy demands of rising powers such as China and India. Wealth is seen as basis for the power and international influence of modern powers such as the European Union, Germany, Japan, and ultimately, the US itself. Prospects of future ‘great powers’ are also assessed in terms of economic growth and future parity purchasing power (PPP), e.g. the prospect of China becoming the world’s largest economy by 2025 if not earlier (for various estimate, see Dellios 2005; Cheng 2003). In such a setting, technological, economic and institutional innovation become key factors in shaping the global system, as well as strongly shaping regional and bilateral relations (for one such analysis of China and the WTO, see Cheng 2003).

• Many policies and decisions that influence regional and global now operate through large corporations or regional and international organisations. They are inherently transnational, often working beyond the confines of individual states with a speed and volume that dwarf all but the largest national economies (see Strange 1996). Thus, even in the early 1990s, 51 of the world's largest economic entities were corporations (with transnational operations and dispersed production), while 49 were nations (Davies 2004, p144). As such, many of the organisations created at the end of World War II (the Bretton Woods Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank) may no longer be able to regulate the world system as effectively as had been hoped (see Stevenson 2000). Over the 2001-2007 period this viewpoint has been partially modified, with the US and its coalition 'partners' showing the operation of military predominance in the interventions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in part using strategic power for defensive reasons, in part to shape access to key resources such as oil (for the revival of 'realist' orientation since 2001, see Haque 2003). However, in the long run economic, energy and resource factors are still central in shaping power and foreign policy in the 21st century, but now run in transnational settings (see Leech 2006; Kleveman 2003; Klare 2002). Furthermore, globalisation also allows transnational illegal networks and trades to flourish, with issues such as arms, drugs, and people smuggling emerging as major problems alongside money laundering (estimated at running around 2-5% of global GDP) and the theft of intellectual property (Naim 2003). These problems cannot be controlled by the efforts of single nations (see Naim 2003).

• A third major trend has been a recognition that a whole range of issues that were once viewed as of secondary importance, i.e. ‘low politics’, now have a stronger role in driving change and in structuring crises. These include: -

-environmental concerns have become more prominent, e.g. the severe air pollution or haze affecting Southeast Asia for parts of 1997-1999, widespread pollutive damage in Russia, Eastern Europe, India and China. Since 1992, there have serious efforts to forge an international agenda aimed at managing global environmental problems (via tools such as the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21).

-climate change, impacting on agriculture, fisheries, and patterns of risk and insurance, e.g affecting Pacific and Indian Ocean Islands, parts of Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Pakistan and the Arctic. If sustained, climate change may affect the security of entire nations and regions. Even if part of longer natural cycles, human activity may be exacerbating the rapidity of these cycles. This may then be linked to issues of crisis management and the resilience of human institutions to a range of disasters. However, even with the formal coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol with Russian ratification from November 2004, these have had a limited global impact (taken up later lectures; see further Stavins 2004). Through 2006-2007 the reality of climate change has been accepted, as has the notion of ongoing pressures on the use of fossil fuels, leading to a renewed debate on energy sources and usage in China, the U.S. and Australia.

-control and management of ocean and coastal resources, both through control of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and open ocean areas, part of a wider 'global commons' debate (see for example Environmental Policy and Law 2001). Fisheries, undersea gas and oil fields, and rights of passage for military vessels are part of a complex debate about management of coast and deep see resources.

-migration,populations movements, refugees and illegal workers. Movement of human being remains one of the most poorly regulated and problematic areas of national and transnational governance, and continue to challenge developed economies in Europe and North America.

-poverty and under-development, often as sources of wider political and military instability (addressed in later lectures).

-issues affecting women and children as poor, dis-empowered or exploited segments of world society (See Pettman 1991). In this setting, gender issues and challenges to traditional systems of authority and the use of force have been brought forward by feminist theory (see for example Tickner 2005; Tickner 1997; Lenz 2003).

-uncontrolled urban development and urban crises, leading to a debate as to whether the growing number of megacities are truly sustainable (taken up in lecture 10).

-health issues which have a global impact, e.g. AIDS, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), Avian bird flu, malaria (which from 1989 has re-emerged as a major problem, reported in 107 countries up to 2003, World Malaria Report 2005), the re-emergence of tuberculosis, the global cost of poor health systems, immunisation issues, the cost and subsidising of generic drugs to make them more widely available, the evolution of new viruses, and the enforcement of biological warfare conventions. These trends suggest global vulnerabilities based flows in the global system that need better detection and management (see Dudley 2006 for one example).

-culture and civilisational dialogue verses patterns of political conflict in international relations. These factors were explicitly recognised as an important in UN conferences since 1993, but remain controversial in relation to the causes of modern conflict, e.g. the role of Islam, and varying degrees of tolerance in political systems (Huntington 1993; Huntington 1996; Iriye 1997; Hudson 1997; discussed further in week 4).

-agendas concerning new communication technologies, e.g. the possible divide between information-rich and information poor communities. This has led in part to a 'new diplomacy' and a new way of waging international political and civil campaigns, as well as providing a means for e-commerce and accelerated international financial flows. A new 'public diplomacy' driven in part through agencies such as CNN and public relations firms, has shifted the way politicians and governments relate to domestic and international audiences (see for example Ross 2003; Maluf 2005). As noted by Christopher Ross: -

Modern diplomacy, once a largely one-dimensional, nation-to-nation process, is now a multi-dimensional enterprise in which so-called "non-state" actors and foreign publics play an increasingly prominent role. The latest Iraq war is the most dramatic, but hardly the first, example of this phenomenon. The rise in influence of non-state actors has been paralleled by two other equally important developments: globalization - the integration of peoples, societies, and economies - and information technologies that now link nations, cultures, and societies in complex and unprecedented ways.

This is the transformed international environment in which public diplomacy now operates. In such a world, the public-diplomacy quotient of virtually every foreign policy issue today has risen dramatically, whether regarding a trade negotiation over genetically modified corn, the reconstruction of Iraq, or the threat of HTV/AIDS. (Ross 2003)