Mastering Globalization
Contemporary globalization has transformed and undermined the role of the nation-state, causin...
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Mastering Globalization
Contemporary globalization has transformed and undermined the role of the nation-state, causing it to lose its grip on both the national economy and identity. Mastering Globalization looks at the debates arising from this phenomenon and explores how governments – national, regional, local, global city-regions – can respond. This original selection of essays discusses the impact of globalization on nationstates and the international system, the consequent political and sociological fragmentation of nations, and the rise of multiple identities within those nations. The collected essays uniquely investigate the dramatic effect of globalization on governance, outlining how sub-state “governments” have now become international actors. This volume provides an in-depth look at the way globalization reshapes political relationships, and will be of interest to students of politics, international studies and globalization. Guy Lachapelle is Secretary General of the International Political Science Association and Professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Montréal. Stéphane Paquin is Associate Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Routledge Series in Regional and Federal Studies (Formerly The Cass Series in Regional and Federal Studies) Series Editor: John Loughlin, Cardiff University This series brings together some of the foremost academics and theorists to examine the timely subject of regional and federal studies, which since the mid-1980s have become key questions in political analysis and practice. 1
The End of the French Unitary State? Edited by John Loughlin and Sonia Mazey
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Protecting the Periphery Environmental policy in peripheral regions of the European Union Edited by Susan Baker, Kay Milton and Steven Yearly
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The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict, 2nd edition Edited by John Coakley The Political Economy of Regionalism Edited by Michael Keating and John Loughlin
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The Regional Dimension of the European Union Towards a ‘third level’ in Europe? Edited by Charlie Jeffery
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Remaking the Union Devolution and British politics in the 1990s Edited by Howard Elcock and Michael Keating
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Paradiplomacy in Action The foreign relations of subnational governments Edited by Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating The Federalization of Spain Luis Moreno
9 Local Power, Territory and Institutions in European Metropolitan Regions In search of urban gargantuas Edited by Bernard Jouve and Christian Lefevre 10 Region, State and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by Kataryna Wolczuk and Judy Batt 11 Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union Edited by James Hughes and Gwendolyn Sasse 12 New Borders for a Changing Europe Cross-border cooperation and governance Edited by James Anderson, Liam O’Dowd and Thomas M. Wilson 13 Regional Interests in Europe Edited by Jörg Mathias 14 Multinational Federalism and Value Pluralism The Spanish case Ferran Requejo 15 Mastering Globalization New sub-states’ governance and strategies Edited by Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin
Mastering Globalization New sub-states’ governance and strategies
Edited by Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin
First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mastering globalization : new sub-states’ governance and strategies / edited by Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin. p. cm. — (Routledge series in regional and federal studies, ISSN 1363-5670 ; 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Globalization. 2. National state. I. Lachapelle, Guy, 1955– II. Paquin, Stéphane. III. Series. JZ1318.M384 2005 327.1’01—dc22 2004023945
ISBN 0-203-08686-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–415–34798–X (Print Edition)
Contents
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Contents
Contributors Introduction – mastering globalization: new sub-state’s governance and strategies
vii
1
GUY LACHAPELLE AND STÉPHANE PAQUIN
PART I
Mastering globalization 1
Politics, economics, and justice: toward a politics of globalizing capitalism
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7
THEODORE J. LOWI
2
Globalization and the rise of super territoriality
13
JAN AART SCHOLTE
3
Local reponses to the globalizations of our era
38
HENRY TEUNE
4
Globalization and international security: Pax Americana or multilateralism?
49
JOHN E. TRENT
PART II
New sub-states governance and paradiplomacy 5
Why do sub-states and regions practice international relations? STÉPHANE PAQUIN AND GUY LACHAPELLE
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77
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6
Contents
Sub-state governments in international arenas: paradiplomacy and multi-level governance in Europe and North America
90
ROBERT KAISER
7
Globalization, welfare solidarity and sub-state governance
104
NICOLA MCEWEN
8
Sub-state strategies in an era of globalization and the information technology revolution
116
EARL H. FRY
PART III
Identities and new state strategies 9
Multiple identities and global meso-communities
125 127
LUIS MORENO
10
Accommodation in Europe and North America
141
ANDRÉ LECOURS
11
Ethnonational minority identities in France
152
WILLIAM SAFRAN
12
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country
167
FRANCISCO LETAMENDÍA
Index
188
Contributors
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Contributors
Earl H. Fry is Professor of Political Science and Endowed Professor of Canadian Studies at Brigham Yung University. He recently served as the Thomas O. Enders Fellow in Canadian–American Relations at McGill University (Montreal). His books include America the Vincible: U.S. Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century (rev. edn, Pearson, 2002), The North American West in a Global Economy (Pacific Council on International Policy, 2000), The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in U.S. Foreign Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations, 1998). He is also co-editor of several books, including Globalization and the Information Technology Revolution: Their Impact on North America’s Federal Systems (2002), States and Provinces in the International Economy (1993). Robert Kaiser is Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Politics of the University of Munich. He has published widely in the fields of comparative politics and comparative political economy. His research interests include processes of economic integration at regional and multilateral levels as well as the comparative analysis of innovation systems and policies. He is currently finishing a book on innovation systems under competition, institutional reconfiguration and new modes of coordination in the pharmaceutical biotechnology sectors of Germany, Switzerland and the United States. Guy Lachapelle is Secretary General of International Political Science Association and Professor of Political Science at Concordia University. He was president of the Société québécoise de science politique (1996–7). His latest publications include: Robert Bourassa: Un bâtisseur tranquille (with Robert Comeau, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2002) and Globalization, Governance and Identity (with John E. Trent, Presses de l’Université de Montréal) and for the Royal Commission on Political Parties and Party Financing (Lortie Commission), Polls and the Media in Canadian Elections: Taking the Pulse (1991). He is co-author with Gérald Bernier, Daniel Salée, and Luc Bernier of Quebec Democracy: Structures, Processes, and Policies (1993). He is co-editor with Luc Bernier and Pierre P. Tremblay of Le Processus budgétaire au Québec (1999); with Robert Young and John E. Trent of Quebec-Canada: What is the Path Ahead? (1996); with Pierre P. Tremblay of Le Contribuable: Héros ou malfaiteur (1996); with
viii Contributors Jean Crête and Louis M. Imbeau of Politiques provinciales comparées (1994). He is the editor of Quebec under Free Trade: Making Public Policy in North America (1995)and with Pierre P. Tremblay and John E. Trent of L’Impact référendaire (1995). André Lecours is Assistant Professor at Concordia University. He studied at the Université Laval (BA, MA) and Carleton University (PhD, 2001). His primary research interersts are nationalism, with an area specialization on Western Europe and institutionalist theory. His articles on nationalism, regionalism, identity politics, paradiplomacy and new institutionalism, as well as Spanish and Belgian politics, have appeared in the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2000), Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (2000), Space & Polity (2000), National Identities (2001), The Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (2001), International Negotiation (2002), Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism (2002) and Politique et sociétés (2003). Francisco Letamendía was formerly the Director of Programmes at the Université Paris VIII; he is currently Professor of Political Science at the Universidad del País Vasco. His research focuses on nationalist movements, political violence, national identities, the concept of ‘European’, political theory and trade unions. His recent works include Historia del nacionalismo vasco y de ETA, in 3 volumes (1997). Juego de espejos: conflictos nacionales centro-periferia (1997) (English translation published by Ashgate, 2000, “Game of mirrors. Center–Peripherie National Conflicts”). Nacionalidades y regiones en la Unión Europea (1999). Cocinas del mundo: la política en la mesa (2000). Ciencia política alternativa: Su aplicación a los casos vasco y norirlandés (2002). Thedore J. Lowi is Professor and Head of the John L. Senior Chair on American Institutions at Cornell University. He also taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He received his PhD from Yale University. He was president of the International Political Science Association (1997–2000) and also president of the American Political Science Association (1990–1). He has published several books including: The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (1985), At the Pleasure of the Mayor (1964), The Pursuit of Justice (1964) with Robert F. Kennedy, and The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States (1979). Nicola McEwen is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Edinburgh. She recently completed her PhD (University of Sheffield), submitting a doctoral thesis entitled “State welfare nationalism: the territorial impact of welfare state development in Scotland and Quebec.” She has produced thesis-related publications, including an article in Regional and Federal Studies and several book chapters. She is currently working on a number of articles on territorial politics, national identity and intergovernmental relations, and is about to take up an ESRC post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. Luis Moreno is Senior Research Fellow at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. He has been visiting scholar in several European and North
Contributors
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American universities. His main research interests are welfare state and social policy, and the territorial dimension of power. Recent publications include: The Federalization of Spain (Frank Cass, 2001); “Ethnoterritorial concurrence in multinational societies,” in Alain-G. Gagnon and James Tully (eds), Multinational Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2001); and The Territorial Politics of Welfare (Routledge, 2005) with N. McEwen. Stéphane Paquin is Associate Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He also taught at the École nationale d’administration publique, the Institut d’études politiques in Paris and Northwestern University, Chicago. He has published several books including: Paradiplomatie et relations internationales (PIE– Peter Lang, 2004), Paradiplomatie identitaire en Catalogne (Pressses de l’Université Laval, 2003), and La Revanche des petites nations: Le Québec, la Catalogne et l’Écosse face à la mondialisation (VLB éditeur, 1999). His articles have appeared in journals such as Études internationales, Canadian Review of Political Science and Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. William Safran is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published ten books, contributed chapters to more than 30 edited books and written numerous articles on French and comparative politics as well as on nationalism, ethnicity, and related subjects. Among his more recent publications are The French Polity (6th edn, 1998), Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Plural Societies (2000), Politics in Europe (2002), and Nation, Religion, and Politics (2002). He is editor of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. Jan Aart Scholte is Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies and Associate of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick. He is author of Globalization: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave, 2000) and International Relations of Social Change (Open University Press, 1993), co-author of Contesting Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and editor of Civil Society and Global Finance (Routledge, 2002). He currently coordinates a project on Civil Society and Democracy in Global Economic Governance, involving over 200 associations in seven countries Henry Teune is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author or co-author of the Integration of Political Communities, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, The Developmental Logic of Social Systems, and Growth. His recent articles include “The developmental logic of globalization,” “New and old regions in European and global political economies,” and “Global democracy.” He is principle investigator in the comparative research projects, Democracy and Local Governance and Universities as Sites of Democratic Education. Professor Teune was President of the International Studies Association and now is President of the Research Committee on the Politics of Local–Global Relations of the International Political Science Association.
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Contributors
John E. Trent was formerly a Professor at, and Director of, the Department of Political Science at the University of Ottawa. Professor Trent is now researcher and fellow at Ottowa’s Centre on Governance. He has been Secretary General of the International Political Science Association and President of the Québec Society for Political Science. He is founding vice-president of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).
Introduction
1
Introduction Mastering globalization: new sub-state’s governance and strategies Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin
The state was invented in Europe in order to provide security to a population. After the Second World War, the nation-states would be called upon to play an increasingly important role in regulating the economy. Liberal democracies agreed fairly easily on the new role of the state. On the basis of Keynesian doctrine, it was argued that economies had to operate under free market practices and the protection of private interests. However, the state gave itself a regulatory role in order to correct market shortcomings, especially macroeconomic shortcomings. The state set itself the task of stabilizing the economy. It worked to promote full employment, growth, price stability and external balance. The state also set itself the task of ensuring an increase in the standard of living and regional development. A number of states nationalized strategic sectors of their economies to ensure better control over the economy and to promote national industrial development. The importance of international trade varied from country to country, but development models depended essentially on domestic markets. The golden age of Fordism increased the importance of the nation-states by the degree of economic interaction within their borders. In short, the trend was to national integration. Even the establishment of the welfare state in the first half of the twentieth century served to reinforce the legitimacy of the central state. The provider state appeared to be an extension of the nation-state by contributing to social unity and to the dissemination of a feeling of belonging to the national community fashioned by the state. It played a role in national unity and integration. From the welfare state, the population obtained material benefits simply by being citizens. The welfare state limited the negative effects of the market, which, in promoting competition, promoted exclusion. The system established meant that states had a monopoly over international representation, that they were the only players in the international game and that the diplomatic activities of the state were driven by a desire for power expressed primarily in terms of its military capabilities. The role of foreign trade varied, but it was not predominant in economic strategies. The society of states also created an international scene dominated by them. This system created by states meant not only the start of the territorial state era, it also suggested that only the juxtaposition of sovereign political communities was viable and it alone ensured order and security. Since then, the international
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Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin
community has promoted the stability of territorial communities, despite the claims of sub-state nationalist movements. The desire was for a stable system and the cultural movements operating within the territorial states, the only guarantors of world stability, were marginalized or assimilated. The effect of the international system was then to facilitate the job of the territorial governments by ensuring greater stability for them. The international system thus, through its own construction, effectively channeled national invention. Only the territorial state could represent the nation, thus eliminating competition by the churches and the cultural or ethnic communities from the international stage. Contemporary globalization has dropped this model and is preventing its reconstruction. The victim of globalization is the nation-state whose capacity to regulate the national economy has been significantly reduced. The relationship between state power and territory is of a more complex nature than it was in the period of the modern nation-state. Indeed, authority is increasingly spread among the various public and private players on the international, national, regional, and local stages. Faced with all this change, the nation-state began to redefine its role in connection with market forces and with its citizens. The state changed its role as regulator of the national economy and focused on world competition. Globalization is changing the rules of the game for all the players and this situation is making room for new strategies, for new methods of operating and new possibilities of governance. The effects of globalization are recognized as the most important factor, which fundamentally impacts the government’s ability to respond to an ever-increasing number of public policy issues. As the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada argues, “globalization can no longer be regarded simply as an economic or trade issue. Its impacts are widespread, and they shape choices from the environment to taxes, from social policy to the allocation of resources across sectors.” Increasingly, the government’s activities are defined by international frameworks, such as World Trade Organizations (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as influenced by regional trading blocks like the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). An offshoot of globalization is the transcendence of national borders. No longer bound by the artificial limitations of territoriality, many public issues are seen as requiring the collective actions of the numerous stakeholders, in order to protect or advance the interests of individual nations. Several governance models are associated with theories that appear to minimize the role of the governments in contemporary society. In particular, they are premised upon a perspective that substitutes the traditional role of formal governmental actors in favor of a number of “self-organizing, inter-organizational networks.” Implicit within these theories is an assumption that governments have lost their capacity to govern, as it has been eroded by the effects of socio-political forces, such as globalization and technology, or even that it has been replaced by a number of alternatives to the institutions of government, like the market place, supranational organizations, or sub-state governments.
Introduction
3
We acknowledged that the state–centre approach may at times minimize the influence of non-governmental actors in the governance process, and at times overemphasize the role of the public sector in setting the course for society, by arguing that ultimately it is institutions of government which are imbued with the legitimacy to impose the stability that is required in society. The mere fact that governance structures may take many forms (local, regional, national or transnational level), and that in many instances governments do not necessarily completely control actions in both the economy and society, does not necessarily remove governance from the purview of state institutions. The state–centre perspective is therefore particularly salient, as it recognizes that governments are not dead.
The sub-themes of the book The objective of this book is to summarize the debates and research issues related to globalization and the crisis of the nation-state. It will also look upon the strategies that governments (national, regional, local, global city-regions) should adopt to respond to these challenges. It is divided into three themes. The first theme focuses directly on the globalization debate, on its definition, on its consequences, on the transformation of the nation-state and the international system, on the political and sociological fragmentation of countries and on the need to rethink political relations between communities within a state. The second theme looks at the political and sociological fragmentation of nations. By cutting the benefits of integration and by reducing the obstacles to independence or the various forms of autonomy, globalization and regional integration promotes disintegration. In brief, globalization is expanding the set of actions undertaken by sub-state nationalist movements to ensure their survival as a nation. The wager of sub-state nationalist movements is that membership in the European Union or NAFTA has considerably reduced the cost from greater autonomy, if it comes to that. Moreover, the processes of decentralization imposed by globalization and regional integration are resulting in the sub-state players’ having more and more areas of jurisdiction but not always the equivalent fiscal resources. The third theme concentrates on globalization and multiple identities. Modernization brought about the idea of all-embracing state national identities rooted in both cultural and civic axes. Nowadays, such identities are openly questioned and have become problematic. While being corroded by the forces of globalization they are also subject to fragmentation, competition, and overlapping elements of a multiple and diverse nature. There is a noticeable strengthening of local, regional, and supranational identities. The discontinuity and dislocation of social arrangements provide that different identities relate to each other in quite an unpredictable manner. In plural societies individuals are tied to cultural references groups, which might be in competition among themselves. Nowadays identities are shared in various degrees by individuals and are subject to constant internationalization by group members. It opens the door for new possibilities of governance and for new state and sub-state strategies in the world economy and cooperative strategies between state and sub-state actors.
4
Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin
Politics, economics, and justice
Part I
Mastering globalization
5
6
Theodore J. Lowi
Politics, economics, and justice
1
7
Politics, economics, and justice Toward a politics of globalizing capitalism Theodore J. Lowi
I can already see minds at work thinking here comes another character from the US crossing the St Lawrence to take a few pot shots at American capitalism. Not so. In the first place, capitalism is not an American invention. We are products of it. As for me, in the second place, I will rely on Lord Keynes: “I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice and good sense; but the Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie” (Keynes, 1963: 323–4, italics in original). I come here neither to praise nor to curse capitalism but to explore some of its problematics. Political economy is, like medicine, an impure science of pathology. Economics is a pure science of wellness. And here I find my position supported by Joseph Schumpeter, who sounded like a pessimist about capitalism but was actually a pathologist: “Prognosis does not imply anything about the desirability of the course of events that one predicts. If the doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it” (Schumpeter, 1942: 61). Since even the Devil can quote scripture, I draw my text from Adam Smith: The sovereign has only three duties to attend to; … first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting … every member of the society from … injustice or oppression …; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public (sic) works and certain public institutions, … because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals … (Smith, 1981: 687–8)
Sovereign contributions to capitalism: patronage, garrison, and police Smith has identified three functions of modern states that are prerequisites of capitalism. There are more than three prerequisites of capitalism provided by the state, but Smith’s three are sufficient for purposes here: Patronage, Garrison, and Police. I have altered the sequence of Smith’s presentation not to suggest an order of priority but because that sequence fits US history so well: patronage, garrison, and police. These state functions are equal in their service as fundamental
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Theodore J. Lowi
supports for capitalism and the so-called free market. I need only add that they are prior to the market, outside the market. They are to be considered “functional prerequisites,” already operative, or else homo economicus will stay home. As economies expand in order to reap the benefits of the division of labor, the specialization of functions and the lowest possible unit costs – all following Adam Smith’s scenario – these three state functions (and more if I chose to provide them) must be mobilized not merely to keep pace with economic expansion but to stay ahead of it (Lowi, 1993). This was provocation for the first “regime change” in history to be carried off explicitly to facilitate economic expansion. I refer to the rejection of America’s “First Republic,” the Confederation of 1777–89, and the replacement of the Articles of Confederation by adoption of the Constitution, the purpose of which was to give the national government enough power to reduce barriers to trade between the American states and between the United States and the other nation-states. For the ensuing century and a half, the policies, respectively, of the national government and the state governments and their local government creatures paint a vivid picture of how the US met Smith’s three prerequisites. The national government of the US was virtually a “patronage state” providing those public facilities that were beyond the jurisdiction or the financial capacity of the individual states. Almost all of the garrison and police functions were lodged in the state and local governments, along with property protection, contract enforcement, and allocation of responsibility for injury, which can be considered post-Smithian prerequisites. The US failed to mobilize its garrison during initial commercial expansions and thus lost its first defense against “other independent societies,” in the War of 1812. The first expansion that can be called globalization, circa 1880–1914, proved that we had learned our lesson from 1812, so that we mobilized our garrison with a relatively large “peacetime” Navy, which proved sufficient for defense and also for preemption through what proved to be our own flirtation with imperialism. The third, police function was also being significantly mobilized, with the larger cities in the US following European practices of professionalization of the police, putting them in uniform, giving them training, arming them (with the exception of Britain), and (with the exception of France and Italy) differentiating police from garrison and from courts. In the industrializing cities in the US, there was an additional presence of the mobilization of the police function with the growth of the private police industry, operating under common law posse commitatus and injunctive powers. In the US, these private police were called “Pinkertons” after the largest and best-known private police companies. Outside the US, although there has been far less reliance on private police forces, there has been a much more widespread tendency to nationalize the police function and to erase the differentiation between police and the garrison. I have put special emphasis on the police function and its mobilization during periods of economic expansion not only because this expansion of police control is in itself an indication of general social pathology but because it sheds light on the more general cultural consequences of capitalism, regarding such areas as social equilibrium and social justice – or at least the sense of justice. After locating
Politics, economics, and justice
9
himself in the earlier quotation, Schumpeter proceeded with the reasoning back of the famous negative answer he gave to his own leading question, “Can Capitalism Survive?” To Schumpeter, capitalism does not “(break) down under the weight of economic failure, but … its very success undermines the social institutions which protect it …” (Schumpeter, 1942: 61) Later on he concludes: “Unlike any other type of society, capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest” (Schumpeter, 1942: 146).
Politics, economics, and justice We do not have to take Schumpeter on faith. There is logic and experience to support him fully enough to take him seriously as a physician without kneeling to him as a prophet. To do so, I will turn the tables on Schumpeter by going back to Smith, but to Smith’s earlier, more political work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the most important of those sentiments being the sense of justice (Smith, 1982: Part II, s. II, Ch. I). But I actually follow Michael Walzer in his argument that there are “spheres of justice” rather than one absolute and unitary justice. I will concentrate on the three spheres of justice that seem most implicated whenever economies expand on a global scale. I see these three problems as inherent in capitalism, such that they cannot be eliminated by mere reform of certain of the features of capitalism but must be coped with politically by controlling the consequences of capitalism. Although there seems no longer to be any question that capitalism is the most efficient way of producing the wealth of any nation, the true costs of capitalism have never been confronted. This confrontation has to be deliberate, without sentiment or ideology, under the Hippocratic condition that we do no harm to an otherwise strong and productive patient. The three spheres I have chosen are: (1) social destabilization; (2) poverty; and (3) inequality. This does not exhaust the possibilities. As with doctors, we need a menu of possible pathologies and a protocol of questions to ask and symptoms to look for. And like responsible doctors, we are not holding out for cures – only coping and regulating and maintaining, in hopes that nature, also known as good luck, will intervene. Destabilization Capitalism is the most revolutionary force of the world, and has been so for at least the past three centuries. When the elites of any society embrace the pursuit of wealth and profit, they are taking on far more than a mere technology: capitalism is culture; it penetrates the society, and in the process it undermines traditional authority and established social order. Even at this very general level it becomes perfectly clear what the answer is to the great question of our time: “Why do they hate us?” The “they” is the world of tradition; it is mainly Muslim in our era, but in no way limited to Islam. The “us” is not just the United States, although we are the most obvious hate symbol; the “us” is the Godless, secular, rational world
10 Theodore J. Lowi of contract between persons and societies built on greed – otherwise known as the pursuit of happiness or the profit motive or the free market. Permit me to focus this for a moment on the economics perspective of rational choice. As markets expand, the conditions move closer and closer to a genuine market economy, with large numbers of players, no control over price, supply seeking demand with equilibrium near the best possible price. This is the ideal economy but not the ideal polity: A competitive market economy is the mortal enemy of good citizenship. As competition reduces price toward marginal cost, individual employers or proprietors can no longer choose to follow the dictates of civic virtue and voluntarily raise wages or improve work or natural environmental conditions because the added cost would push up their price and fairly quickly force them out of the market. Republican virtues of community and social capital and obligation can be preached until the cows come home; nevertheless there is still negative incentive to accept community values. The ties that bind community members to each other as citizens are loosened, if not entirely cut. If the community authority needed for social control is weakened even in the most well-adjusted, Western contractual communities, imagine the disjunctive effect of capitalism where “the market,” in Polanyi’s terms, is still embedded in tradition, religion, and whole-person relationships. Capitalism gives a lot. But it demands an equal amount, if not more. People living in successful capitalist countries see their system as democratic and benevolent. Is there any wonder why their view is not shared everywhere? Poverty Poverty is a real-world condition but also an artifact of the definition established by consensus and public policy. And it doesn’t take a Marxist to agree with Marx’s theory that under capitalism the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In fact Henry George, a distinctly un-Marxist American political economist, may have put the matter better in his 1880 observation that: “[The] association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times … [and the] reaction must come … To educate men who must be condemned to poverty … is to stand a pyramid on its apex” (George, 1953). Neither Marx nor George nor anyone else can mark the spot where poverty as a class becomes intolerable as a condition. But almost all can agree on two things. First, there is a point where poverty becomes politically intolerable; like obscenity, we cannot define it but we know it when we see it. Second, whenever there are no graduated taxes or welfare or other redistributive interventions, the gap between the bottom stratum and the top gets wider – as does the gap between the middle and the top. Inequality Inequality is a more normative concept, a product of rules that determine who shall be poor. Although it is impossible to define equality, it is not difficult to identify
Politics, economics, and justice
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inequality by the types of persons who reside in the lowest category of access to the things of value in the society. Capitalism, like any and all economic systems, produces a large stratum of poverty. But, other things being equal, the social characteristics of that stratum would be distributed virtually randomly. Although all poverty is cruel, it is more likely to be socially bearable if it is random. But when a disproportionate number of any social category is present in the poverty class, we then confront not only poverty but rule-driven inequality. Society produces those rules; capitalism does not. But capitalism is not incompatible with them. As Lindblom has observed, “Not all market-oriented systems are democratic, but every democratic system is also a market-oriented system. Apparently, for reasons not wholly understood, political democracy has been unable to exist except when coupled with the market” (Lindblom, 1977: 116). However, he does not speak to the converse: market capitalism can also flourish in many undemocratic systems, including those built on ethnic and racial and gender castes. It is worth repeating that globalization, with its intensification of classic (good) economic competition, discourages good citizenship, all the more so in matters of elementary social justice. Why otherwise would large companies enter a less developed country and make deals with the local elites that use up natural resources while leaving almost no trace of infrastructure and education and other public goods that provide means of local advancement that might change the rules of who shall be poor? The only optimistic thing we can say is that, since inequality is based on rules, rules are something that can be changed and replaced. That point enables me to bring all this to a brief conclusion. When the question of justice is raised, economics must declare itself incompetent, except for an operational definition that there is more injustice from undue interference with the free market than from unfettered competition. Other disciplines come into play, giving even humble political science a role. I will conclude on two quite different but highly related considerations of justice. First, the rational choice folks were altogether correct about one thing, as also were Adam Smith and David Hume, through Mancur Olson: there is negative incentive among many neighbors who wish to eliminate their mosquito-infected swamp, because if one or a few would pay, the others would “ride free” on their effort. But these same people tend to reject the corollary, which is that government coercion of good citizenship, through rules applied equally to all and enforced uniformly, would equalize the cost, provide a closer approximation of the true cost of capitalism, and keep the field of competition flat, albeit at an elevated level of admission. Second, there is an even more exalted place for political science in dealing beyond the economic consequences of capitalist expansion: the civil liberties implication. The expansion of garrison and police functions to compensate for the weakening of communal ties poses a serious threat that requires public policy and juristic responses to the externalities of capitalist expansion. In a lengthy anniversary review of 9/11, The Economist provided extensive details on the expansion of governmental restrictions of civil liberties, not only in the US but also in most of the other advanced and advancing countries. However, the authors
12 Theodore J. Lowi were quick to add that most of these countries have “simply seized (9/11 as) the opportunity to pass restrictive measures that they have long coveted.” The more severe restriction on civil liberties could end when the “war on terrorism” ends. But what are the prospects of that? It is not a real war, with organized forces and an endgame, with victory or armistice. It is a New Cold War without a definable endgame. Only the conditions can be altered, and this is a task far too important to be entrusted to economists! As political scientists, we have to move the discourse away from microscopic, scientific concerns toward reform of the theory of capitalism, and toward a critical, political economy diagnostic, with a pathologist’s perspective. And we have to attach at the level of theory because, especially in times of crisis, theory is more powerful than practice. This means, first of all, weakening the grip of the orthodoxy of neo-classical economics. We then have to disenthrall far left radicals of theories which would convert capitalism into some form of philanthropy. By the same token, we must also try to disenthrall far right Islamist radicals of theories that would moralize societies toward a crystallization for which total war is the only answer. From that point on there is no real middle; in politics “the middle” is a metaphoric ideal positioned between dogmas that exist but not in definable spaces. With no middle to embrace, there are only marginal, instrumental policies that can cope with recognizable pathologies that plague capitalist elites and the pathologies of religious and traditional elites. Thomas Jefferson took a vow of “external hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” My modest proposal is to replace “tyranny” with “orthodoxy,” because orthodoxy is the source of most modern tyranny, whether the orthodoxy is economic dogma or religious doctrine.
References George, H. (1953) Henry George’s Progress and Poverty: A New and Condensed Edition, London: Hogarth Press. Keynes, J.M. (1953) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, New York: Harcourt and Harvest Book. Keynes, J.M. (1963) Essays in Persuasion, New York: W. W. Norton. Lindblom, C.E. (1977) Politics and Markets: The World’s Political Economy Systems, New York: Basic Books. Lowi, T.J. (1993) “Risks and Rights in the History of American Government,” in Edward J. Burger, Jr. (ed.) Risk, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Merton, R., Brown, L. and Cottrell, L.S. Jr. (1965) Sociology Today: Problems and Prospects, New York: Harper & Row. Schumpeter, J. (1942) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, New York: Harper. Smith, A. (1981) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, New York: Oxford University Press and Liberty Press. Smith, A. (1982) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics.
Globalization and the rise of super territoriality
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Globalization and the rise of super territoriality Jan Aart Scholte
There are few terms that we use so frequently but which are in fact as poorly conceptualized as globalization. Anthony Giddens1
We don’t know what globalization is, but we have to act. Veerapon Sopa2
Definition is not everything, but everything involves definition. Knowledge of globalization is substantially a function of how the word is defined. Thus every study of globalization should include a careful and critical examination of the term itself. A muddled or misguided core concept compromises our overall comprehension of the problem. In contrast, a sharp and revealing definition promotes insightful, interesting, and empowering knowledge, an understanding that helps us to shape our destiny in positive directions. Notions of globalization have grabbed many an intellectual imagination over the past two decades. In academic and lay circles alike, many have pursued an intuition that this concept could provide an analytical lynchpin for understanding social change in the contemporary world. “Globalization” is not the only entry point for such an enquiry, of course, but it has seemed a pretty good one. Yet what lies in this word? What, precisely, is “global” about globalization?3 The present paper develops a definition in five main steps. The first section below traces the rise of the vocabulary of globalization in academic and lay thinking. The second section elaborates some general principles about the nature and role of definition. The third section identifies several analytical cul-de-sacs with respect to globalization, that is, definitions that generate redundant and in some respects also unhelpful knowledge. The fourth section sets out a conceptualization of globalization as the spread of transplanetary and, in present times more specifically, supraterritorial social relations. The fifth section discusses half-a-dozen qualifications to this definition, including an emphasis on the continuing importance of territorial geography alongside the new supraterritoriality.
14 Jan Aart Scholte
The rise of globe-talk Although the term “globalization” was not coined until the second half of the twentieth century, it has a longer pedigree. In the English language, the noun “globe” began to denote “the planet” several hundred years ago, once it was determined that the earth was round.4 The adjective “global” began to designate “world scale” in the late nineteenth century, in addition to its earlier meaning of “spherical.”5 The verb “globalize” appeared in the 1940s, together with the word “globalism.”6 “Globalization” first entered a dictionary (of American English) in 1961.7 Notions of “globality,” as a condition, have begun to circulate more recently. The vocabulary of globalization has also spread in other languages over the past several decades. The many examples include quanqiuhua in Chinese, mondialisation in French, globalizatsia in Russian, and globalización in Spanish. Among the major world languages, only Swahili has not (yet) acquired a globalization concept, and that exception is perhaps largely explained by the widespread use of English in elite circles of the African countries concerned. In minor languages, too, we now find globalisaatio in Finnish, bishwavyapikaran in Nepalese, luan bo’ot in Timorese, and so on. When new vocabulary gains such wide currency across continents and cultures, can it just be explained away as fad? Or does the novel word highlight a significant change in the world, where new terminology is needed to discuss new conditions? For example, when Jeremy Bentham coined the word “international” in the 1780s,8 the concept caught hold because it resonated of a growing trend of his day, namely, the rise of nation-states and cross-border transactions between them. The current proliferation of global talk also seems unlikely to be accidental. The popularity of the terminology arguably reflects a widespread intuition that contemporary social relations have acquired an important new character. The challenge – indeed, the urgent need – is to move beyond the buzzword to a tight concept. As a deliberately fashioned analytical tool, notions of the global appeared roughly simultaneously and independently in several academic fields around the early 1980s. In Sociology, for example, Roland Robertson began to “interpret globality” in 1983.9 Concurrently, Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School wrote of “the globalization of markets.”10 These years also saw some researchers in international relations shift their focus to “global interdependence.”11 Today the concept of globalization is deployed across disciplines, across the world, across theoretical approaches, and across the political spectrum. Countless academics have rushed to claim the cliché of the day. A host of research institutes, degree programs, and textbooks now focus on the problem. Since 2000 several new professional global studies associations have also appeared. Some theorists have even presented globalization as the focal point for an alternative paradigm of social enquiry.12 Yet ideas of globalization tend to remain as elusive as they are pervasive. We sense that the term means something – and something significant – but we are far from sure what that something is. Persistent ambiguity and confusion over the term has fed considerable skepticism about “globaloney,” “global babble” and “glob-
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blah-blah.”13 True, many of the objectors have dubious motives, such as vested interests in orthodox theory or an intellectual laziness that resists rethinking conceptual starting points. However, other doubters quite rightly demand clear, precise, explicit, consistent and cogent conceptualization before they will treat globalization as a serious analytical category.
Starting premises for definition Before addressing the challenge of definition here, it is well first of all to reflect on the nature and purpose of the exercise. Four methodological points deserve particular emphasis. First, definition is more than a lexicographical pastime and on the contrary has key intellectual and political purposes and repercussions. Intellectually, a definition should pave the way to insight. To be maximally helpful, a new notion like globalization should be defined in a way that opens new understanding. It should not merely restate what is already known. Politically, the definition of a key idea should promote values and interests that the definer holds dear. No conceptualization is politically neutral. We therefore need carefully to reflect on the norms and power relations that any definition reflects … and also (re)produces. Second, every definition is relative. Each understanding of a key concept reflects a historical moment, a cultural setting, a geographical location, a social status, an individual personality, and – as already noted – a political commitment. Indeed, in the details if not in the general framework, every account of an idea is unique. Each person develops a conception that corresponds to her/his experiences and aspirations. No universally endorsable definition is available. To ask everyone to conform to a single view would be to ask many people to abandon themselves. The object of definition is not to discover one understanding that secures universal acceptance, but to generate insight that can be effectively communicated to, and debated with, others. Third, no definition is definitive. Definitions of core concepts are necessary to lend clarity, focus, and internal consistency to arguments. However, knowledge is a constant process of invention and reinvention. Every definition is tentative and subject to reappraisal. Definition is in motion rather than fixed. The point of the exercise is not to end in a full stop, but to stimulate discussion that prompts further redefinition as situations change and (one hopes) wisdom deepens. Fourth, the variability of definition means that each formulation should be as clear, precise, explicit, and consistent as possible. With clarity, a good definition readily captures and communicates insight. With precision, it brings the issue in question into sharp focus. With explicitness, it leaves a minimum unspoken and to the reader’s inference. With consistency, it lends internal coherence from start to finish of an argument. To be sure, no definition ever fully meets these criteria, but it is important to strive for the ideal. Not everyone agrees with these starting premises, of course. For example, some commentators accept that globalization is a vague concept and see little point in trying to define it in a clear, specific, distinctive way. On this relaxed approach,
16 Jan Aart Scholte globalization is a malleable catchall term that can be invoked in whatever way the user finds convenient. Thus many a politician has blamed an undefined “globalization” for a variety of policy difficulties, sometimes to divert attention from their own failures. Many a social activist has rallied under an unspecified “anti-globalization” banner, so that this movement has encompassed enormously diverse (and sometimes strikingly contradictory) elements. Many an author and publisher have put “globalization” into the titles of writings that actually say very little on the subject. While such loose approaches may be politically and commercially useful, they are deeply unsatisfactory for serious social analysis and the policy decisions that flow from it. Definitions fundamentally shape descriptions, explanations, evaluations, prescriptions, and actions. If a definition of a core concept is slippery, then the knowledge built upon it is likely to be similarly shaky and, in turn, the policies constructed on the basis of that knowledge can very well be misguided. Unfortunately, as the next section indicates, a great deal of thinking about globalization has not followed one or several of the above principles of definition. However, the fact that many conceptions have gone astray does not mean that there is no way forward with the term. On the contrary, too much is at stake in globalization debates – both theoretically and practically – to abandon the journey.
Cul-de-sacs Much if not most existing analysis of globalization is flawed because it is redundant. Such research does not meet the first criterion above, namely, to generate new understanding that is not attainable with other concepts. Four main definitions have led into this cul-de-sac: globalization as internationalization; globalization as liberalization; globalization as universalization; and globalization as westernization. Arguments that build on these conceptions fail to open insights that are not available through preexistent vocabulary. Deployed on any of these four lines, “globalization” provides no analytical value-added. Commentators who reject the novelty and transformative potential of globalization in contemporary history have almost invariably defined the term in one or several of these four redundant ways. Internationalization When globalization is interpreted as internationalization, the term refers to a growth of transactions and interdependence between countries. From this perspective, a more global world is one where more messages, ideas, merchandise, money, investments and people cross borders between national-state-territorial units. For certain authors, like Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, globalization is an especially intense form of internationalization, so that the global is a particular subset of the international.14 Many other analysts are less discriminating and simply regard the words “global” and “international” as synonyms to be used interchangeably.
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Most attempts to quantify globalization have conceived of the process as internationalization. Thus, for example, Dani Rodrik has measured globalization in terms of the current account as a proportion of GDP.15 Similarly, the Globalization Index recently developed by A. T. Kearney consultants and Foreign Policy magazine is largely calculated with reference to cross-border activities between countries. That is, the index mainly relates to foreign direct investment, international travel, membership in international organizations, international telephone traffic, etc.16 Moreover, these indicators are measured and compared on a territorial basis, so that one country is said to be more globalized than another. Ideas of globalization-as-internationalization are attractive insofar as they entail a minimum of intellectual and political adjustments. Global relations of this kind can be examined on the same ontological and methodological grounds as international relations. Global economics can be the same sort of enquiry as international economics. The study of global politics need not differ substantially from traditional International Politics. Globalization-as-internationalization gives the comforting message that the new can be wholly understood in terms of the familiar. Indeed, most accounts of globalization-as-internationalization stress that contemporary trends are replaying earlier historical scenarios. In particular, these analyses frequently note that, in proportional terms, levels of cross-border trade, direct investment, and permanent migration were as great or greater in the late nineteenth century as they were a hundred years later.17 The suggestion is that globalization (read international interdependence) is a feature of the modern states-system that ebbs and flows over time. So social researchers can relax and carry on enquiries as before. Yet these very claims of familiarity and historical repetition constitute strong grounds for rejecting the definition of globalization-as-internationalization. If globality is nothing other than internationality – except perhaps larger amounts of it – then why bother with new vocabulary? No one needed a concept of globalization to make sense of earlier experiences of greater international interaction and interdependence, and this notion is similarly redundant today. Liberalization A second common analytical dead-end in discussions of globalization has equated the notion with liberalization. In this case, globalization denotes a process of removing officially imposed restrictions on movements of resources between countries in order to form an “open” and “borderless” world economy. On this understanding, globalization occurs as authorities reduce or abolish regulatory measures like trade barriers, foreign-exchange restrictions, capital controls, and visa requirements. Using this definition, the study of globalization is a debate about contemporary neoliberal macroeconomic policies. On one side of this argument, many academics, business executives, and policymakers support neoliberal prescriptions, with the promise that world-scale liberalization, privatization, deregulation, and fiscal
18 Jan Aart Scholte restraint will in time bring prosperity, freedom, peace, and democracy for all. On the other side, critics in the so-called “anti-globalization” movement oppose neoliberal policies, contending that a laissez-faire world economy produces greater poverty, inequality, social conflict, cultural destruction, ecological damage and democratic deficits. To be sure, large-scale globalization and widespread economic liberalization have transpired concurrently in the past quarter-century. Moreover, this wave of neoliberalism has often played a significant (albeit not necessary) role in facilitating contemporary globalization. However, it is quite something else to conflate the two concepts, so that globalization and liberalization become the same thing. Moreover, such an equation can carry the dubious – and potentially harmful – implication that neoliberalism is the only available policy framework for a more global world. Indeed, on cross-examination most “anti-globalization” protesters are seen to reject neoliberal globalization rather than globalization per se. True, some of these critics have adopted a mercantilist position that advocates “de-globalization” to a world of autarkic regional, national, or local economies.18 However, most opponents of neoliberalism have sought different approaches to globalization – or “alter-globalizations” – that might better advance human security, ecological integrity, social justice, and democracy. Many in mainstream circles, too, have recently suggested that globalization can be rescued with social, environmental and human rights safeguards. They, too, have thereby acknowledged that neoliberal policies are not intrinsic to globalization. In any case, the language of globalization is unnecessary to rehearse arguments for and against liberal economics. People have debated theories and practices of “free” markets for several centuries without invoking talk of globalization. For example, no one needed the concept of globalization when the international economy experienced substantial liberalization in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.19 Likewise, globalization-as-liberalization opens no new insight today. Universalization A third cul-de-sac appears in analyses of globalization when the notion is conceived as universalization. In this case globalization is taken to describe a process of dispersing various objects and experiences to people at all inhabited parts of the earth. On these lines, “global” means “worldwide” and “everywhere.” Hence there is a “globalization” of business suits, curry dinners, Barbie dolls, anti-terrorism legislation, and so on. Frequently globalization-as-universalization is assumed to entail homogenization with worldwide cultural, economic, legal, and political convergence. Yet this conception, too, opens no new and distinctive insight. To be sure, some striking universalization has transpired in contemporary history. Moreover, substantial cultural destruction in recent times has appeared to lend credence to the homogenization thesis (although, as will be elaborated later, the dynamics of
Globalization and the rise of super territoriality
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globalization are actually more complex). However, universalization is an ageold feature of world history. The human species has spread itself through transcontinental migration for a million years.20 Various aptly named “world religions” have extended across large expanses of the earth for centuries, and several of these faiths have held explicit universalistic pretensions. Transoceanic trade has distributed various goods over long distances on multiple occasions during the past millennium. No concept of globalization was devised to describe universalization in earlier times, and there is no need to create new vocabulary to analyze this old phenomenon now either. Westernization A fourth common conception of globalization has defined it as westernization. As such, globalization is regarded as a particular type of universalization, one in which the social structures of modernity (capitalism, industrialism, rationalism, urbanism, etc.) are spread the world over, destroying pre-existent cultures and local self-determination in the process. Globalization understood in this way is often interpreted as colonization and Americanization, as “westoxification” and an imperialism of McDonalds and CNN.21 For these critics, talk of globalization is a hegemonic discourse, an ideology of supposed progress that masks far-reaching destruction and subordination.22 To be sure, a cogent case can be made that current large-scale globalization has resulted mainly from forces of modernity like rationalist knowledge, capitalist production, technologies of automation, and bureaucratic governance.23 (At the same time, early global consciousness arguably facilitated the onset of modernity, too.24) In turn, contemporary globalization has often inserted patterns of modern, western social relations more widely and deeply across the planet. Sometimes this westernization has involved violent impositions that could indeed warrant descriptions as imperialism. Moreover, it is true that governance institutions, firms, and civil society associations in Western Europe and North America have ranked among the most enthusiastic promoters of contemporary globalization. Yet it is one thing to assert that globalization and westernization have had interconnections and quite another to equate the two developments. After all, modernity and western civilization have appeared in many other guises besides contemporary globalization. Moreover, globalization could in principle take nonwestern directions (e.g. Buddhist globalization, Islamic globalization, or possible future post-modern globalizations). Also, it is by no means clear that globalization is intrinsically imperialist, given that there are emancipatory transworld social movements as well as exploitative transworld actors and processes. In any case, westernization, modernization, and colonization have a much longer history than contemporary globalization. Perhaps currently prevailing forms of globality could be analyzed as a particular aspect, phase, and type of modernity. On this reading, a definition of globalization would need to specify what makes global modernity distinctive. Yet in this approach, too, westernization and globalization are not coterminous.
20 Jan Aart Scholte In sum, then, much talk of globalization has been analytically redundant. The four definitions outlined above between them cover most current academic, corporate, official, and popular discussions of things global. Critics of “globaloney” are right to assail the historical illiteracy that marks most claims of novelty associated with globalization. Of course, this is not to suggest that debates about international interdependence, neoliberalism, universalism-versus-cultural diversity, modernity and imperialism are unimportant. Indeed, a well-fashioned concept of globalization could shed significant light on these problems in the present-day context. However, it is not helpful to define globalization as – to treat it as equivalent to – internationalization, liberalization, universalization, or westernization. Not only do we thereby merely rehash old knowledge, but we also lose a major opportunity to grasp – and act on – certain key circumstances of our time.
A way forward Fortunately, the four definitions critiqued above do not exhaust the possible definitions of globalization. Important new insight into historically relatively new conditions is available from a fifth conception. This approach identifies globalization as the spread of transplanetary – and in recent times more particularly supraterritorial – connections between people. From this perspective, globalization involves reductions in barriers to transworld contacts. People become more able – physically, legally, culturally, and psychologically – to engage with each other in “one world.” In this usage, globalization refers to a shift in the nature of social space. This conception contrasts with the other four notions of globalization discussed above, all of which presume (usually implicitly rather than explicitly) a continuity in the underlying character of social geography. To clarify this crucial point, the following pages first discuss the general significance of space in social relations and then elaborate on the features of transplanetary and, more specifically, supraterritorial links. The far-reaching methodological implications of this understanding of globalization are also noted. The next and final section of the chapter then highlights several major qualifications to this definition. Spatiality The term globality resonates of spatiality. It says something about the arena of human action and experience. In particular, globality identifies the planet – the earthly world as a whole – as a site of social relations in its own right. Talk of the global indicates that people may live together not only in local, provincial, national, and regional realms, as well as built environments, but also in transplanetary spaces where the world is a single place. Why highlight issues of space?25 Indeed, most social analysis takes the spatial aspect as an unexplored given. Yet geography is a defining feature of social life.
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Relations between people always occur somewhere: in a place, a location, a domain, an arena, a situation. No description of a social circumstance is complete without a spatial component. Moreover, no social explanation is complete without a geographical dimension either. Space matters. To take one ready example, geographical differences mean that desert nomads and urban dwellers lead very diverse lives. Space is a core feature – as both cause and effect – of social life. On the one hand, the geographical context shapes the ways that people undertake production, organize governance, form collectivities, construct knowledge, relate to nature, and experience time. Concurrently, culture, ecology, economics, history, politics, and psychology also shape the spatial contours of social relations. Given these dense interconnections, a change of spatial structure affects society as a whole. A reconfiguration of social geography is intimately interlinked with shifts in patterns of knowledge, production, governance, identity, and social ecology. So a transformation of social space – like globalization – is enveloped in larger dynamics of social change. Globality: transplanetary relations and supraterritoriality Globality in the sense of the world as a single social space has two qualities. The more general feature, transplanetary connectivity, has figured in human history for centuries. The more specific characteristic, supraterritoriality, is relatively new to contemporary history. Inasmuch as the recent rise of supraterritoriality marks a striking break with the territorialist geography that came before, this trend potentially has major implications for wider social transformation. Globality in the broader sense of transplanetary relations refers to social links between people located at points anywhere on earth, within a whole-world context. The global sphere is then a social space in its own right. The world is not simply a collection of smaller geographical units like countries and regions, but also a spatial unit itself. We can therefore draw a key distinction between “international relations” (as exchanges between countries) and “global relations” (as exchanges within the world). Of course, this more general kind of globality – transplanetary connections between people – is by no means new to the past few decades. As numerous researchers have stressed, the long-distance, intercontinental, world domain has age-old importance in human history. For example, following Martin Bernal, ancient Greek civilization developed from a blend of local, Indo-European, Egyptian, and Phoenician influences.26 Indeed, ancient Greek notions of oikoumenê conceived of the inhabited world as a single realm.27 Janet Abu-Lughod describes a “world system” of the thirteenth century that extended from Flanders to China.28 Fernand Braudel and others emphasize that capitalism has had transworld components from its beginnings.29 A global imagination inspired voyagers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to undertake the first circumnavigations of the earth. Cartographers in Europe elaborated maps of the world-as-a-whole from
22 Jan Aart Scholte the sixteenth century, including the production in Venice in 1688 of a printed globe that measured more than a meter in diameter and included considerable detail on most of the world’s coasts.30 On the other hand, contemporary transplanetary links are denser than those of any previous epoch.31 More people, more often, and more intensely engage with the world as a single place. Volumes of transworld communications, diseases, finance, investment, travel, and trade have never been as great. DDT now appears in the eggs of Arctic penguins, even though the pesticide has never been used in the polar regions. True, problems with data make it difficult to measure the scale of globality very precisely. Most established indicators refer to cross-border rather than transplanetary flows. Indeed, the term “statistics” shares a common root with “state” and has historically been a state-driven activity.32 As things currently stand, therefore, we must often infer global connectivity from international data, and thereby can easily slip into a (redundant) conception of globalization-asinternationalization. The development of distinctively global measures is a priority for contemporary social studies. For the moment, though, a number of international statistics suggest a substantial recent growth of global links. For example, world cross-border trade expanded from $629 billion in 1960 to $7,430 billion in 2001.33 Outstanding balances on syndicated international commercial bank loans burgeoned from under $200 billion in the early 1970s to well over $8,000 billion in 2001.34 Transnational companies increased in number from 7,000 in the late 1960s to 65,000 today, with about 850,000 foreign affiliates between them.35 Aggregate foreign direct investment went from $1.7 trillion in 1990 to $6.6 trillion in 2001.36 In addition, thousands of strategic alliances between firms have further interlinked business activities across the world. The count of transnational civil society associations multiplied from less than 2,000 in 1960 to over 17,000 in 1998.37 International tourist arrivals totalled 693 million worldwide in 2001.38 No numerical measures of global consciousness are available; however, it seems safe to venture that people today are generally more aware than ever before of the planet as a single place and are more inclined to conceive of the earth as humanity’s home. A hundred years ago global consciousness was generally limited to fleeting perceptions in limited elite circles. Today, with globes in the classroom, world weather reports in the newspaper, and global products in the cupboard, globality is part of everyday awareness for hundreds of millions of people across the planet. However, the distinctiveness of recent globalization involves more than scope and intensity. Qualitatively, too, much of today’s global connectivity is different. Unlike earlier times, contemporary globalization has been marked by a largescale spread of supraterritoriality. As the word suggests, “supraterritorial” relations are social connections that transcend territorial geography. They are relatively delinked from territory, that is, domains mapped on the land surface of the earth, plus any adjoining waters and air spheres. Territorial space is plotted on the three axes of longitude, latitude, and altitude. In territorial geography, place refers to locations plotted on this
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three-dimensional grid; distance refers to the extent of territory separating territorial places; and boundary refers to a territorial delimitation of plots on the earth’s surface. Yet territorial locations, territorial distances, and territorial borders do not define the whole geography of today’s transplanetary flows. These global connections often also have qualities of transworld simultaneity (that is, they extend anywhere across the planet at the same time) and transworld instantaneity (that is, they move anywhere on the planet in no time). Thus, for example, on average 3,000 cups of Nescafé are reputedly drunk around the world every second,39 and telephone links permit immediate communication across the ocean as readily as across the street. Global relations of the supraterritorial kind are not adequately mapped on a territorial grid. Globality-as-supraterritoriality is evident in countless facets of contemporary life. For instance, jet airplanes transport passengers and cargo across any distance on the planet within twenty-four hours. Telephone and computer networks effect instantaneous interpersonal communication between points all over the earth, so that a call centre for customers in North America may be located in India. The global mass media spread messages simultaneously to transworld audiences. The US dollar and the euro are examples of money that has instantaneous transplanetary circulation, particularly when in digital form. In global finance, various types of savings and investment (e.g. offshore bank deposits and eurobonds) flow instantaneously in world-scale spaces. In the field of organizations, several thousand firms, voluntary associations, and regulatory agencies coordinate their respective activities across transworld domains. A global conference of the United Nations (UN) involves delegates from all over the planet at the same time. Ecologically, developments such as climate change (so-called “global warming”), stratospheric ozone depletion, certain epidemics, and losses of biological diversity unfold simultaneously on a world scale. They envelop the planet as one place at one time; their causes and consequences cannot be divided and distributed between territorial units. Ideationally, many people have a supraterritorial concept of place, for instance, when watching televised moon landings and global sports events simultaneously with hundreds of millions of other people scattered across the planet. Global human rights campaigns do not measure their support for a cause as a function of the territorial distance and territorial borders that lie between advocates and victims. With these and many more supraterritorial phenomena, current globalization has constituted more than an extension of the compression of time relative to territorial space that has unfolded over a number of centuries past. In this longterm trend, developments in transportation technology like motor ships, railways, and early aircraft have progressively reduced the time needed to cover a given distance over the earth’s surface. Thus, while Marco Polo took years to complete his journey across Eurasia in the thirteenth century, by 1850 a sea voyage from south-east Asia to north-west Europe could be completed in 59 days. In the twentieth century, motorized ships and land vehicles took progressively less time again to link territorial locations. Nevertheless, such transport still required
24 Jan Aart Scholte substantial time spans to cross long distances and moreover still faced substantial controls at territorial frontiers. Whereas this older trend towards a shrinking world occurred within territorial geography, the newer spread of transworld simultaneity and instantaneity takes social relations substantially beyond territorial space. In cases of supraterritoriality, place is not territorially fixed, territorial distance is covered in no time, and territorial boundaries present no particular impediment. The difference from territorial time-space compression is qualitative and entails a deeper structural change of geography. A number of social researchers across a range of academic disciplines have discerned this reconfiguration of space, albeit without invoking the term “supraterritoriality” to describe the shift. Already half a century ago, for example, the philosopher Martin Heidegger proclaimed the advent of “distancelessness” and an “abolition of every possibility of remoteness.”40 More recently, the geographer David Harvey has discussed “processes that so revolutionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are forced to alter, sometimes in quite radical ways, how we represent the world to ourselves.”41 The sociologist Manuel Castells has distinguished a “network society,” in which a new “space of flows” exists alongside the old “space of places.”42 In the field of international relations, John Ruggie has written of a “nonterritorial region” in the contemporary world.43 Might such a geographical transformation in the longer term prove to be as epochal as the shift to territoriality was at an earlier historical juncture? After all, social relations have not always and everywhere operated with a macro spatial framework that is primarily territorial. For instance, cultures with a metaphysical cosmology have assigned only secondary if any importance to territorial referents. In fact, a territorial grid to locate points on a map was not introduced until the second century AD, by Zhang Heng in China.44 Images of the world showing the continents in anything like the territorial shapes that are commonly recognized today were not drawn before the late fifteenth century. It took a further two hundred years before the first maps depicting country units appeared.45 Not until the high tide of colonialism did a territorial logic dominate constructions of social space across the earth. From then until the third quarter of the twentieth century, macro social spaces (that is, as opposed to directly perceived micro social spaces like built environments) nearly always took a territorial form. Indeed, one could say that a structure of territorialism governed social geography. In a territorialist situation, people identify their location in the world primarily in relation to territorial position. (In most cases the territorial reference points are fixed, though for nomadic groups the spots may shift.) Moreover, in territorialist social relations the length of territorial distances between places and the presence or absence of territorial (especially state) borders between places heavily influences the frequency and significance of contacts that people at different territorial sites have with each other. However, territorialism as the prevailing structure of geography was specific to a particular historical and cultural context. True, many people today still use the
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terms “geography” and “territory” interchangeably, as if to exclude the possibility that social space could have other than territorial aspects. Yet world geography of today is not that of the period to the mid-twentieth century. Following several decades of proliferating and expanding supraterritorial connections, territoriality has lost its monopoly hold. Territorial domains remain very important, but they no longer define the entire macro spatial framework. Most of the rise of supraterritoriality is recent. As with any development, longer term antecedents can of course be found. For example, the Seven Years’ War of 1756–63 was a “world war” with simultaneous campaigns on three continents. Technologies for supraterritorial communications appeared in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of intercontinental telegraph lines. This period also saw the emergence of transplanetary commodity markets, global brand names, a transworld monetary regime (in the form of the classical gold standard), and global associations in several social movements, including labour and women activists. The global swine flu epidemic of 1918–19 afflicted numbers of people (50 million deaths) comparable to the global scourge of HIV/AIDS today (20 million dead to date and another 42 million currently infected). However, most manifestations of supraterritorial connectivity have reached unprecedented levels during the past half-century. Earlier periods did not know jet travel, intercontinental missiles, transworld migrants with transborder remittances, satellite communications, facsimiles, the Internet, instant transplanetary television broadcasts, intercontinental production chains, transworld retailers, global credit cards, a continuous diet of global sports tournaments, or transplanetary anthropogenic ecological changes. Contemporary world history is supraterritorial to degrees well beyond anything previously known. To specify some further relevant indicators, the world count of radio receivers rose from less than 60 million in the mid-1930s to over 2,000 million in the mid1990s.46 Mobile telephones proliferated from less than a million in 1985 to 700 million at the end of 2000.47 The number of Internet users grew from 0 in 1985 to 581 million in 2002.48 The annual count of international (thus excluding domestic) air passengers increased from 25 million in 1950 to 400 million in 1996. The average volume of daily transactions on the global currency markets (with simultaneous transworld determination of foreign exchange rates) went from $15 billion in 1973 to $1,490 billion in 1998.49 True, enthusiasm at discovering something new – a significant reconfiguration of social geography – must not allow us to overstate its extent. Globalization in the more specific sense of the spread of supraterritoriality has been less extensive than globalization in the more general sense of the growth of transplanetary connections. The supraterritorial aspects of contemporary globalization have farreaching transformative potentials, but they only constitute part of the larger trend, and our assessments of currently unfolding social change need to be correspondingly tempered. Nevertheless, the contemporary rise of supraterritoriality has been sufficiently large that we can link the move from territorialism in the field of geography with shifts in other social structures.51 In terms of governance, for example, the end of
26 Jan Aart Scholte territorialism has been interconnected with the eclipse of statism, that is, the previous situation where the formulation and administration of regulations focused almost exclusively on the territorial state. Instead, under the influence of intensified globality, governance today has become more multi-layered and diffuse, a change that has far-reaching implications for definitions and practices of citizenship and democracy. With regard to identities and social collectivities, the end of territorialism has gone hand in hand with a decline of nationalism, in the sense of a near-exclusive focus on territorially based nationality as the principal framework for large-scale social solidarity. In the area of production, the end of territorialism has been interrelated with the rise of finance, information, and communications industries and the relative decline of primary production and traditional manufacture. As for structures of knowledge, the end of territorialism has been – or ought to be – accompanied by the abandonment of ontological and methodological territorialism, in other words the assumption that geography, and the study of geography, are always and only about territorial space. Methodological implications If contemporary social geography is no longer territorialist in character, then we need to adjust traditional habits of social research. Methodological territorialism has exercised a pervasive and deep hold on the conventions of social enquiry. The spread of supraterritoriality requires a major reorientation of approach. Methodological territorialism refers to the practice of understanding and investigating social relations through the lens of territorial geography. Territorialist method means formulating concepts and questions, constructing hypotheses, gathering and interpreting evidence, and drawing conclusions in a spatial framework that is wholly territorial. These intellectual habits are so engrained that most social researchers reproduce them more or less unconsciously. Methodological territorialism lies at the heart of currently prevailing commonsense notions of geography, economy, governance, history, literature, collective identities, and society. Thus the vast majority of social and political geographers have conceived of the world in terms of bordered territorial (especially country) units. Likewise, macroeconomists have normally studied production, exchange and consumption in relation to national (read territorial) and international (read inter-territorial) realms. Students of politics have conventionally regarded governance as a territorial question, that is, as a matter of local and national government, with the latter sometimes meeting in “international” (again, code for interterritorial) organizations. Similarly, mainstream historians have examined continuity and change over time in respect of territorial contexts (localities and countries). In studies of literature, research has generally been constructed in terms of national–territorial genres: English literature, Indonesian literature, etc. For their part, anthropologists have almost invariably conceived of culture and community with reference to territorial units (in the sense of local and national peoples). Meanwhile territorialist premises have led sociologists usually to assume that society by definition takes a territorial (usually national) form: hence Albanian society, Bolivian society, Chinese society, etc.
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Like any analytical device, methodological territorialism involves simplification. Actual social practice has always been more complicated. Nevertheless, this assumption offered a broadly viable intellectual shortcut for earlier generations of scholars. Methodological territorialism reflected the social conditions of a particular epoch when bordered territorial units, separated by territorial distance, formed far and away the overriding framework for macro social geography. However, territorialist analysis is not a timeless or universally applicable method. The emergence of the states-system, the growth of mercantile and industrial capitalism, and the rise of national identities all understandably encouraged researchers of earlier times to adopt methodologically territorialist perspectives. Yet today large-scale globalization – including the substantial spread of supraterritoriality – should stimulate a reconstruction of methodology on alternative, nonterritorialist premises. This call for different intellectual foundations no doubt provokes resistance in some quarters. It is difficult and even painful to change taken-for-granted knowledge, in effect to reassess one’s entire understanding of society, to endure the disruption and confusion that comes in the transition between abandoning one set of first principles and consolidating another. Moreover, a post-territorialist methodology has political implications that vested interests could oppose. For example, post-territorialist knowledge would logically undercut the primacy of both state-centric research and state-centric governance. Yet it can arguably be quite dangerous to give methodological territorialism further lease of life in the contemporary more global world. For example, territorialist assumptions are obviously unsuitable to understand – and address – transplanetary ecological issues. Likewise, if significant parts of capitalism now operate with relative autonomy from territorial space, then old intellectual frameworks cannot adequately address the issues of distributive justice that invariably accompany processes of surplus accumulation. Similarly, a political theory that offers today’s world only territorial constructions of citizenship and democracy is obsolete. Hence the stakes in the call for post-territorialist enquiry are much more than academic alone.
Qualifications The preceding discussion has made a strong case for what globalization is, in terms of a change in social space that has in contemporary history been both quantitatively and qualitatively significant. However, it is equally important to emphasize what the growth in transplanetary connections and the spread of supraterritoriality do not entail. In particular we must reject the following six non-sequiturs: globalism, reification, global/local binaries, cultural homogenization, universality, and political neutrality. Globalism First, then, the rise of supraterritoriality in no way means that territorial space has ceased to matter. We should not replace territorialism with a globalist
28 Jan Aart Scholte methodology that neglects territorial spaces. We do not live in a “borderless world.”51 Although contemporary history has witnessed the end of territorialism (where social space is effectively reducible to territorial grids), we have certainly not seen the end of territoriality. To say that social geography can no longer be understood in terms of territoriality alone is of course not to say that territoriality has become irrelevant. On the contrary, territorial production, territorial governance mechanisms, territorial ecology, and territorial identities remain highly significant at the start of the twenty-first century, even if they do not monopolize the situation as before. For example, many communications links like roads, railways, and shipping lanes remain territorially fixed. In addition, territorial borders continue to exert strong influences on trade in material goods and movements of people.52 It can take months to complete the dozens of documents required to export legally from India. Meanwhile countless localized products remain bound to particular territorial markets. Territorially based commodities derived from agriculture and mining have persisted at the same time that largely supraterritorial commodities like information and communications have risen to prominence. While US dollars and Visa card payments cross the planet instantly, many other forms of money continue to have restricted circulation within a given territorial domain. Most people today still hold their bank accounts at a local branch or do no banking at all. Much ecological degradation is linked to specific territorial locations, for instance, of overgrazing, salination, or dumping of toxic wastes. In terms of social affiliations, some observers have suggested that territorially bound identities could even have become more rather than less significant in a world of diminishing territorial barriers.53 So the end of territorialism has not marked the start of globalism. The addition of supraterritorial qualities of geography has not eliminated the territorial aspects. Indeed, contemporary globalization has been closely connected with certain forms of reterritorialization like regionalization, the rise of ethno-nationalist politics, and the proliferation of offshore arrangements.54 Clearly, social space in today’s world is both territorial and supraterritorial. Indeed, in social practice the two qualities always intersect. Supraterritoriality is only relatively deterritorialized, and contemporary territoriality is only partly supraterritorialized. Territorial relations are no longer purely territorial, and supraterritorial relations are not wholly unterritorial. Thus, for example, every Internet user accesses cyberspace from a territorial location. Global products, global finance, and global communications always “touch down” in territorial localities. Jet aircraft need runways. Supraterritorial military technologies like spy satellites are generally directed at territorial targets. So-called “global cities” such as London and Tokyo still have a longitude and latitude. Global ecological changes have territorially specific impacts: for example, rising sea level has different consequences for coastal zones as against uplands. In short, contemporary society knows no “pure” globality that exists independently of territorial spaces. The recent accelerated growth of supraterritoriality has brought a relative rather than a complete deterritorialization of social life.
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Global relations today substantially rather than wholly transcend territorial space. Although territoriality does not place insurmountable constraints on supraterritoriality, the new flows still have to engage with territorial locations. The present world is globalizing, not totally globalized. By the same token, however, little if any territoriality today exists independently of supraterritoriality. Most contemporary regional, national, provincial and local conditions coexist with – and are influenced by – global circumstances. Indeed, territoriality is changed by its encounters with supraterritoriality. For example, territorial states act differently in a globalizing world than in a territorialist one.55 Territorial identities obtain different dynamics when they are associated with global diasporas (e.g. of Armenians, Ghanaians, Irish, and Sikhs). Territorial environmental issues like local water shortages acquire different significance when they form part of a transworld problem. In sum, current globalization is not replacing one compact formula (territorialism) with another (globalism). Rather, the rise of supraterritoriality is bringing greater complexity to geography – and by extension to culture, ecology, economics, history, politics, and social psychology as well. The relative simplicity of a territorialist-statist-nationalist world is fading fast. Reification The preceding point regarding the interrelation of supraterritorial and territorial spaces points to a second caution, namely, regarding reification. While globality is a discrete concept, it is not a discrete concrete condition. It is helpful, analytically, to distinguish different spheres of social space; however, concretely, the global is not a domain unto itself, separate from the regional, the national, the provincial, the local, and the household. There is no purely global circumstance, divorced from other spaces, just as no household, local, provincial, national, or regional domain is sealed off from other geographical arenas. So social space should not be understood as an assemblage of discrete realms, but as an interrelation of spheres within a whole. Events and developments are not global or national or local or some other scale, but an intersection of global and other spatial qualities. The global is a dimension of social geography rather than a space in its own right. It is heuristically helpful to distinguish a global quality of contemporary social space, but we must not turn the global into a “thing” that is separate from regional, national, local, and household “things.” For example, a government may be sited at a national “level,” but it is a place where supranational, national, and subnational spaces converge. Thus states are involved in transworld law and regional arrangements as well as national regulation and relations with provincial and local authorities. Likewise, firms and other actors in today’s globalizing circumstances are meeting points for co-constituting transworld, regional, national, local, and household aspects of geography. Avoidance of reification is especially important in these early days of global studies. Several centuries of international studies have suffered dearly from a reified distinction between the national and the international, where the “internal” and
30 Jan Aart Scholte “domestic” was separated from the “external” and “foreign.” In practice, of course, the “inside” and the “outside” of countries are deeply intertwined. Such errors of reifying the international must not be carried over into research of the global. Global/local binaries The interrelatedness of dimensions of social space (as opposed to the existence of separate domains) suggests that it is mistaken – as many have done – to set up oppositions between the global and the local. Such a binary resurrects in new form the misguided domestic/international separation of old. Typically, local/global polarizations have depicted the local as immediate and intimate, whereas the global is allegedly distant and isolating. The local purportedly provides security and community, while the global houses danger and violence. The local is the arena for autonomy and empowerment, the global the realm of dependence and domination. The local is authentic, the global artificial. On such assumptions, numerous critics have rejected globalization with calls for localization.56 Yet these binaries do not bear up to closer scrutiny. After all, people can have very immediate and intimate relationships with each other via jet travel, telephone and Internet. In contrast, many next-door neighbors in contemporary cities do not even know each other’s names. Supraterritorial communities of people (for example, sharing the same class position, ethnicity, religious faith, or sexual orientation) can have far-reaching solidarity, whereas localities can experience deep fear, hatred, and intolerance. Indigenous peoples have used transworld networks and laws to promote their self-determination, while many a local elite has exercised arbitrary authoritarian power. Global flows frequently involve ordinary people leading everyday lives (listening to radio and munching brandname fast food), while various exhibits of local culture are contrived. In short, there is nothing inherently alienating about the global and nothing intrinsically liberating about the local. Instead, both the local and the global have enabling and disabling potentials. Indeed, as already stressed, the two qualities are inseparable in social practice; so terming one circumstance “local” and another “global” is actually arbitrary and confusing. A social condition is not positive or negative according to whether it is local or global, since the situation is generally both local and global at the same time. It is the particular blend of local and global (and other spatial spheres) that matters, not locality versus globality. Cultural homogenization The complexity of multidimensional social space likewise suggests that it is mistaken – as many casual observers have done – to link globalization with homogenization. The growth of transplanetary and supraterritorial connectivity does not ipso facto reduce cultural diversity. After all, the global, the regional, the national, the provincial, the local, and the household aspects of social space can intertwine in innumerable different combinations. Indeed, by injecting a
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further dimension into the geographical spectrum – thereby adding to its complexity – globalization could just as well increase cultural pluralism. True, the contemporary world has experienced considerable cultural destruction. For example, languages have been disappearing at rates as worrying as those for species extinction.57 Indigenous peoples’ heritages have been undercut or erased across the world. A high tide of consumerism has seemingly imposed cultural levelling across the world, including via a multitude of global agents such as Carrefour, Michael Jackson, Microsoft, and Madison Avenue advertisers. On the other hand, perceptions of cultural homogenization in the context of globalization can be exaggerated. What appears on the surface to be the same transplanetary language can in fact harbour widely varying vocabularies and understandings across different social contexts. So the English of Nairobi markets is not the English of the Scottish Highlands, and the Spanish of East Los Angeles barrios is not the Spanish of Santiago office blocs. Likewise, as reception research has shown, different parts of a transworld audience can read hugely different meanings into a Hollywood blockbuster. In this regard it can be questioned how far the diverse viewers actually “see” the same global film. Similarly, global marketers often have to adjust the design and advertisement of transworld products in ways that appeal to diverse cultural contexts. Even an icon of global Americanization like McDonalds varies its menu considerably across the world in relation to local sensibilities. In any case, decreasing cultural diversity is not intrinsic to globalization as such. On the contrary, transplanetary and supraterritorial relations can host great cultural heterogeneity. Thus multiple world religions occupy sites on the Internet, and all manner of peoples from ethnic diasporas to sexual minorities have formed transborder associations. Indeed, globalization has offered opportunities to defend cultural diversity, as when indigenous peoples have used UN mechanisms and electronic mass media to promote their particularity.58 Globality can also foster cultural innovation. To take one specific example, youth in Frankfurt am Main have combined aspects of African-American rap music and hip-hop culture with elements of their North African and Turkish heritages to create novel modes of expression for their hybrid identities.59 So globalization can have heterogenizing as well as homogenizing effects. The overall balance between cultural divergence and convergence lies not in globality as such, but in contextual circumstances. The social power relations that shape transplanetary connections are particularly important in this regard. Thus, to the extent that cultural imperialism afflicts contemporary history, it is largely a problem of the voracity of western modernity rather than an outcome of globalization per se. Universality A further qualification to notions of globalization as increased transworld and supraterritorial connectivity must note that the trend has not touched all of humanity to the same extent. Globality links people anywhere on the planet, but
32 Jan Aart Scholte it does not follow that it connects people everywhere, or to the same degree. To repeat the earlier disclaimer, under the definition suggested here globalization is not universalization. On the contrary, the incidence of contemporary transplanetary connectivity has varied considerably in relation to territorial and social location. In terms of territorial position, global networks have generally involved populations of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia more than people in other world regions. Variations in the intensity of globality have also occurred among regions within countries. For example, coastal provinces of China have undergone greater globalization than the interior of the country. In the USA, residents of Silicon Valley have been more enveloped in global communications than inhabitants of the Dakotas. Across the world, patterns of contemporary globalization have broadly followed urban–rural lines, with cities and towns generally experiencing more supraterritoriality than countrysides. With regard to social position, wealthy people have on the whole accessed transworld connections more than the poor. While those with the means rush from their global bank to the airport lounge, hundreds of millions of low-income people alive today have never made a telephone call. With respect to gender, men have linked up to the Internet much more than women.60 Other patterns of uneven entry to, and benefit from, global flows can be discerned in respect of civilization and race. To be sure, contemporary globality has not been an exclusively Northern, urban, elite, male, western, white preserve. At the territorial margins, transworld links have extended even to remote villages in Africa.61 At the social margins, the homeless of Rio de Janeiro often request a television even before running water.62 Yet, although globality may have become pervasive, prevailing cultural frameworks, resource distributions and power relationships have produced a highly uneven spread of transplanetary and supraterritorial relations in today’s world. Political neutrality The foregoing remarks concerning unequal opportunities to use and shape transworld connections highlight the thoroughly political character of globalization. Human geography is no more politically neutral than any other aspect of social relations like culture or economics. Space always involves politics: processes of acquiring, distributing, and exercising social power. Thus transplanetary and supraterritorial connections invariably house power relations and associated power struggles, whether latent or overt. Global links are venues of conflict and cooperation, hierarchy and equality, opportunity and its denial. Indeed, nothing in globalization is apolitical. Even questions of transplanetary technical harmonization have provoked power struggles. For example, in the nineteenth century the British and French governments competed to have the prime meridian (for the measure of world longitudes and universal standard time) pass through their respective capitals. More recently, different computer operating systems have offered users different degrees of initiative and control.63
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Any analysis of contemporary globalization must therefore examine the political aspects involved. On the one hand, these politics involve actors: that is, power relations among individuals, households, associations, firms, and governance organizations. In addition, the politics of globalization involve social structures: that is, power relations between age groups, between civilizations, between classes, between genders, between races, between sexual orientations, and so on. Like any significant historical trend, the growth of transplanetary and supraterritorial connections empowers some people and disempowers others. So, as a political process, globalization is about contests between different interests and competing values. The spread of globality is – and cannot but be – normatively laden and politically charged. It is important to determine whose power rises and whose suffers under currently prevailing globalization practices and to consider whether alternative policies could have better political implications. Indeed, much of the politics of globalization is about choices. Multiple globalizations are possible. True, powerful forces connected with dominant actors, deep social structures, and long-term historical processes have promoted the recent large-scale expansion of transplanetary and supraterritorial connectivity. However, all social actors – including the writer and readers of this paper – have opportunities to respond to and mold this trend. There is nothing inevitable about the scope, speed, direction, and consequences of globalization. In particular, as stressed earlier, globalization and neoliberalism are not the same thing. Alternative paths of globalization might be more desirable than the directions that have prevailed over the past quarter-century. Personal and collective decisions (both active and passive) can make all the difference. These ethical choices and political moves include the way that one defines globalization. As ever, theory and practice are inseparable. To deal with the challenges of contemporary globality people need a conception that not only provides intellectual clarification, but also helps to make relevant, wise, and responsible decisions about how to engage with globalization. As I have tried to show in other writings, notions of globality as transplanetary and supraterritorial connectivity can well serve the promotion of human security, social justice, and democracy in contemporary history.64
Conclusion This paper has argued that, when conceived in a particular geographical fashion, notions of “globality” and “globalization” can be valuable additions to the analytical toolkit for understanding contemporary social relations. Yes, much globe-talk of recent years has revealed nothing new. And yes, loose thinking and careless politics has devalued many ideas of “globalization.” However, these shortcomings do not discredit the concept in every form. After all, widespread sloppy usage of other key ideas – “class,” “democracy,” “rationality” and “soul,” to name but a few – has not been reason to discard these notions altogether. On the contrary, a definition of globalization as a respatialization of social life
34 Jan Aart Scholte opens up new knowledge and engages key policy challenges of current history in a constructively critical manner. Notions of “globality” and “globalization” can capture, as no other vocabulary, the present ongoing large-scale growth of transplanetary – and often also supraterritorial – connectivity. Such an insight offers a highly promising entry point for research and action on contemporary history. To reiterate, this conception of globalization has a distinctive focus. It is different from ideas of internationalization, liberalization, universalization and westernization. The trans-territorial connections of globality are different from the inter-territorial connections of internationality. The transborder transactions of globality are different from the open-border transactions of liberality. The transplanetary simultaneity and instantaneity of supraterritoriality is different from the worldwideness of universality. The geographical focus of globality is different from the cultural focus of western modernity. Although globalization as defined in this paper has some overlap with, and connections to, internationalization, liberalization, universalization, and westernization, it is not equivalent to any of these older concepts and trends. Of course, the conception of globalization elaborated in this paper is in no way intended to be the last word about what the term might mean. As stressed earlier, no definition is definitive. The aim of this paper has not been to issue a final pronouncement, but to offer ever-provisional ideas that provoke further reflection, debate, and, eventually, another rewrite of this text.
Notes This chapter revises the second chapter of Globalization: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), in preparation for a second edition of that book. 1 “On globalization,” excerpts from a keynote address at the UNRISD Conference on Globalization and Citizenship, 1 December 1996, at www.unrisd.org (under “viewpoints”). 2 Peasant activist in North East Thailand, interviewed in Bangkok on 10 June 2002. 3 J. Maclean, “Philosophical roots of globalization: philosophical routes to globalization,” in R. Germain (ed.), Globalization and Its Critics: Perspectives from Political Economy (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 3–66. 4 R. Robertson, “Globality,” in N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes (eds), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Oxford: Elsevier/Pergamon, 2001), p. 6254. 5 The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989, 2nd edn), vol. vi, p. 582. 6 O.L. Reiser and B. Davies, Planetary Democracy: An Introduction to Scientific Humanism (New York: Creative Age Press, 1944), pp. 212, 219. 7 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1961), p. 965. 8 J. Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (London: Hafner, 1948 [1789]), p. 326; H. Suganami, “A note on the origin of the word ‘international’,” British Journal of International Studies, vol. 4, no. 3 (October 1978), pp. 226–32. 9 R. Robertson, “Interpreting globality,” in World Realities and International Studies Today (Glenside, PA: Pennsylvania Council on International Education, 1983).
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10 T. Levitt, “The globalization of markets,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 61, no. 3 (May–June, 1983), pp. 92–102. 11 R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977); J.N. Rosenau, The Study of Global Interdependence: Essays on the Transnationalization of World Affairs (London: Pinter, 1980); R. Maghroori and B. Ramberg (eds), Globalism versus Realism: International Relations’ Third Debate (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982). 12 J.H. Mittelman, “Globalization: an ascendant paradigm?” International Studies Perspectives, vol. 3, no. 1 (February, 2002), pp. 1–14. 13 Cf. J. Rosenberg, The Follies of Globalization Theory: Polemical Essays (London: Verso, 2001). 14 P. Hirst and G. Thompson, Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1999, 2nd edn), pp. 7–13. 15 D. Rodrik, The Global Governance of Trade as if Development Really Mattered (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2001). 16 “Globalization’s last hurrah?” Foreign Policy (January–February, 2002), pp. 38–51. 17 E.g. R. Zevin, “Are financial markets more open? If so, why and with what effects?” in T. Banuri and J.B. Schor (eds), Financial Openness and National Autonomy: Opportunities and Constraints (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), pp. 43–83; R. Wade, “Globalization and its limits: reports of the death of the national economy are greatly exaggerated,” in S. Berger and R. Dore (eds), National Diversity and Global Capitalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 60–88; K.H. O’Rourke and J.G. Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). 18 E.g., J. Mander and E. Goldsmith (eds), The Case against the Global Economy and the Turn to the Local (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996); K. Hewison, Localism in Thailand: A Study of Globalisation and its Discontents (Coventry: ESRC/University of Warwick Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, Working Paper No. 39/99, 1999). 19 Cf. A. Marrison (ed.), Free Trade and its Reception 1815–1960 (London: Routledge, 1998). 20 C. Gamble, Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Civilization (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). 21 Cf. B.R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine, 1996). 22 Cf. J. Petras and H. Veltmeyer, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the Twentyfirst Century (London: Zed, 2001). 23 Cf. A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990); Scholte, Globalization, ch. 4. 24 R. Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992), p. 170. 25 On the significance of space in society see, e.g. H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991 [1974]); D. Gregory and J. Urry (eds), Social Relations and Spatial Structures (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985); D. Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994). 26 M. Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (London: Free Association Books, 1987). 27 A.L. Kroebner, “The ancient Greek oikoumenê as an historic culture aggregate,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 75 (1945), pp. 9–20; U. Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London: Routledge, 1996). 28 J.L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 29 F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism Fifteenth–Eighteenth Century, vol. iii: The Perspective of the World (London: Collins, 1984 [1979]).
36 Jan Aart Scholte 30 J. Agnew, Geopolitics: Re-visioning World Politics (London: Routledge, 1998), ch. 1; J.E. Wills, 1688: A Global History (New York: Norton, 2001), pp. 9–10. 31 See, for example, the large range of data assembled in D. Held A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). 32 Cf. M. Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 33 NB: all $ figures refer to United States dollars. 34 68th Annual Report (Basle: Bank for International Settlements, 1998), p. 144; Quarterly Review, December 2001 (Basle: Bank for International Settlements, 2001), p. 10. 35 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2002 (Overview) (New York: United Nations, 2002), p. 1. 36 Ibid. 37 Yearbook of International Organizations 1999–2000, vol. 1 (Munich: Saur/Union of International Associations, 1999), p. 2357. 38 www.world-tourism.org/market_research/facts&figures/menu.htm. 39 www.nescafe.com/main_nest.asp. 40 M. Heidegger, “The thing,” in Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1971 [1950]), pp. 165–6. 41 D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Conditions of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 240. 42 M. Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban–Regional Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 348; The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–7); The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 43 J.G. Ruggie, “Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations,” International Organization, vol. 47, no. 1 (Winter, 1993), p. 172. 44 I. Douglas, “The myth of globali[z]ation: a poststructural reading of speed and reflexivity in the governance of late modernity,” paper presented at the 38th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego, April 1996, p. 22. 45 T. Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps 1472–1500 (London: British Library, 1987); P. Whitfield, The Image of the World: 20 Centuries of World Maps (London: British Library, 1994). 46 A. Huth, La radiodiffusion. Puissance mondiale (Paris: Gallimard, 1937); UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook 1996 (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1997), p. 6.4. 47 Financial Times (8 October, 1998), p. VIII; Financial Times (20 June, 2001), p. 13. 48 www.nua.ie. 49 The introduction of the euro and other developments caused turnover to drop to $1,210 billion per day in 2001. Figures taken from R. Gilpin, Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 261; “Central Bank survey of foreign exchange and derivatives market activity in April 2001: preliminary global data,” Bank for International Settlements press release, 9 October 2001; 71st Annual Report (Basle: Bank for International Settlements, 2001), pp. 98–100. 50 The following points are elaborated in Scholte, Globalization, part 2. 51 K. Ohmae, The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy (New York: HarperCollins, 1990); Ohmae, “Putting global logic first,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 73, no. 1 (January–February, 1995), pp. 119–25. 52 Cf. J.F. Helliwell, How Much Do National Borders Matter? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998).
Globalization and the rise of super territoriality
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53 Cf. Z. Mlinar (ed.), Globalization and Territorial Identities (Aldershot: Avebury, 1992); D. Harvey, “From space to place and back again: reflections on the condition of postmodernity,” in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner (eds), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 3–29. 54 Scholte, Globalization, pp. 124–5, 146–8, 166–9. 55 J.A. Scholte, “Global capitalism and the state,” International Affairs, vol. 73, no. 3 (July, 1997), pp. 425–52. 56 E.g. C. Hines, Localization: A Global Manifesto (London: Earthscan, 2000); sources in note 17 above. 57 S.A. Wurm (ed.), Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 1996). 58 T. Dowmunt (ed.), Channels of Resistance: Global Television and Local Empowerment (London: BFI/Channel 4, 1993); F. Wilmer, The Indigenous Voice in World Politics: Since Time Immemorial (London: Sage, 1993). 59 A. Bennett, “Hip Hop am Main: the localization of rap music and hip hop culture,” Media, Culture and Society, vol. 21, no. 1 (January, 1999), pp. 77–91. 60 UNDP, Human Development Report 1999 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 62. 61 Cf. C. Piot, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999); E. Mendonsa, Continuity and Change in a West African Society: Globalization’s Impact on the Sisala of Ghana (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2001). 62 Mariana, activist with the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), interviewed in Rio de Janeiro on 28 January 2002. 63 Cf. E.S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (Cambridge: O’Reilly, 1999). 64 Esp. Scholte, Globalization, part 3; Scholte, The Sources of Neoliberal Globalization (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2003).
38 Henry Teune
3
Local reponses to the globalizations of our era Henry Teune
Human societies almost certainly developed more rapidly as a global system during the past three decades than in any other comparable time period. Most past great eras of globalization happened through imperial relationships. The massive intensification of trade at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially the years just preceding the First World War, drew on decades of dominating colonial relationships. Empires were formed by conquering or civilizing centers imposing control over different and distant societies through hierarchy rather than becoming integrated through developmental processes. The final casts for interpreting the twentieth century will include markers for the end of both empires as the primary means of enlarging human societies and the international system of states as a way of protecting societal and ethnic differences. Its final decades will be seen as the beginning of the dynamics of social and human development on a truly global scale in what may be known as a new era of globalization. Nonetheless, the imprints of empires and states remain. They have lost to the new globalizations, but persistent initiatives to move toward their restoration can be expected. A major long-term consequence of globalization as social development is a more complex set of economic, political, and social entities to which humans belong and their activities are attached.1 One way of seeing this in our time of purposeful political reorganization and alignment is as a messy refederating of the world into economic regions, security arrangements as well as local–national relations within countries. In the long run, social development will lead to continuing de-territorialization of social, political, and economic structures and, consequently, the role of physical place as a determinant of human behavior will diminish, as is manifest today in the expansion of electronic communications, the rise of global, universal human rights, and the decentralization of production. This process of global restructuring generates a new local–global politics, including the gradual demotion of most countries to the status of the local. Globalization, indeed, has not only multiplied local territorial units but also made relationships among levels of territorial aggregation more complex and conflictive. Multiple localities, overlapping regions, the decline of the state relative to these ascending regions as well as to the global system, conflicting with, but surely superseding the international one, have replaced the simpler, three-tier world of locality, country, and international system of the war-prone twentieth century.
Local responses to the globalizations of our era
39
The main points of departure for what follows are: 1) that the globalization of our era began in the middle of the 1970s as a developmental process that integrates local systems into those of greater scale; 2) that the initial visible consequence of globalization was the weakening of nation-states relative to the private sector, ethnic groups, and regional political entities; and 3) that the response of the local to this spurt in globalization was local economic openness, local assumption of greater responsibilities for the well-being of their populations, and local embracing of democratic values and practices that are embedded in the national and regional political economies of Europe and North America. Indeed, the collapse of communist political systems in 1989–90 began a “Second Democratic Revolution” that, unlike the European one of 1789, was global in impact. The question for research and discussion that will be addressed here is whether, after only a few years of extensive globalization and localization in the early 1990s, the local has ceased being in the vanguard of the globalizing forces of economic development and democratization and has moved back to its historic role of protecting traditional values and territorial interests.2 The state was the main player during the abrupt beginnings of the “Second Democratic Revolution” in 1989 but the local assumed a default position for democratic development following the cataclysms of the ending of the Cold War. In some ways, the sense of the democratic linked to the local penetrated localities even in the established democracies, as the state was perceived not as the main liberating and modernizing force of the preceding two centuries but a possible obstacle to a new, prosperous and democratic global era. Although most small and weak states will quietly recede in favor of the regional and global, the local, rather than being the historical competitor with the national, especially in less developed regions of countries, again may become an ally of the state to resist the impacts of the global. The local, however, can be expected to take advantage of opportunities to bypass the state by reaching to the transnational regional as well as the global, even as the state recedes in influence relative to the global and itself becomes one of many local players. Two general propositions can be asserted, one of which will be substantially supported, about the role of the local that followed the collapse of the bi-polar system. First, the local on the whole did indeed respond to the global challenge and opened to the world, pushed for democracy, and assumed local responsibility for local problems. That is a very general assessment and is not true of localities long isolated or surviving as pockets of the industrial urban order of the 1920s, whether capitalist or socialist. That proposition can be defended with argument, examples, and comparative data. Second, within a few years, global pressures from a changed world put the local back again in the position of resisting the new and protecting the old and traditional. This is likely to be especially true in less developed parts of the world and within countries. Thus the localisms will become again bifurcated into those that are in the global systems and those that aspire to be protectorates of the interests created by the emergence of modern states. That proposition can be supported with theoretical argument and examples, but requires global data to be credible.
40 Henry Teune
A prelude for context: the Committee on the Politics of Local–Global Relations At the XVI IPSA World Congress in Berlin, a few individuals submitted a petition to be recognized as a study group on the Politics of Local–Global Relations. That initiative followed informal communications by members of the executive committee at the Congress that they would be receptive to proposals in the general area of international relations that were responsive to the massive recent changes in the international system following the end of the Cold War.3 At that time, two decades after the forces of this era of globalization were unleashed, the established “fields” of international politics were still, at least in North America, international politics, international law, diplomacy, international organizations, to which, in scattered places and institutions war and/peace studies were appended. During the Cold War period, non-governmental international organizations and “multi” national corporations had been acknowledged as players in an international system of states. International relations had yet to recognize terrorism, global norms, especially human rights, global political movements, “civil” or internal wars, to mention some, as new contenders for standing as “normal” components of the world system. World cities had just begun to be seen as potential autonomous actors in a global political economy, after their rapid growth since the 1970s particularly in the developing world.4 The study of local government and politics had diminished after the enthusiastic interest in metropolitan governments of the 1960s and various halting efforts at decentralization in the 1970s had faded. Rather than being a central part of IPSA, the study of local governments was by and large confined to a research committee. IPSA focused primarily on the state, international politics, and theories about the state and how it did and ought to relate to markets, groups, and individuals. It reflected the realities of international order set after 1945. A few international social science societies kept the study of localities viable, especially in sociology. They tended, however, to deal with local variations within and across countries. The importance of world regions was centered on Europe and much of that was framed to reflect the Cold War. Even today, despite the emergence of a new Europe and similar formations of regions in other parts of the world, most programs of European or East Asian, or other “political and cultural” regional studies still proceed with country-by-country research and analysis. The events that finished the communist regimes in Europe and Central Asia and brought general awareness of a new era of globalization had profound implications for national and local politics. Democracy could never rest well with the exclusionary ideologies and structures of the secular communalisms of nationalism, socialism, fascism, nazism, and communism. The inclusivity of globalism, however, was compatible with the inclusionary values of democracy. Both needed and, indeed, celebrated diversity. The transformational events following the collapse of the closed communist political systems in Europe and Central Asia opened opportunities for a new wave of comparative research. It could be global rather than divided into the developed and less developed countries or organized according to world cultural
Local responses to the globalizations of our era
41
regions. From about the middle of the 1970s until the late 1980s, comparative research was more or less on an empirical plateau, arguing about theoretical paradigms rather than engaged in the research that was needed to sustain or resolve those arguments.5 One of the main problems with the political in the large-scale comparative research programs of the preceding decades was that the explanations, the dependent variables, of theoretical and practical interest were economic growth and, secondarily, the distribution of wealth. The great intellectual challenge of this political revolution was that political variables were needed to explain political variables – political parties, political values, political groups to explain democratization, and its stabilization, perhaps, its “consolidation.” More than that, it was now possible to look at countries in the “middle” economically, not either rich or very poor, with some substantial history of industrialization and urbanization. In the first year of the “new” democracies, a research program titled Democracy and Local Governance was organized. Its initial intent was to get a snap shot of political changes in these countries that were for the first time accessible to comparative research, at least without the encumbrances of the previous kinds of governmental approval and the suspicions that this readily fed. It serves well to recall that at that time most projections about the future of these countries was at the very best mixed. Nationalism, a resurgent communism, authoritarianism, or general chaos were among the expectations. The researchers were prepared to organize quickly. In 1993, the first report, largely descriptive was published.6 One of the main findings was that globalization and democracy had made some intrusions, however limited, into the former communist countries but that the demarcation in political cultures between the East and West in a now open Eurasia clearly remained in force. This project was the rationale for the Study Group on the Politics of Local– Global Relations. Priority was given to determining whether the research approaches and instruments that had been developed in the West could be credibly applied to countries where research on such topics as globalization and democracy was untried. In addition to this, of course, was the aspiration to make this “global research” as global as possible.
The impact of globalization on local politics and governance The middle of the 1970s can be used as a starting point of the globalization of our era. The Cold War conflict in Vietnam was in remission, the Helsinki Accords were signed, and the money from the oil crises following the Yom Kippur War were sloshing around the world via Western bank deposits of the new riches of Middle Eastern countries and bank loans to the Third World. Among the consequences of those transfers was a contribution to worldwide inflation. But the more important stories were the winding down of any significant economic growth in the Soviet bloc countries, although that was not generally recognized until the early 1980s and the decision by China to participate in the world economy of the West. The 1970s also was a time of spread of the ideas of human rights contained in the “basket” in Helsinki, their institutionalization in private
42 Henry Teune “Helsinki” groups, and their political prominence in the agenda of the Carter Presidency in the US. Led by international finance, globalization as an expanding, encompassing market was under way following the squeezing down of world inflation. By the middle of the 1980s China had begun to enter the world economy and significant changes were beginning in the Soviet Union. Something like a global political economy was emerging. The old image of another, more subtle empire was a contending alternative to that of a new world system based on global social and political development. Modest decentralization occurred in many of the major OECD countries in the 1970s and 1980s along with a simplification of the income tax codes, and a general disposition to reduce barriers to trade. The implications of globalization for local governance were not obvious until the collapse of communist political systems. Much of the discussion about the “crises” of the welfare state in the West was cast in terms of central governmental involvement in national economies having approached or exceeded some limit. Globalization’s impact on local government and politics was obvious by the early 1990s.7 The collapse of communist states left weak central governments open to intrusions of all kinds. The fall back line for political order would be the mostly unprepared local governments. The most important change, however, was that the societies of the world were becoming integrated without having to give up their particular configurations of culture and without overt acts of control by centers of real or incipient empire. Indeed, globalization made the attractions of empire significantly less compelling by providing reliable sources of supply and places to export without having to engage in direct territorial control. That happened as a consequence of democratization and the many ways the various forms of globalizations impacted countries and their systems of local government. Democracies are more open, assert generally less central political control, and embrace freedom in the market place as well as for the exchange of people and ideas.
Globalization and local democracy: 1990–7 The Democracy and Local Governance Research program surveyed political leaders in samples of local governments in several countries, focusing on the newly independent, former communist countries. The research is continuing but under what is now assumed to be a significantly different global political environment. The target sample population of local political units was about 30 local political units in each country that had some responsibilities for providing services to the people, with populations ranging from about 25,000 to about 500,000, adjusted for the population of the country and its level and nature of urbanization. Large metropolitan centers were not taken. Within each of these the political element, composed of about 15 elected and political party people, was selected for interviews, in most cases face-to-face, but in countries with strong bureaucratic traditions, a mail questionnaire was used with follow-up. These included mayors, deputy-mayors, council people, political administrators when appropriate, and political party leaders. The “standard” sample target for a country was 450 local
Local responses to the globalizations of our era
43
leaders, with Poland serving as the sample anchor being a country of some size, with a substantial population, and with both western and “eastern” political heritages. In countries of great size (Russia), more localities were selected and in smaller ones (Lithuania) fewer. What was found was a mixed bag of democratic leaders scattered around Eurasia (including in a limited comparative way, the US). Several observations could be made about the entire group of countries studied.8 The main picture to be gotten for this is that, yes, the issue of democracy had penetrated in most places, but only in a limited number of places in countries without modern democratic traditions, in particular in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. But the issue of democracy, indeed, was global. This meant that in most localities, of course in Sweden, the US and other Western countries, agreement on democratic values was so strong locally that the issue really could not be joined for choosing an alternative. It was settled. This was not the case in most areas of the new democracies, including perhaps those in East Asia. Also, along with the new local politics about democracy the value of a market economy had penetrated, but was contested as it continues to be in the more established democracies. In addition there were important connections in the minds of those individual political leaders between their democratic values and their perceptions of civic and political groups they could turn to for political support (a measure of civic society) and the number of ways they believed that the people in their localities could influence political decisions. These relationships held across individuals and aggregations of them in their localities and regions and are given in Table 3.1. What this shows is strong global relationship between the democratic values of local leaders and an opening up to alternative ways people can participate (six ways offered as a choice), and their searching out of support groups for political decisions (16 groups provided from which leaders chose). There is also a clear relationship between the democractic values of leaders and their embracing the value of the market (see Appendix A for these value scales). The globalization, localization, and democratization of local leaders that was assessed between 1991 and 1997 can be seen in the relationships between their perception of local political conflicts (prohibited in communist countries), their feeling that they lack the political power to act with the implication they want more power (10 issue areas to assess), and their identification with political entities
Table 3.1 Demscore correlations with market economy, support groups and ways of influencing decisions across levels (significant at the 0.00 level) Value of market economy Support groups sought Ways of influencing decisions N
Leaders
Communities
Regions
Countries
0.15 0.21 0.24 11,202
0.44 0.40 0.36 628
0.49 0.42 0.40 120
0.53 0.49 0.43* 24
* Significant at 0.04 level. The “two Germanys” are not in this analysis.
44 Henry Teune above their locality and country (regions, such as Europe or Asia or the world, with more than one choice allowed). Some of these relationships are given in Table 3.2. Again, this pattern is reflected in the leaders’ perception of the impact of imports and exports on their locality. The question was how much impact tourists, imports, foreign workers, etc. have on your locality. This is broken down into relationship to the democratic values of leaders (no relationship with imports, but positive for exports, by implication jobs and local prosperity) and market values. The overall impact of the international, both in imports and exports and in other ways, is positively related to market values but not democratic ones. International identification of leaders, however, is related to both democratic and market values. This pattern of global relationships disguises national, regional, and, indeed, regional cultural differences. It does show that the great break of the Second Democratic Revolution had an impact perhaps everywhere and its most profound aspect was the opening of local politics and the discussion of democratic politics as a major political issue. Democratic politics was contested in these new democracies. So is the market economy, but almost everywhere. First, even in established democracies, the presence and nature of the market has been the political issue of socialism and the welfare state for over a century. Second, the market as a preferred means is not embedded in many political cultures. Third,
Table 3.2 Demscore correlations with local autonomy, political conflict, and international identity across levels (significant at the 0.00 level) Sufficient local autonomy Political differences in locality International identity N
Leaders
Communities
Regions
–0.09 0.10 0.20 11,202
–0.20 0.27 0.32 628
–0.27 0.40 0.37 120
Table 3.3 Demscore correlating and market economy correlations with global impact, and international identity (significant at the 0.00 level) Demscore
Market economy
Indiv. Comm. Region. Country Impact exports 0.09 Impact foreign total – International identity 0.20 N 11,202
0.15
Indiv. Comm. Region. Country
0.23*
–
0.09
0.20
0.37
–
–
–
–
0.05
0.18
0.29
–
0.32 628
0.37 120
– 24
0.14 11,202
0.47 628
0.51 120
0.61 24
* Significant at the 0.02 level.
Local responses to the globalizations of our era
45
traditions established by past imperial orders were those of economic control, not the virtues of the market. One of the main ways of reflecting differences in market values and, indeed, the functioning of a market economy is to compare the regional/cultural variations in the relationships with democratic and market values. There are significant differences across these traditional cultural regions defined in the accepted geographical way as shown in Table 3.4. The correlations between democratic values and the value of a market economy is negative in Western Europe (Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain) but positive in the regions of the former communist countries. There is no relationship in the three East Asian countries.9 The globalization “effect” on the relationship between market and democratic values was primarily in the new democracies rather than in the established ones. Foreign involvement (trade, media, tourists, pollution, and workers) of a locality does seem to impact positively the democratic values of the local leadership in Western Europe. But that link is not strong.
Was it a democratic moment? One likely conclusion about the Second Democratic Revolution is that it happened in the early years of the 1990s and was a democratic moment in history. Analysis of coming events and more research may prove that to be the case. What has been learned about democracy at the local level since 1997? Several countries studied earlier were studied once again. Comparing the simple Demscore measure across two time periods, there is probably a significant drop in support for democratic values in the Ukraine (1991–5) and Belarus (1991–9), with slight declines in Kazakhstan and Russia (1992–5). There is an increase in support for democratic values in Lithuania (1992–9) and Poland (1991–2001). Excepting a slight increase in Sweden between 1991 and 1999, the local leaders in the other countries studied show relative national stability on the Demscore measure. The overall change in values, however, is less important than the changes in the relationship between democratic values and other variables, indicators of Table 3.4 Meso regional correlations with demscore: individual leaders (significant at the 0.00 level) West Value of market economy Impact foreign total International identity N
Cent. Europe
–0.12
0.23
0.10
–
– 3,593
0.13 2,695
East Europe 0.10 –0.06** – 1,345
* Significant at 0.05 level; ** significant at 0.01 level.
Cent. Asia 0.05*
East Asia –
–0.08
–
–
0.13 1,349
1,324
46 Henry Teune how “institutionalized” democratic values and practices are at the local level. It is most likely that, with the exception of the troubled political systems of Belarus and Ukraine and perhaps in Central Asia, democratic governance became an established fact during this brief moment in history. Democracy is not likely to be contested now or in the near future. Democratic and market values, however, seem to have been de-coupled and that follows the lines of the traditional political cultures that divide the East from the West and the variety of political economies of the West, the continental versus the Anglo, for example. And so, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of preference, politics, mostly democratic politics, will engage the functioning of the market. The patterns of political resolution will be mixed not only across countries and political cultures but also over time. But that is what politics is about, if it can avoid being engaged in the contest over the nature of the political system itself. It may also be that the relationship between civic society and democracy at the local level will be de-coupled, and different kinds of democracies will evolve, perhaps differentiated on the role of society in collective, political life. That may or not be a local political issue, depending on political traditions that divide Eurasia between those where political authorities tried to dominate local societies and those where the authorities were derived from the local social orders, even if conflicting ones. One reflection on this moment of political change is that what some assume takes a long time is indeed punctuated change, determined by events, revolutions, or whatever, that set the course from which there is little chance of return. The Second Democratic Revolution of 1989 surely looks that way from the perspective of local politics.
Notes 1 The main arguments for this position is H. Teune and Z. Mlinar, “The developmental logic of globalization,” in J. Ciprut (ed.), The Art of the Feud: Reconceptualizing International Relations (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000). 2 Some of these ideas are discussed in H. Teune, “Has development superseded theories of international relations,” paper presented to the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Los Angeles, 2000 and “Local political dimensions of globalization,” paper presented to Conference on China, Europe, and the World, Qinhuangdao City, China, 2001. 3 The group was recognized as Study Group #35 and shortly thereafter as a mirror group in Thematic Group #06 of the International Sociological Association (ISA). In 1999, it was recognized as Research Committee #47 of IPSA. According to the revised Statutes of ISA (2002), members of the IPSA Research Committee can request full participation rights in the ISA Group without paying additional dues or incurring other obligations. 4 See H. Teune “Growth and pathologies of giant cities,” in J. Kasarda and M. Dogan (eds), The Metropolis Era: A World of Giant Cities, vol. 1 (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1988). 5 This was my appraisal in the middle of the 1970s in an article “Comparative methods and experimental designs,” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 8 (July, 1975). These ideas were put forth again in H. Teune, “Comparing countries: lessons learned,” in
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7 8
9
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E. Oyen (ed.), Comparative Methodology (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990). This was published at the very moment a new spurt in comparative research was underway following the opening of vast regions and many cultures and polities to comparative research. The first wave of country studies was published as B. Jacob, K. Ostrowski, and H. Teune (eds), Democracy and Local Governance: Ten Empirical Studies (Honolulu, HI: Matsunaga Institute for Peace, 1993) and the second in B. Jacob, W. Linder, R. Nabholz, and C. Heierl (eds), Democracy and Local Governance: Nine Empirical Studies (Bern: University of Bern, 1999). See D. L. Sheth, “Democracy and globalization in India: post-Cold War discourse” and Z. Mlinar, “Local responses to global change,” in Local Governance Around the World, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 540 (1995). The countries reported on in this analysis are: Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, East and West Germany (independent samples from each), Hungary, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan. All data were gathered between 1991 and 1997. Not included in the data tables are Belarus (1999), Brazil (1998), Estonia (1999), Latvia (1999), Netherlands (2000), Poland (2001), and Sweden (1999). For several of the former communist countries in the study, two points in time were studied and the second wave survey data on the same localities are used in the analysis presented here (Belarus, 1995; Czech Republic, 1995; Hungary, 1995; Kazakhstan, 1995; Lithuania, 1995; Poland, 1995; Russia, 1995; Poland, 1995; Ukraine, 1995). For details on dates, sample size, etc., see www.ssc.upenn.edu/dlg. This research was funded by many private and public agencies, including the US National Science Foundation (SBR-9423801). For an elaboration of regional differences with maps see K. Ostrowski and H. Teune, “Local democracy in Russia, Central, and Western Europe,” in R. Hjerppe, T. Kanninen, H. Patomäki and K. Sehm (eds), Democracy, Economy, and Civil Society in Transition – the Cases of Russia and the Baltic States (Helsinki: The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 1997). Also see K. Ostrowski and H. Teune, “Local, regional, and meso regional patterns of democratic governance: development vs. culture,” paper presented to the XIII World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Quebec City, 2000.
48 Henry Teune
Appendix A The value scale items: demscore and value of market economy The Demscore scale used here is made up of nine items. The nine items are taken as the “best” from the value scale items of acceptance of conflict (pluralism); minority rights (versus majorities); and political equality. Pluralism 1 2 3
Public decisions should be made with unanimous consent. (–) Preserving harmony in the community should be considered more important than the achievement of community programs. (–) A good leader should refrain from making proposals that divide the people even if these are important for the community. (–)
Minority rights 4 5 6
The rights of minorities are so important that the majority should be limited in what it can do. (+) Any individual or organization has the right to organize opposition or resistance to any government initiative. (+) The government has the responsibility to see to it that rights of all minorities are protected. (+)
Political equality 7 8 9
Few people really know what is in their best interest in the long run. (–) It will always be necessary to have a few strong, able people actually running everything. (–) Certain people are better qualified to run this country due to their traditions and family background. (–)
The value of market economy was simply a summation of five agree/disagree items 1 2 3 4 5
Government regulation of business usually does more harm than good. (+) The government has the responsibility to see to it that everyone has a job. (–) When people accumulate wealth, it is only at the expense of others. (–) Competition is often wasteful and destructive. (–) The private enterprise system in general is a fair and efficient system. (+)
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Globalization and international security Pax Americana or multilateralism? John E. Trent
For the moment, the US sees no better route to stability than through its own power. It glories in that power but is willing to use it, too. It will take serious convincing that there is a better way to get along. If we think there is a better way – for us, for them, for all – then we have to be serious too. John Lloyd
The different elements of globalization are interrelated. In the immediate future, there is likely to be little advance on issues of economic, social, and cultural development without coming to grips with the problems of peace and security. Currently at the heart of the issue is the question of who should be responsible for international peace and security, the United States or the United Nations? Some advisers propose joining forces with the Americans, it being the only state capable of delivering power anywhere in the world. Others, believing in a balance of power, advocate enhancing global institutions such as the UN. Pax Americana or multilateral global security? This paper evaluates the role of the US and the UN after the September 11 attack on America and after the coalition in Afghanistan and the increasing unilateralism of the Bush administration. It investigates the need for a new balance of power for global security, and suggests alternatives to mitigate US ascendancy. A closer analysis of the post-September 11 context rapidly reveals that whether the international future will be dominated by the US or the UN is not a viable alternative. It is not an either/or situation but rather both/and. A double strategy is needed. To strive for international security requires that countries desiring peace and security must both work with the United States and also improve the capacity of international institutions. To structure the analysis we asked a set of six interlocking questions. 1 2 3
What facts and views help us understand 9-11 impacts on global governance? Has September 11, 2001 been a watershed event? Will the United States be taking a permanent lead in international security? Will it expect to share world policing with other states and international organizations?
50 John E. Trent 4 5 6
Are there global security functions that must be fulfilled by international institutions? Pax Americana or global security? Where must state leaders invest their resources? Are there institutional reforms to be proposed after September 11 and ensuing events?
Factors and perspectives dominating the post-September 11 world The facts of the global strategic balance are very revealing, even astounding. The United States is far more powerful than any other state, or combination of states, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. With the Pentagon budget at the $360 billion level, and the President requesting $379 billion for 2003, the United States is spending more on defence than all the 12 next highest spenders combined (the total for the world in 2001 was approximately $506 billion1). To grasp the disproportions, we may note that the expenditures of its nearest rivals were, in billions of US dollars, Russia: 64, China: 46, Japan: 40, United Kingdom: 35, France: 33, Germany: 27, Saudi Arabia: 24, Italy: 21, India: 14, South Korea: 11, Israel: 10, Taiwan: 10 billion. Canada and Australia each expended about US$7 billion.2 To put the power of the United States into context, one must realize, first, that even with recent increases, American defence spending will still be less than half of what it was during the half century of the Cold War, in terms of GDP per capita.3 Second, in 1913, at the height of the power of the British Empire, Britain’s share of world output was 8.3 percent; the equivalent figure for the US in 1998 was 22 percent.4 There may be clouds in the American economic future, such as domestic and foreign debt and the dollar’s value, but there are no rivals to the weight of the US economy and military. It has been maintained that there exist no equals in history for such disproportions of power. But even this does not satisfy the Pentagon which is calling for new nuclear launch platforms and new low-yield and variable-yield warheads in its Nuclear Posture Review. Nor does the staggering supremacy of the US satisfy the White House which, in its National Security Policy, has set American defence policy on its head by accepting the possibility of preemptive strikes which could include nuclear weapons.5 And it is questioned whether the Bush Republican government has not exploited the attack on America to accelerate right-wing trends in the United States and its foreign policy, including the anti-missile defence and the renewal of the military-industrial complex. The dominance of the United States is not limited to military factors which, as we have seen, can easily be countered by determined terrorists or smaller adversaries who can find a chink in the armour of the giant. Great power historians like Paul Kennedy tell us that, “over time, broad changes in the relative productive capacity of nation-states do lead to changes in their relative power positions.”6 But the 2002 first quarter growth rate of more than 5 percent suggested the United
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States was scrabbling back or at least holding its own after the shock of September 11, 2001. The following economic decline in the US owed much more to the Bush Administration’s obsession with Iraq and loss of confidence in the stock market due to the greed and fraud of American corporate leadership than it did to the threat of terrorism. The US currently has around 4.6 percent of the world’s population but produces what is variously estimated at between 22 and 30 percent of the world’s GDP. Its GDP per capita in 2000 was $34,200, almost 10 times that of China, for example. Some 40 percent of the world’s Internet traffic occurs in the United States and 70 percent of recent Nobel laureates work in its universities and laboratories.7 The other side of the coin, of course, is the relative weakness of international institutions. “Total operating expenses of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and all the UN programs and Agencies amounted to $18.2 billion in 1999.”8 This is considerably less than the annual budget of one Canadian Province such as British Columbia ($25.6 billion in 2002). The US federal budget is a hundred times larger. Even so, the 2001 UN budget was cut by another $70 million – after the events of September 11 – based on consensus voting which allows for a major power veto. Also, universal institutions are continually being criticized. They are said to be incompetent, irrelevant and unable to act in crises. Coordination between the UN and its agencies, while improved on the surface, is still a sticking point. Peacekeeping and peacemaking operations are often failures. The UN is not an institution capable of effective peacemaking in civil wars. Despite some remarkable achievements of the UN, it’s hard to claim that world nutrition, or health, or refugees, or peacefulness have been substantially improved since 1945. As regards distribution of wealth, the world has gone backwards. In the 1960s, the richest fifth of the world’s population had a total income 30 times greater the poorest 20 percent; in 1998 the ratio was 78:1.9 The UN is even incomplete as an instrument of global governance, not having any open, representative forum for global economic decision-making that can respond to common problems or provide global public goods.10 Nor is criticism limited to the UN family. After each meeting of the supposedly rigorous G-7 and G-20, analysts are always asking whether we can’t have more effective global institutions. The point is not that international institutions are inherently bad – after all they are the creatures of their nation-state members – but that they are our only instruments of global governance and they are the ones leaders and the public think about when deciding their foreign policy. Even the basic norms of global governance are no longer agreed upon in this period that authors refer to as “post-Westphalian”11 (see Valaskakis, 2001). Our one-sovereign-state-one-vote system is reminiscent of the “democratic” veto claimed by all the nobles at the early Polish court. In 1946 there were 74 independent countries. By 1995 there were 192 states claiming sovereign status, but many of these are gigantic and others tiny. While India and China have populations in the 1 billion range, 87 of today’s states have fewer than 5 million citizens and 35 have less than 500,000. Critics of the UN then ask, should global citizens not
52 John E. Trent he represented according to principles of population, or territory, or wealth or power rather than by historical sovereignty? In recent years, international organizations have been criticized from all sides for not being “democratically accountable.” In the eyes of the anti-globalizations protesters, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are seen as the tools of the United States and the large transnational corporations. Americans think democracy still works best in nation-states and giving too much power to global institutions could lead to a loss of democracy in decision-making. In fact, many governments feel they are losing power to unrepresentative international institutions. And yet, and yet … it was the United Nations Security Council which, at the behest of the United States, acted within days of the attack on the World Trade Centre to provide a framework of international law that allowed the Untied States to create its coalition to strike at al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Resolution 1368 linked attacks by non-state terrorists to the right of national self-defence. Resolution 1373 invoked chapter 7 of the UN Charter to bind all states to ratify the 12 conventions on terrorism, including one on banking, and to report on what they are doing to track terrorism in each of these areas (despite the fact that the US had not yet ratified the international conventions on terrorism and, as late as September 10, 2001, had reiterated it had no intention of doing so). Moreover, it was the United Nation’s representative who carried out the arduous negotiations that allowed for the formation of an interim Afghan government and the nomination of a transitional head of state. It was also the UN and humanitarian international organizations (INGOs) that were ready and waiting to send in humanitarian aid of all forms which forestalled massive starvation and death during the Afghan winter. In other words, when there were no other takers, it was the UN which, after the demise of the Taliban government, began to put the pieces of Afghanistan back together and started the long process of nationbuilding. Despite all the criticisms, it appears that when called upon to do so by its member states, the United Nations can act with alacrity in crisis situations and can fulfil many functions that others are unable or unwilling to undertake. These facts and perspectives are instructive. In the period following 9-11, it seems that the American power house (“the military-industrial complex” made famous by President Eisenhower) is unavoidable in world affairs. At the same time, our one universal institution, the United Nations, with all its faults and needs for reform, showed it was capable of acting rapidly to deal with security issues and, since September 11, 2001 has performed important political and humanitarian functions. The leading or blocking power of the US make it a necessary player in most major international dramas while the UN is required as a legitimizer, mobilizer, and handmaiden. Those who are concerned about future security operations will need to know how to influence, exploit, and contribute to both the US and the UN.
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Has September 11 been a watershed event? Before shifting their resources around on the international chess board, governments will be wondering to what degree, aside from its tragic nature, the destruction of the World Trade Towers has changed the structure of international politics. Is it to be business as usual or were the attacks a watershed event? At first glance, from a historical perspective, it could be assumed the Attack on America would not rate very high on a scale of international crises since the Second World War. Time and again, with the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Gulf War, the United States has lead the response and the UN has played a supporting role. All these event were potentially more earthshaking than September 11. The US had to rely to varying degrees on allies, the UN and coalitions. Each time, after a brief period, the international focus returned to multilateral institutions. The pattern is one of US leadership in crises and UN responsibility for ongoing international security. This sense of continuity is reinforced by the immobility of major international players. After making a bow in the direction of multilateralism, President Bush returned full force to his unilateralism as exemplified by his threat to hobble peacekeeping if he could not get his way with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Europe, the one actor that is considered to be a potential balance for the USA (with China not far behind), still seems incapable of overcoming the singleness of sovereign nationalism in order to develop a pluralist identity. While Europeans freely criticize the United States, they are not ready to project a new global vision to America. Rather than leading, Europe drifts in a state of amorphous reaction. September 11 does not appear to have acted as a wake-up call for Europe or America.12 We simply see the old world in a new way, especially given that, once a crisis is over people are no longer motivated to reform.13 In sum, the basic structure of the international system has not been transformed. There have been, however, changes within the United States and with regard to the tactics of terrorism. The change in the US is in the way Americans perceive themselves and the world around them and the impact of these perceptions on American foreign policy. These developments are going to be crucial for the conduct of international politics in the years to come so we should consider them in some depth. The major difference made by September 11 was that it was an “Attack on America.” For the first time, the Americans felt personally targeted and intensely vulnerable to attacks that all their international might could not deflect. This has led to what we might call “neo-patriotism” in the United States. It harks back to traditional American patriotic nationalism which gives priority to national defence and vital interests. Neo-patriotism is characterized by a demand for conformity and a lack of critical debate. Everyone fears being charged with unAmericanism by the President and, as a result, one wonders where the Democratic Party is hiding in the United States. Insecurity has led to new security laws which have drastically eroded human rights and the legal rights of NGOs. It has exposed international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), or as it is said now “civil
54 John E. Trent society,” to a decrease in due process and transparency. We must not be too categorical. There is a distinction to be made between the Administration and American public opinion which often exhibits considerable scepticism about Bush’s initiatives. Also, among a few members of the Administration there is some degree of recognition that security is more complex than defending one’s territorial borders. It requires combining unilateral capacity and cooperative action at a time when there is uncertainty about the locus and definition of threat as well as what to do about it. The question: is what impact this will have on American foreign policy and attitudes toward international institutions? One might think the United States would seek global collaboration but the reality is that insecurity, uncertainty, and neo-patriotism anchor a renewed emphasis by the Bush Junior Administration on American unilateralism. The United States will decide for itself, the President maintains. The emphasis is on national defence and internal security including demands for reforms of poorly performing institutions such as the FBI and CIA. This allows Bush to include traditional Republican foreign policy goals under the one heading of the “War on Terrorism.” Another way of interpreting this trend is to see it as the beginning of a new cycle of US foreign policy which we may define as renewed “American exceptionalism.” Traditionally Americans have believed that their values, particularly the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are, or should be, universal values. This belief was reaffirmed in an article widely disseminated to the media by 40 American, senior, foreign policy experts shortly after 9-11.14 They maintained that the values of the United States were universal values. But the Americans also believe that their Constitution supersedes all other authority, national or international, in the instructions it gives to the US government. In light of these beliefs, Americans think it is natural to encourage the world to adopt American values and interests and when there is not a consonance between these and international norms it is justifiable for the US to make exceptions to international practices. We define American exceptionalism in foreign policy in both senses of a belief in a consonance with universal values and the inherent right of the United States to make exceptions to international practices. American exceptionalism entails being present on the international scene, even playing a leadership role, but not being submitted to global rules.15 There is no real watershed in the American approach to the world. But this has to be understood in the context of what we know about American foreign policy. History teaches us why and how the United States engages the world and what it expects of the world. We might dub it the constancy of inconsistency. 1
Over time, the United States has alternated between executive and legislative dominated foreign policy. The “imperial presidency” gave the President a freer hand but when Congress controls foreign policy it is subject to the vicissitudes of domestic politics. Rarely has the domestic scene been as preeminent as during the post-Cold War period of 1989–2000. Joseph Nye’s
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powerful analysis of American public opinion polls shows that, despite the fact that a large majority of Americans support international institutions and multilateralism, the American public has been absolutely absorbed by domestic issues.16 He reports that, between 1989 and 2000, US television networks closed foreign bureaus and cut foreign news content by two-thirds.17 This is reinforced by the “CNN factor” which looks at international issues as short term, “there and gone” episodes. Nye shows that it is internal preoccupation and public indifference to foreign policy (just 7 percent listed it as a major problem) that allow special interests to present a narrow definition of the national interest. The voice Congress has heard is that of political activists who turn out for Republican primaries and strongly believe the UN is a threat to national sovereignty. These voices and those of important Congressional committee chairs give the impression that there is no single national interest except the quest for American domination. In the present period, the “War on Terrorism” combined with Republican activists and public opinion ignorance have given President Bush a temporarily freer hand that approaches that of the ‘Imperial Presidents’.18 But, according to observers, broader foreign policy goals have been neglected in favour of the Republican political objective of regaining control of the Senate in the mid-term elections and of winning a second term for the presidency. One can discern two major policy-making organizations within any American administration. We can call them “diplomacy” and “defence” or State Department versus the Pentagon.19 These yin and yang have alternated in influencing the foreign policy process. Other organizational players such as the intelligence community and various policy communities have influence too, but it is diplomacy and defense which have preeminence over time. The State Department, with the same commitment to national interests, has a greater willingness to accept the role of individuals and civil society in addition to the rights of institutions and to consider multilateral approaches as long as they are based on the preeminence of the national state. Under the current administration, the defense school dominates, and even more so since 9-11. The defence approach, which scrutinizes resources and allies and worst case scenarios, tends to stress self-reliance, avoidance of new commitments, less reliance on allies, and rejecting the oversight of international institutions and international law (such as the new International Criminal Court). It also has greater personnel and resources for influencing public opinion. American experts are not hesitant about stating that, first and foremost, foreign policy must serve the national interest or interests. For foreigners and Americans alike, the trick is divining what is the American national interest. Essentially, it is in the eye of the beholder so that American foreign policy flip-flops between several trends. “Unilateralists” seek American hegemony as a means of achieving American interests and values and not submitting to collective international decision-making. Because Americans believe their values and hence intentions are good, the US can act in its selfinterest without being overly concerned by international legitimacy or
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consistency. Others will adapt to American power. “Multilateralists” (who also operate within the parameters of the national interest) think a cost– benefit analysis can be made that shows when it is beneficial to act cooperatively to achieve international goals that are consonant with US objectives, be this with allies or in global institutions submissive to the national will. “Isolationists” think America is best served by asserting national sovereignty and avoiding international entanglements and the costly obligations of leadership. These concepts operate within the idea of American exceptionalism as interpreted by the party in power. There has been a growing disregard for international law and collective institutions in general and the United Nations in particular among rightwing elites in the United States. They desire to stay away from international restraints that may limit American sovereignty and interests. This has grown to a crescendo under the present Bush Administration with the US revoking its signature on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – the first time any country has ever revoked a signature on a UN treaty. The United States has also demanded to be excluded from the new International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction or it will refuse to participate in UN peacekeeping – a prime example of exceptionalism. The Bush Administration has also backed out of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, to which must be added the US failure to follow through on the Law of the Seas Treaty, the Land Mines Treaty, a biological weapons protocol, a small arms control pact, and OECD measures to control tax havens – although the US had played a prominent role in promoting such multilateral projects. The current position must also be seen in the post-Second World War context when the United States took a lead in creating international institutions and ensuring their legitimacy and comprehensiveness. Presumably the reversal of position in recent decades came about because of the growth of the UN, the minuteness of many members, and the frequent thwarting of American will. Americans are often tired of carping by other countries which do not carry their weight either financially or militarily, while it is the US that spends and sends troops. There remain strong supporters of multilateralism in the United States.20 The complete reversal of official position is not reflected in public opinion. America is highly ambivalent on internationalism and there are signs of a return to multilateralism.
If we combine these various aspects of American foreign policy they help us to understand how to deal with it – and how to answer the rest of our questions. First, American foreign policy is characterized by inconsistency, reversals, and (as far as the rest of the world is concerned) confusion.21 This is the nature of the beast and must be expected. It is part of the reality of US government. We have seen that there is no single national interest and no coherent, central thinking but rather ambivalent, split policy formulation. There is a long-term dualist orientation between unilateralism and multilateralism, between defence and diplomacy, with isolationism always lurking in the background. Currently, the
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dominant influence is unilateralism and defence. In such a context, if American power is dominant and they shoulder the costs, they believe they are justified in following their own policies and demanding coalition support. Second, international institutions are seen as tools of American policy and exceptionalism. At present, the United States expects dominance without leadership. Each issue is considered on a cost–benefit basis in light of its congruence with the government’s perception of American goals and values (e.g. democratic elections, open economies, the war on terrorism, continental defence, satisfying vested interests, American sovereignty, and minimal global restraints). Decisions depend on the situation and context but, principally, on what works best at least cost in terms of being harnessed by collective decision-making (e.g. US-led coalitions rather than the UN). US foreign policy leaders are waiting to see if its allies will share the costs of global security. America is to be free to seek global imposition of its value system without itself being limited by global rules. The US will fight the wars and others will generally run the international institutions and look after peacekeeping and nation-building. Third, American foreign policy is funneled through domestic politics. Hence, to influence US policies, one must be able to play the game of American politics. The game is worth the prize because, as we have seen, there are diverse factions within the United States with which one can form alliances. But there is no single and simple path as one must take into consideration: not only the White House, Congress and the Departments of State and Defence but also major interests and public opinion. Finally, a second area in which potential change must be considered is with regard to the tactics of terrorism. It is not that terrorism is new. According to American State Department figures, between 1995 and 2000, there were 2,129 terrorist attacks, just 15 of them in North America. 9-11 demonstrated that, with virtually no arms, determined and creative terrorists can attack the weak points of any country with impunity, even turning a country’s vaunted merits against itself. This change in the nature of threats that are now more diverse and diffuse has ended the epoch of war being a monopoly of the state. All countries are henceforth vulnerable to low level, non-military attacks that have devastating effects. No matter how great the effort, no country can continually protect all its vital assets. It is too late to stop terrorist attacks once they are launched. What is required is a preventive, two-level strategy that covers both military and terrorist threats and includes human and technical intelligence, international reforms, and cooperation among allies. Great Britain is even looking to the licensing of private military companies for rapid reaction against insurgents on foreign soil to minimize cost and responsibility. Back to the East India Company?
American leadership or power-sharing in global affairs? Although it is clear the United States stands ready to take action alone or with others to combat threats to international security, it is equally clear they presently believe they are in a position to demand to be in charge. Not only did the US
58 John E. Trent form and lead the international coalition in Afghanistan but, on its own, it then sent troops to such dispersed sites of conflict as Georgia and the Philippines. While the US expects to share the tasks of world policing with other states when called for, there is no indication the US intends to participate in combined leadership by allies and international organizations to enhance global security.22 In fact, President Bush has categorically stated that his country will do the fighting to win wars, and others can look after the peacekeeping. Despite the fact many American analysts are in agreement with the New York Times that, “A stable world order must be built on a broad international consensus, not American military action alone” (March 14, 2002), there is no sign the US government has a broad strategy to deal with international security on a continuing basis. There is no call from the US for international reform that might deal with some of the root causes of terrorism. In fact, the very fact that there might have been “root causes” of the Attack on America has become a taboo topic. The narrow scope of the response simply opens the world to more crises. Despite promises, there was no “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan. There is not even an effective coordinating body for the funds that were committed in Japan. The power of the American military establishment and some top Administration officials seems to have pushed options for nation-building in Afghanistan out of consideration. More broadly, increases in international aid are timorous and politically driven, although the subject is at least back on the table. In brief, all efforts for international security seem to be aimed at after-the-fact “riot control.” There is no sharing for preventative measures that might go to the roots of terrorism There has been no wake up. In short, the United States will do whatever it thinks is necessary to protect its population and interests. When it thinks it is useful or necessary, it will entice or coerce allies into ad hoc coalitions which the US will lead. It will not participate in international peacekeeping or nation-building unless there is an over-riding self-interest (e.g. Iraq). The US thinks it has sufficient power not to be challenged by any competitor or alliance of competitors and it intends to keep it that way. The United States, or at least the present administration, believes that, aside from some symbolic diplomacy, it cannot count on inept international organizations or even allies and must be free to act as it sees fit.
Are there other global security concerns beyond force of arms? If the Americans are intent on using their military might (sometimes with the aid of others) to counter terrorism and punish those guilty of undermining international security, are there other security functions that can only be handled cooperatively through international institutions? Even with regard to the strict question of military security, recent history such as in Rwanda has indicated that when American interests are not in play or when domestic politics inhibit American involvement, there is no certainty that the United States will be willing or able to play a leadership role in all international
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peacemaking and peacekeeping actions. If one broadens the security mandate to include information gathering, preventative diplomacy, conflict negotiations, the interception of illegal finances, and promoting law and order, there is no assurance the global security agenda is the same as American security interests. As regards the post-conflict, nation-rebuilding phase of security, we have seen the US has little interest in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The broader question of security functions is as old as humanity. Crime and punishment: do we try to minimize the causes of crime or simply use punishment to dissuade criminals? The problem has always been that it is easier to persuade the public of the short-term gains of punishment rather than the long-term investment in crime prevention. And incarceration and the penalty of death has always suited the wealthy class better: out of sight, out of mind. Transported to the international scene after the Second World War, law and order became peace and justice. The lessons of advanced democratic societies seemed to have taught us there can be no order without law, no peace without justice. The problem has been and remains just how broadly we interpret law and justice and to what degree they include fairness and equal opportunity. However, there seems to have developed a consensus around the notion of “stakeholders:” the broader the participation in the ownership and benefits of society, the greater will be the number of citizens who will feel they have a stake in preserving order, peace, and security.23 The end of the Cold War also signaled an end to the competition for the “minds and spirits” of humanity. In the same period, rampant globalization produced a ruleless market-place society where no one is in charge. Wealthy countries turned their backs on the effort to use aid and development to spread some equity and justice in the world as a support for international peace and security. Since the 1980s, new technologies have produced both a much more integrated and interdependent global society and also a growing poverty gap, the two being a perfect recipe for humiliation, tension, and conflict. In such a situation, military reactions alone are not a sufficient antidote without accompanying investments in human development. More specifically, after September 11, the historian of major powers, Paul Kennedy, enumerated the reasons why American diplomacy needs to empower international organizations: for early warning of crises, food distribution to refugees, Security Council authorizations, nationbuilding after wars, financial assistance from the World Bank and the IMF, law and order by Interpol and international criminal justice institutions.24 His colleague, Niall Ferguson adds that making the world safe for capitalism and democracy does not come about naturally, “both require strong institutional foundations of law and order.”25 The necessity of having effective global institutions has been argued by Chris Patten, External Relations Commissioner of the European Union, who claims, The defeat of terrorism requires international cooperation to enhance policing and cut off the funding of violence … international cooperation demands international agreements, rules, arbitration and policing. So we must enhance
60 John E. Trent the prestige of the United Nations and other institutions of global governance.26 But this “law and order” list is all after the fact. The need for security is more broad-based. Beyond terrorism is the international ignition potential of uncontroled civil strife, local financial failures, ecological disasters, and pandemics. To help stabilize the international system, international institutions are required that can produce public goods such as: the control of diseases, protecting the environment, reducing international crime, reducing financial volatility, extending distance learning, and resolving or at least managing international conflicts more effectively. Thus, it is clear there is need for international cooperation to help provide the bases of world law, order, and stability but also for ‘prevention,” that is for actions to reduce the causes of anger about global injustice and inequality. As Kimon Valaskakis, former Canadian ambassador to the OECD, noted in a discussion paper, “Despair is the strongest motive for mass destruction. Among the obvious factors of despair are: extreme poverty, ill health, shame, humiliation, low quality of life and a general feeling this life has nothing to offer. Such factors will breed determined fighters and suicide bombers.” Poor countries are a shame but also a danger. One billion people on the planet live on less than US$1 a day. United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has stated: “Left alone in their poverty, these countries are all too likely to collapse or to relapse into conflict and anarchy. They will be a menace to their neighbours and potentially – as the events of September 11 so brutally reminded us – a threat to global security” (Ottawa Citizen, February 5, 2002). A cogent call to action was made by James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, One fifth of humanity takes home four fifths of global income … more than one billion people lack drinkable water, women are dying in child birth at the rate of one a minute … So what can be done about it? Trade barriers that prevent the poor from exporting their way to a better life should be torn down, and development assistance should be doubled … doubling aid … would only cost one-fifth of 1 percent of the income of the richest countries. During the next 20 years the world’s population is projected to grow from 6 billion to 8 billion, with nearly all that increase concentrated in poor countries. People in rich nations who think that this has no impact on their security are kidding themselves. There is no wall. We are linked by trade, by migration, by environmental degradation, by drugs, by financial crisis and by terror.27 The United Nations estimates it will take a doubling of development aid just to cut global poverty by 50 percent over the next decade. Recent increases by the US and Europe come nowhere near this target. Mike Moore, Director General of the World Trade Organization, sees potential trade gains for developing countries
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of $376 billion annually if trade and non-trade barriers were eliminated. But competition between wealthy states now drives them to spend more than $360 billion a year in agricultural subsidies to protect their farmers. If the wealthy countries know what has to be done but cannot get their act together to do it, it is difficult to imagine how change will be brought about without more equitable and forceful international institutions. The maintenance of global peace and security is the quintessential global public good, in both substance and form. As with most public goods with positive externalities, it is a function best carried out on a global scale by the international public sectors. Governments acting individually in their national self-interest are not apt to carry out this mandate.28 The evidence provides us with an extensive list of global security functions ranging from peace and anti-terrorism to international stability and preventive development. The list includes: crisis warning, information gathering, preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking, anti-terrorism, negotiations, refugee relief, humanitarian intervention, human security, international law, nation-rebuilding, financial assistance, promoting democracy, equitable trade expansion, and development aid. The more stakeholders there are in the world, the more there will be support for peace and security. The list answers our question. There are more than enough international security functions that require both the US and the UN.
Pax Americana or global security: where must state leaders invest their resources? Resulting from our analysis, our conclusion is very clear. Friends of the United States would be well advised to recognize that for the next several decades it will be necessary for them to bolster both American leadership for times of international crisis and also the continuing development of global institutions to handle the wide range of multilateral security functions that go well beyond military force. If the Americans are to feel that their leadership is worthwhile and their military investments compensated, they must see that others are making similar efforts. Only a better balance in world power will make the United States think it is worth cooperating with their allies. Both American and international analysts are in agreement that American military capacity, by itself, is insufficient for broad-scale security and may even lead to unilateral arrogance that offends and alienates their allies. As the Washington Post has editorialized: “One of the administration’s most difficult challenges in the months ahead will be to assuage the growing public concerns about its ‘unilateralism’ while continuing to insist on the irreducible requirements of US self-defence” (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, February 14, 2002) There are many security arrangements and public goods that can only be produced through “soft power” and multilateral cooperation.29
62 John E. Trent But, why should leaders think it is in their best interests to support US capacity for global military intervention? First and foremost because we are all in the same boat. All states are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and to the repercussions of international instability anywhere in the world. Second, with the threat of American isolationism always hovering in the background, we must recognize that the US cannot absorb the costs of being international policeman all alone without there being an eventual backlash from public opinion. Third, if leaders want to contain US ambitions through the projection of its power, one way is by being a dependable partner so that they can have a say in American policies – as in the old expression, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” This means that other states must have a capacity, however limited, to “project power,” that is, to carry out military interventions, around the globe. This would give them bargaining chips to influence the United States to rein in its unilateralist ambitions. Allies must work with, around, and beside the United States, not against it. Fourth, we know the United States likes the ad hoc, coalition approach because coalitions have proven to work and they allow the US to be the leader.30 But there are many risks to the coalition approach. Because they are indeed ad hoc and short term, they forestall broader strategies and institutional reforms. For America’s allies, if they are just going to be used as “barbarian divisions” carrying the battle for American “imperial legions,” then it will not be long before their domestic public opinion too cries foul.31 Also, as we have seen, because American foreign policy is heavily dependent on national politics, it is often unpredictable and undependable. This has been underlined in our concept of “neoexceptionalism” in which the American belief in their own goodness of intention and the universalism of their values supports unilateralist policies. Nor is US foreign policy always omniscient. In the Middle East, it is often overwhelmed by the complexities of the local feud. We have also seen that US policies sometimes succumb to switching between expansionism and withdrawal, and a tendency to see adversaries in black and white, making a devil of the enemy. Finally, many analysts are quite frank in saying both that the UN is incapable of handling world crises and that crises cannot be dealt without the United States. The United Nations has a very mixed record on peacemaking because of its Charter which hampers intervention, its stillborn military capacities, and its complex decision-making structures. Aside from peacekeeping, it is almost inconceivable that the UN or any other grouping would be able to manage a major threat to peace and security without US logistical and military capabilities – to say nothing of Washington’s veto. So the question becomes how can one best organize one’s relations with the United States to maximize what is already ordained by the current state of international organizations and power relations? How do allies get into a posture whereby they can make their legitimation of American coalitions conditional on their being able to influence policy? There are several possible stratagems. Fundamental is a return to the notion of a balance of power. As former Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban reminded us,32 “The alternative to a balance of power is an imbalance of power which has usually provoked wars and has never consolidated
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peace.” Studies of NATO show it worked best as an alliance when all its members were making serious contributions. A balance of power requires continuous investment in military and other foreign policy resources. Lord Robertson, Secretary-General of NATO is very clear, If we are to ensure that the United States moves neither toward unilateralism nor isolationism, all European countries must show a new willingness to develop effective crisis management capabilities … Afghanistan reinforces the fact that no modern military operation can be undertaken by a single country. Even superpowers need allies and coalitions to provide bases, fuel, airspace and forces. (Ottawa Citizen, February 4, 2002) Many forward-thinking analysts look to Europe as the only potential balance to the United States. But it is equally true that all of Washington’s allies which wish to have influence must develop the capacity to send autonomous, airtransported brigades or divisions to the world’s trouble spots and to keep them supplied. The “defence school” in the United States wants to know its allies’ commitments and limits. This does not mean that a balance of power in the modern world requires every country to replicate the same strategic capabilities. We have seen that there are more than enough security functions to spread around. Who is good at what? In fact, it would be more efficient if America’s allies, in addition to providing intervention forces, were to specialize in such tasks as naval and air forces, intelligence gathering and surveillance, peacemaking and peacekeeping. Because their intentions are less open to suspicion, middle powers seem to be better placed to open negotiations and to exert influence through “soft power.” But it is equally true that such offers of support to the US will only be well received if America’s allies make shrewd and sustained attempts to work with supporters of multilateralism in the US to assure a more open and cooperative foreign policy. Only a combination of these practices will allow US allies to make their legitimation of American security initiatives conditional on their participation in decisionmaking. The flip side of the coin is the necessity for all allied countries, including the United States, to make sustained and creative efforts to revitalize international institutions. The free world needs a broad spectrum strategy for global security – not reactionary, ad hoc coalitions every ten years. We need global leadership and vision. But the fact is that the US often holds the rest of the world back. The world must move from punishment to prevention, from the sword to development. Being dragged along by the defence establishment is like riding a two-legged horse when we are faced by a galloping list of security functions that goes from blocking terrorist funding to relieving the anguish of refugees (and, of course, international organizations are not limited to peace and security). We are all vulnerable to terrorism and an increasing range of other threats that no one state is capable of resolving on its own.
64 John E. Trent Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former American Assistant Secretary of Defence, Joseph Nye has provided an extensive list of reasons why multilateralism is often beneficial to the United States. Multilateralism will provide laws and institutions for the future constraint of the growing number of emerging powers, both state and non-state, which will be challenging US dominance. Presently the UN provides a legal basis that makes the exercise of American disproportionate power easier for others to accept. Promoting international order is in the long-term national interest of the United States. Multilateralism provides a timely opportunity for foreigners to influence American policy which is an incentive to alliance. It reduces incentives for constructing alliances against the US International support is often necessary to protect America’s vital interests, even if it is just to have multilateral support to buttress unilateral actions. Multilateralism is also essential for intrinsically cooperative issues that cannot be managed by the United States or any other country alone whether it be climate change or infectious diseases or weapons of mass destruction, narcotics trafficking, international crime syndicates, or transnational terrorism. Cooperation should also be sought as a means to share burdens and reduce costs of public goods.33 The truth is that the same list is applicable to many countries. Improved global security arrangements will provide for burden sharing and legitimacy, reduce the risks of exposure, develop leadership and decision-making, rationalize military expenditures, improve the infrastructure of international agencies for humanitarian intervention and nation-building, while distributing the costs of security operations and enhancing the rule of law. Of course, multilateralism and coalitions also entail a certain loss of autonomy and the obligation to cooperate, but, in the practice of politics, the United States and others have always shown they are able to pick and choose. When all is said and done, we can draw up all the fine lists we want of the benefits of multilateralism but they won’t necessarily sway Washington to support international institutions. Nye’s proposals and those of the Hart-Rudman Security Commission show us that there are Americans who understand multilateralism as well or better than anyone in the world and that there is even some bi-partisan support for the concept. The problem is that the present Administration, supported by the defence establishment, has a fundamental predisposition against being locked into international institutions they cannot control. Their ethos stresses self-reliance and avoiding new commitments. It is up to the rest of world to find ways of influencing the American political system so that multilateralism becomes and remains the dominant idiom. At great cost over recent decades, Canada has learned that to influence its only neighbour, it is necessary to use all the tools of statecraft and of lobbying to target not just the executive branch, but Congress, government departments and agencies, corporations, key states, relevant civil society spokespersons, and public opinion. It is necessary to have friends and sustained mechanisms of persuasion that can be mobilized when required.
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Reforming global institutions in light of September 11 Even if one is able to modify the preferences of American elites and the public toward more support for multilateralism, there remains a second fundamental problem. Americans have the desire and the means to protect their national interest first and worry about international organizations only secondarily, if at all. Even supporters of multilateralism do so in the belief it will best serve the American national interest in the long run. Multilateralists, too, are influenced by the historic vision of a providential state and the overwhelming sense of US power, both of which underlie the thrust toward American neo-exceptionalism. The United States will continue to act alone but this does not mean it cannot be attracted toward greater international cooperation, especially in the security field. To achieve the goal of greater integration of the United States into collective security arrangement requires sharing the burdens but, also, an analysis of American grievances with international organizations and a search for responses.34 After helping to build international institutions in the post-war period, the US became increasingly angry with the Cold-War anti-Americanism of the states they had helped to become independent. The sentiment was inflamed in 2001 when the US was voted off the UN human rights commission. If there was no respect or generosity toward the United States, think American elites, why should the US show any toward others? This, plus the swing to neo-conservatism, started a wholesale re-evaluation of the role of international institutions at a time when the US was becoming the world’s one mega-power. One result was the attack on the UN bureaucracy and budget which had the twin effects of clipping the institution’s wings and perhaps promoting efficiency. According to American thinking, international institutions in general and the United Nations in particular should not overrun national sovereignty, even if this concept must evolve in the aftermath of globalization and of the September11 terrorist attack. Hence the US prefers institutions with weighted voting or with consensus voting which, in effect, permits a veto. One-state-onevote procedures do not satisfy the richest, most powerful country in the world with a population of 300 million (unlike the micro states with their fewer than 500,000 inhabitants). The US provide a large share of the UN budget and technological capacities but sees little return for its contributions. The United States is frustrated by UN decision-making procedures. The large numbers and disparate sizes and interests of the members, combined with unmanageable debating and voting procedures, inhibit the UN from developing and sticking to a set of priorities. The principle of a myriad of little sovereignties paralyzes the organization. One ambassador can drag on or kill a resolution or project. Blocking groups can delay any issue. To try to replace sterile debates around polemical resolutions with negotiated ones, there was a switch from majority to consensus voting – which falls into the trap of the unit veto. Votes are often criticized as unrepresentative and illegitimate. Agencies often work alone and stonewall the UN Secretariat. Particularly in the cases of security crises, the UN seems incapable of coping without US leadership due to a lack of financial
66 John E. Trent and military resources, and decision and command structures, but, most especially, because of political obstacles within the General Assembly. Due to weak implementation capacities, they have to be delegated to the national or regional level. At the same time as globalization protesters are clamouring for more democratic global institutions, the United States thinks that because democracy is still only viable in a certain number of sovereign states, giving too much power to global institutions would mean a loss of democracy. In particular, there are at present no mechanisms for making the United Nations accountable to electorates. Much, but not all, of this critique is a matter of perception and image. The United States is one of the few countries that has lobby groups working tirelessly to denigrate the United Nations. Only in the US are there right-wing militias which believe the UN air force is going to attack. Not only must there be a campaign to present the logic and benefits of multilateralism in a globalized world, but the United Nations needs friends to carry out a large-scale public relations campaign on its behalf. In concrete terms this means that countries which include collective security as part of their national interest must stand up for the UN in the international court of public opinion. They must provide the means for forming opinion and for standing up to those who are spreading false and misleading communications. Instead of its image as a large, centralized bureaucracy, the reality of a small and decentralized UN whose personnel and budgets have been drastically curtailed for a decade needs to be presented. The idea that the US gives more than it receives needs a reality test. With close to 30 percent of the world’s GDP, the US dues to the UN run at 22 percent, a ratio far smaller than other major donors. The UN headquarters spends $8 billion in the United States annually. The US is very cheap with its foreign aid – about 0.1 percent of GDP in comparison to an average of 0.38 percent for other donors – but at the same time the US creams off some 60 percent of the world’s net private capital flows. Some people think the Americans are riding on the back of the world. When it comes to decision-making capacities and implementation abilities, let us remember that the UN is a treaty organization which is able to do exactly what its members want it to do. For instance, because members place considerations of national sovereignty ahead of collective security they block even such elementary UN requirements as an Intelligence Unit. The Security Council showed the UN was able to act quickly following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait because many states feared similar foreign attacks. But the same states do not want to equip the UN with “human security” policies because of their equal fear of international intervention in their domestic affairs. Or take the case of transnational terrorism. Just prior to September 11 the UN had no effective definition of terrorism despite several international conventions – which the US had refused to sign. The definition of victims, perpetrators, freedom fighters, terrorists, and state terrorism were all highly politicized. It had proven difficult to get international cooperation for prevention. Action was always after the fact. The Terrorist Prevention Branch of the UN was allotted two employees. But this was willed by the members, not the UN Secretariat.
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There is also the public image of the UN’s inability to play a role in world crises. Again it is a question of optics. Because all the political and media attention is focused on the “War on Terrorism,” few people recognize the value of the UN’s role in Afghanistan. It was the UN Security Council’s rapid resolutions which provided the coalition with the legitimacy of international law to undertake military operations and made the blocking of terrorist funding possible. In Afghanistan, it is the UN which carries the burden of nation-building, including government formation, refugee relieve and resettlement, and development funding coordination. Nonetheless, it remains true that the UN is not equipped for largescale security actions, due both to its decision processes but also to a lack of financial and military resources – willed by its members. Even in international crises, the typical response of most states is to look after domestic weaknesses, while ignoring the capacities of international institutions. The US has reformed its intelligence agencies and allocated $29 billion to establishing a new department of Homeland Security and initiating new security legislation. But virtually no thought has been given to improved international security arrangements that could provide more effective multilateral capacity to prevent and respond to global attacks. Despite demonstrable need, there are no plans for the reform of international institutions and global security arrangements. Instead of collective preparation we are heading toward collective amnesia.
Conclusion What can be done? For a new balance of power The first step is for other countries to attract the attention of the United States by sharing global responsibilities with it. The US is not imposing its superiority. Rather, other states are not doing their share. If we are to move toward stable international peace and security in the aftermath of the September 11 “Attack on America,” the cooperative war on terrorism must be pursued. But there must also be a fundamental return to the notion of a balance of power requiring continuous investment in security resources by American allies. This is not to introduce a new arms race, but simply a better international balance of power and responsibility. Other powers must develop the capacity to send autonomous, air-transported brigades or divisions to the world’s trouble spots along with the sea and air logistical support to keep them supplied. In addition, a number of like-minded countries might consider forming a “Standing Global Security Coalition” to deal with international crises on behalf of the UN. The Standing Coalition would be a training ground for multinational forces and a stop-gap until the United Nations develops improved decision-making and military capacities that will allow it to fulfill its security mandate. Ad hoc coalitions simply forestall more imaginative institutional reforms. Only when we
68 John E. Trent have a better balance of power can we hope to develop a better working relationship with the United States. Towards international community A precursor to the establishment of new international norms to replace the Westphalian nation-state system is the creation of a sense of world community. One of the most important tasks is to reverse the recent trend toward a greater gap between rich and poor. Given the present international climate, dominated by a recalcitrant US government and a global business agenda, perhaps the best we can do in the short run is to struggle to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and ensure that the additional commitments in foreign aid in the Monterrey Accord are forthcoming. Already we know we are falling behind on the MDG goals and that, in any case, according to the World Bank, they will require an additional $50 billion annually. Few Americans realize their rich country now is at the bottom of the totem pole among foreign aid donors. The only likely way of succeeding is through the mobilization and pressures of civil society. The World Federation of United Nations Associations is right to seize the initiative through its “We the peoples …” program. But a world press campaign is also needed. Re-engaging the Americans Still, not much will be achieved without American participation or if the US administration is actively blocking progress. The United States led the way in building the post-Second World War collective international order. The generosity of Americans to Europe and developing countries was legendary. It is time to reengage the millions of American who still believe in a multilateral world order. Recent publications have shown that a large majority of Americans still prefer collective international action but that US foreign policy is dominated by a vocal and active conservative Republican minority. It is time to re-engage the American majority. Friends of the United States, whether they be governments or civil society organizations, must encourage US, policy-makers and public opinion to return to multilateralism as the dominant idiom of American foreign policy. Statecraft and lobbying will be necessary to target all branches of American government, potential allies among civil society leaders, and public opinion. If friendly diplomacy can be effective, even the present US Administration should be attracted to the improved global security arrangements proposed above. They will provide for burden sharing and legitimacy, reduce the risks of exposure, and distribute the costs of security operations that no country can handle alone. In the United States there are strong voices for a broader interpretation of American leadership responsibilities:
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The biggest challenge for the United States is not how to win the next military encounter but how to conduct itself so that other nations will willingly accept its leadership. The most effective way to make other countries comfortable with US military power is to demonstrate that America has their best interest at heart, too. They will not be impressed by the offer of a kind of Pax Americana in which Washington makes the world safe for everyone on its own terms. (Editorial, The New York Times in the IHT, March 4, 2002) Reforming the international system The world needs leadership and vision for a broad strategy of global cooperation based on revitalized international organizations. There are many requirements for improved policies to guide our world. But there is only one need that is common to them all. That is the need for better institutions to deliver the policies. The quality of decisions in organizations is often predetermined by the decision-making process and the institutional framework. The world needs a platform where we can discuss institutional development – or what is often called “global governance.” An international consortium of individuals has been planning an “International Institutional Innovations Forum” which will actively pursue the process of institutional development. I have stressed six reasons for requiring a new, civil society forum dedicated to promoting global reform: • • • • • •
Successive world crises have shown the need for legitimate global institutions. International organizations have proven incapable of reforming themselves. There are many studies, but they lack focus, relevance, and a platform for debate. Creative ideas need to be connected to political mobilization by civil society. Public opinion on global governance is ill-informed and unprepared. The world has been transformed but global institutions have not kept pace.
At a global level, we must deal with problems that international institutions are presently not equipped to handle – problems of peace, security, and lawlessness; social, cultural, and economic development; climatic and environmental degradation; drugs, disease, and health; and civil, ethnic and religious conflict. Institutional competence lags more and more behind deepening global interdependence. From Korea to Kosova, Berlin to Burundi, and the Gulf to Afghanistan the UN has had to cede crisis leadership to the United States and ad hoc coalitions. We neither learn nor grow. Everyone knows we need reforms of international organizations to strengthen mandates, decision-making, resources, and legitimacy. The Secretary-General, in his 1998 reform program, pleaded with member states to initiate fundamental reforms only to be asked to come back with further information! Members place their national interests before the collective good.
70 John E. Trent Even the UN’s standing committee on Security Council reform is stymied. But the world need not wait for government action. We can move ahead with “second track diplomacy.” Studies, researchers, institutes, and conferences abound. Notable world commissions have grappled with many of the issues. The problem is not a lack of ideas and proposals for reform but that much of this intellectual and political effort is isolated, unsustained, top–down, problem-specific, little known by the public, and often forgotten. We need a common forum to correct these tendencies. Once again, Kofi Annan: “In an Organization as large and complex as the United Nations, reform necessarily consists not of one or two simple actions but a multitude of tasks that amount to a major agenda that must be pursued over time.”35 A forum of second track diplomacy, where committed individuals and INGOs lead the way, will bring the expertise of civil society to cooperate with the United Nations to strengthen reform initiatives. It will be a platform for the presentation and analysis of innovative ideas for the reform of international organizations and the mobilization of the political forces to pressure governments to put the reforms into action. It will focus public opinion on the institutional issue by creating a world debate to attract media attention. The forum will be a knowledge-based dialogue. The principal participants will have an active knowledge of either the management or the critical analysis of global institutions, people who both favor and oppose current trends in globalization. Among the participants we will find researchers, present and former international practitioners (outside their official capacities), representatives of international NGOs, parliamentarians, business and labor leaders, authors and columnists, leaders of international movements and governance projects, and international aid and development workers. It will be a multi-stakeholder meeting of all those with a proven interest in global governance. Individuals are not impotent. They can combine their talents to start the process of global reform. But, because practical examples often make generalities come alive, let me close with two proposals for institutional innovation. The experience of recent decades suggests that in the security field, in the medium term, it is unlikely that changes can be made to surmount the obstacles to rapid decision-making in the UN in times of urgent global crises. On the other hand, the considerable international weight of United Nations policies once they are approved indicates that reforms in the UN could lead to socio-economic measures which would improve global stability. To make use of structures that are already in place and avoid having to change the Charter, the General Assembly might consider making its General Committee into its “executive committee” for social, economic, and environmental issues. The 28 members of the General Committee already include the five permanent members of the Security Council and it is representative of all world regions and major states. It could be authorized to designate socio-economic priorities for the UN and its agencies. Policy priorities would be referred back to the Assembly for
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debate and majority approval. As called for, the 28 heads of state could act as a summit for global priority setting. ECOSOC, the eternally ineffective 56-member Economic and Social Council, could act with more authority and fulfill its intended role as the operational arm of the General Assembly if it had referred to it for implementation the policy priorities of the General Committee as approved by the Assembly. It would meet more regularly on focused topics and for shorter periods so as to attract appropriate ministers or senior public servants. It would be intended that the renewed General Committee and ECOSOC would target the world’s most intractable problems of poverty, economic development, and environmental dangers so more world citizens will become stakeholders. Second, the General Committee could create a representative Task Force on Representation and Procedures that would work in collaboration with specialists from the International Institutional Innovations Forum, representing civil society. Its task would be to make recommendations for the reform of the UN decisionmaking including the principles and norms governing representation. They might learn from the weighted voting techniques employed by the still-sovereign members of the European Council of Ministers. Some fields might be designated as trial runs for testing new procedures. It should be evident by now that the United Nations will either become more operationally effective, legitimate, and responsible or it will become increasingly irrelevant and could even risk losing some of its most important members.
Notes 1 The Military Balance, 2002–2003 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Table 26, p. 337. 2 Ibid., pp. 332–6. 3 In 2000, American defence spending stood at just 2.9 percent of GNP, compared with an average for the years 1948–98 of 6.8 percent. Niall Ferguson, “Clashing civilizations or mad mullahs: the United States between informal and formal empire,” in Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda (eds), The Age of Terror: America and the World After September 11 (New York: Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and Basic Books, 2001), p. 127. 4 Ibid., p. 126. 5 “National security policy” of the United States, www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss1.html. 6 “Maintaining American power,” in Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda (eds), The Age of Terror (New York: Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and Basic Books, 2001), p. 67. 7 Ibid., pp. 59 and 72. 8 Ferguson, “Clashing civilizations,” p. 133. 9 Ibid, p. 137. 10 See, for example, Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg and Marc A. Stern (eds), Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 11 Kimon Valaskakis, “Westphalia II”, Futuribles, 265 (June 2001), pp. 5–25. 12 “America is starting to look like the unilateralist hyperpower that acts alone and sees only military solutions to the world’s problems. Europe advocates political solutions to international crises but fails to overcome its own internal divisions in
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foreign policy and ignores hard security issues.” Nicole Gnesotto and Philip Gordon, “It’s time for a transatlantic summit,” International Herald Tribune (March 13, 2002). “Mais le drame … est que pendant la crise, on réforme peu et, après, plus du tout. La lâche souslagement vient vite nous désarmer,” Michel Camdessus, former Director General of the International Monetary Fund, L’Express (November 5, 2001). Le Monde (April 18, 2002), p. 18. I am apparently not alone in this interpretation although others use different terms. American apathy toward international issues has been called “soft isolationism” and “tempered internationalism” by public opinion experts John Reilly and James Lindsay. State Department officials such as Richard Haass have tagged the current administration’s policies as “selective or à la carte multilateralism.” The White House has also said “the US is not a loner, just choosy.” The Economist calls “parallel unilateralism” the American willingness to go along with international accords, but only so far as they suit America. Joe Nye refers to “a somewhat schizophrenic American foreign policy,” in The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. xiv. Nye, Paradox, pp. 132–6. Ibid., p. ix. He mentions a “national fog of materialism and disinterest and avoidance.” But, how relevant is Congress? “In this war on terrorism, Congress, by and large, has been left to learn about major war-related decisions through newspaper articles,” according to Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd. He argues that Congress is not even doing its duty of asking the tough questions, International Herald Tribune (March 13, 2002). “So the Pentagon is examining the training of a national Afghan army … (which) is an exit strategy by another name. Ranged on the other side are the diplomats’ commitments to the traditional concepts of peacekeeping and nation-building as practised for the past half-century. The State Department is understandably loath to abandon the noble tradition of US leadership in these endeavors …” Jim Hoagland, “Perplexed by Afghanistan,” International Herald Tribune (March 4, 2002). See Nye, Paradox. “What concerns Washington’s allies is the uncertain nature of the US commitment to international cooperation.” Hoagland, “Perplexed.” “The superpower wants acolytes, assistants to do the dirty work in Afghanistan and the Balkans, choristers of praise, legitimizers, but it doesn’t really want or need allies. Allies expect to have a say …” William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune (March 23, 2002). On an anecdotal basis, CBC Radio reported in July 2002 that there were fears of renewed racial violence in California because a video had been released showing a white policeman punching in the face a hand-cuffed, 16-year-old, black youth. In the background the crowd could be heard chanting repeatedly, “No justice, no peace …” In Talbott and Chanda, Age of Terrorism, p. 74. Ibid., p. 140. “Force alone cannot conquer terrorism,” Los Angeles Times Syndicate, in the International Herald Tribune (March 25, 2002). “There is no wall,” The Washington Post, in the International Herald Tribune (March 13, 2002), Professor Ruben Mendez in Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (New York: Carnegie Endowment, 1997), p. 404. As Joseph Nye has made abundantly clear in The Paradox of American Power. See James P. Thomas, “The military challenges of transatlantic coalitions,” Adelphi Paper 333 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). “If Canadian troops become just another barbarian division that serves along side the imperial legions, I don’t know what we are doing. We have to have an
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independent capacity to deploy troops where we think they’re necessary …” Michael Ignatieff, “We must wake up,” Maclean’s Magazine (February 4, 2002). Quoted by William Pfaff in, “Thatcher’s advice: Britain should give up on the EU and rely on the US,” International Herald Tribune (March 23, 2002). Paradox, pp. 154–63; see also United States Commission on National Security in the Twenty-first Century (Hart–Rudman Commission) Roadmap for National Security: Imperative for Change, Phase III Report (Washington, DC: US Commission on National Security 2001). I should insist once again that I fully understand that the potential revitalization of international institutions is a much broader agenda than the amendment of security arrangements, but security and stability is the topic of this particular study. Renewing the United Nations: A Program for Reform, Report of the Secretary-General, Kofi A. Annan (New York: United Nations, General Assembly, A/51/950, 1997), p. 90.
74 John E. Trent
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Part II
New sub-states governance and paradiplomacy
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Why do sub-states and regions practice international relations? Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle
Paradiplomacy remains largely ignored, yet the phenomenon it symbolizes has become almost run-of-the-mill: the city of San Francisco endorses a foreign country that does not respect human rights; the Quebec Government opens a series of season of cultural events in Paris; Flemish and Walloon sub-state entities form a Belgian delegation to the World Trade Organization; the Australian states attend a United Nations conference on development and the environment within the Australian government’s own UN representation; the Baden-Württemberg Land participates in overseas missions to restore peace in Bangladesh, Russia, and BosniaHerzegovina as well as in Burundi and Tanzania; the President of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, meets with G-7 leaders, with the noted absence of Jean Chrétien … The phenomenon of paradiplomacy is not recent. The Quebec Government, for instance, began to play a role on the international stage as early as the nineteenth century. The current paradiplomacy era, that is to say, the period extending from the early 1960s to date, is considered a distinct historic period defined in terms of growth, dynamism, and its repercussions on the international behaviour and activities of sovereign players. Some of the sizeable paradiplomatic files that we can identify include economic and commercial policy, foreign investment promotion, the attractiveness of decision-making centres, export promotion, as well as science and technology, energy, the environment, education, issues of culture, and immigration, population mobility, multilateral relations, international development and human rights. Today, players on the paradiplomatic stage are becoming similarly interested in matters of human safety. Who can explain this stepping-up or broadening of paradiplomatic efforts, starting in the 1960s in Quebec and later in the 1980s in Europe? At this stage, it is not easy to generalize, owing to differing objectives and motivations of subgovernmental powers. By taking a broad view, however, three variables stand at the forefront of the expansion of paradiplomacy: the first, and most significant, is the nation-state crisis and globalization, the second is nationalism, and internationalization processes constitute the third variable.
Globalization and the development of paradiplomacy The advent of sub-governmental states within the dominion of international relations is linked, in part, to the nation-state crisis and to the process of economic
78 Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle globalization. International reorganization at the economic level has lead to a new international division of labour: competition between sovereign powers for the acquisition of new territories has been replaced with competition between sub-government states and large metropolitan areas for the acquisition of shares in world markets. With heightened reliance on export growth, regions and cities that can afford to do so play on the international stage if only to assist exports and attract foreign investments (Soldatos, 1993). There is a clear practical reasoning to explain the international game plan of sub-governmental units: developmental needs and economic growth. Nowadays, regions and cities offer unlimited advantages that determine the issue of investment. They compete to acquire private investments and positioning of decision-making centers. This inventive competition promotes innovation, efficiency, collective allegiance, but it also also fosters regional and municipal conflicts within a country. In some cases, the role of regions and and municipalities overshadows that of national governments. Regions and cities claim that they are better equipped than their national capital in matters of job creation. Quebec, for example, can, on the one hand, more easily attribute subsidies than the Federal Government, which must invest equitably among various regions of the country, but on the other hand, taxation and tax cuts are played out essentially at the provincial level. The Federal Government is not indispensable. Nevertheless, it can play a partnership role in research and development. With the advent of economic globalization, transnational corporations are playing major economic roles. Today, according to some experts, these corporations are becoming key organizers or critical instruments of world growth. In the 1999 edition of World Investment Report, it was put forward that transnational companies control 25 percent of world output and two-thirds of international trade; the final third would involve intra-enterprise business (United Nations, 1999). Subgovernmental authorities are driven to make representations to these business enterprises in order to motivate them to settle in their area or remain there. Attracting a multinational corporation to a given region may even be considered a feather in the cap of those politicians responsible for this achievement. Sub-governmental entities have means equal to their ambitions. Michael Porter has stated that multinational companies, by and large, develop interaction with a region and a city, the latter offering a favourable environment in which to expand global strategies. He also wrote: Internationally successful industries and industry clusters frequently concentrate in a city or region, and the bases for advantage are often intensely local while the national government has a role in upgrading industry, the role of state and local government is potentially as great or greater. (Porter, 1990: 622) At the economic level, regions endeavour to attract foreign investments and the establishment of decision-making centres. They search for markets for products
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of their business enterprises and target mostly technological businesses (Brown and Fry, 1993). In the case of California, Goldsborough stated: California is so big, and its problems so immense, that it needs its own foreign policy. In an era when economics commands foreign relations, this does not mean embassies and armies, but it does mean more trade offices and state agents in foreign countries, its own relations with foreign nations and a governor and legislature willing to represent the state’s interest independently of Washington. (Goldsborough, 1993: 89) Small and medium-sized businesses are keenly interested in sub-state policies that support the acquisition of new market shares and the advancement of exports. Contrary to larger multinational corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises do not have international resources or networks to compete in the international marketplace. While a multinational firm might negotiate directly with government officials, the same does not hold true for a small business (Strange and Stopford, 1991). In a case such as this, government intervention is desirable. In nondemocratic countries such as China, the role of the politician is vital, even for multinational companies. The politician is the only person capable of expediting contact with government officials; he can facilitate the installation of a plant or the setting up of a business. Competition to attract foreign investments is not a universal fact. Only a limited number of regions take part in the race. Each one of these regions must meet certain criteria to make them attractive to potential investors (Michalet, 1999: 47). Investors despise uncertainty; they try at all costs to limit the amount of risk involved in their investments. To keep these risks at a minimum, investors set down a number of investment prerequisites such as stability of the political and economic regime, and an efficient and impartial justice system. Potential investors may also consider other factors such as access to a broad market, quality communication, and transportation systems, the consistent success of local businesses as well as real-estate costs and availability, the price of manpower regulation, environmental policies, quality of life within the community, taxation, as well as utilities and their cost, business services and their costs, government incentives, education and training infrastructures, and proximity to suppliers and raw materials, and finally, university resources (Michalet, 1999: 85). Governments will do their utmost to meet these criteria. In a world of limited rationality and muddled information, however, governments must also look for ways to assist investors by means of investment incentive policies. In general, government or multilateral agencies issue these policies; their techniques come under the heading of marketing. The marketing of countries, regions, or cities is a fundamental component of a territory’s attractiveness. Promotional techniques play a more and more significant role and are even high on the agenda of many countries, regions or even cities. Promotional policies consist of four components: 1) the creation of an appealing image or an openness to business for the territory;
80 Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle 2) the implementation of services geared to potential investors; 3) a policy aimed at targeting potential investors; 4) financial inducements. Investment promotion agencies (IPA), such as Invest-Quebec, in Quebec or COPCA in Catalonia, underwrite these activities (Paquin, forthcoming). Creation of a positive image is indispensable. A policy of this type is designed to correct conventional wisdom and stereotypes that tend to paint a bleak picture of the investment climate in the region. Prejudice often critically influences investment decisions. To counter the effects of a negative image, many regions will implement policies aimed at informing potential investors about the region’s advantages from an investment point of view, and to track down potential investors. We can expect a plethora of business activities such as development of Internet sites, attendance at trade fairs, and countless economic missions with politicians, business people, and members of the civil society, such as unions. The Davos summits will no doubt attract Canadian and Catalan politicians. In 2002, the Quebec Minister of Finance, Pauline Marois, declared that she had returned from a special world economic summit held in New York with contracts for the Province of Quebec worth 750 million dollars (Desrosiers, 2002). Moreover, in 1998 alone, the Quebec Government led more than 120 foreign trade missions. Governments have also created a number of financial inducements to draw companies to their territory. For example, every year, American states and cities spend billions of dollars to attract and sustain foreign companies or companies that have come from elsewhere in the country. Today, the United States invites the highest rate of foreign trade in the world. Foreign companies have helped create 5 million jobs in the United States (Fry, 1998). They also provide capital, technology, business management, marketing strategies, and more … American states and cities offer foreign companies very lucrative incentives even though these companies seriously intend to set up business in the United States to compete in that country’s marketplace. From local politicians’ perspective, there can be only one winner at this game in the United States. Therefore, if financial inducements can secure, for these politicians, the establishment of a foreign business enterprise on their territory, they are prepared to engage in a battle of unhealthy competition against other American states and cities. A number of politicians believe that financial inducements are the best if not the only way in which a state or a city can achieve international recognition. Foreign high tech companies, for example, will be far more interested in locating in regions where there already exists a solid concentration of this type of business. In the United States, these regions are: Silicon Valley, Boston, and the greater New York area. In Canada, this concentration is situated in Montreal. Other regions hoping to form an industrial cluster may be tempted to resort to substantial inducements, which, it is believed, will make all the difference. A Montana politician expressed it very well in these words: “Montana and Wyoming might as well be on a different planet as far as the Japanese are concerned” (Fry, 1998: 66). A number of regions such as Quebec, Catalonia, and Flanders are also attempting to set up a development model based on a partnership between the
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government, its economic agencies, and the private sector. This particular strategy, inspired by neocorporatism, is reinforced by a culture and a political project designed for region- and nation-building. While policies of yore intended to ensure that the citizens retain control over their economy were linked to protectionism, today they are integrated into an overall plan to include the region in international markets (Balthazar, 1991). The most advanced model, according to Michael Keating, is the Quebec model known as the modèle du Québec inc. Quebec companies benefit from a number of advantages that enable them to meet and deal with the challenges of globalization simply by tapping the creative potential of social consultation. This same policy is in effect in Flanders and in Catalonia. One of its basic tenets is international policy-making (Keating, 1999). Sub-state governments also frequently make international loan requests to help consolidate their region’s economic development. Major hydroelectric projects in Quebec have had financial backing from Wall Street. The amount of the loans requires Quebec Government officials to travel to New York on a daily basis to put investors’ minds at rest. These days, cities and regions act in the same manner as any other country when the time comes to make international loans. The cost of borrowing today is set on an international rate based on bond and credit markets. Cable suggested: “Regions today differ from countries only in ways that are quite subtle” (Hocking, 1999: 20). Cross-frontier regions also set up transboundary policies in order to lay out communication infrastructures as well as road network infrastructures. The Quebec Government and the State of New York will agree to improve commercial trade along the North–South corridor. There is even talk of building a high-speed train system. There are approximately 20 commercial trade corridors at present between Canada and the US. They were created between Canadian provinces and American States following ratification of the Free Trade Agreement and the growth of North–South transfrontier trade. The Catalan government also encouraged this policy formula with French transboundary regions. We will soon see high-speed trains zooming to Barcelona. A few short hours separate the Catalan city from such commercial trade centers as Montpellier, Lyon, and Paris. Issues of competitiveness, the development of “super regions” and transnational strategic alliances show signs of globalization; this, in turn, enhances the role that regions play. Strategies of transborder cooperation such as Quatre moteurs pour l’Europe help to fuel the dissemination of knowledge, principally at the technological and scientific levels. This type of alliance has fostered a redefinition of space for regions and cities involved in a global economy. These same cities or regions choose their strategies based more on challenges that stem from globalization than on the diktats of a domestic economy. In a world where transportation costs keep declining, regions and cities will strive to promote their respective tourist attractions. Before 9/11, tourist revenues were at an all-time high. Within a span of 40 years, tourist journeys have gone from 25 million to 592 million up to 1996. A number of studies indicate that one job in nine depends on the aviation and tourism industries (Fry, 1998: 31). In the United States alone, tourists poured at least $90 billion into American coffers in
82 Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle 1996. For its part, France remains the overall winner: the number of visitors to this country regularly exceeds its population. Céline Dion and Jacques Villeneuve may be asked to advertise the Province of Quebec south of the border and across the Atlantic. All of the above-mentioned international activities have been streamlined by the development of information technology, which facilitates the installation of international networks. The Internet is a simple and efficient tool for promoting tourism or investments in cities or regions. “TradePort,” an Internet site from California, offers local businesses over 10,000 pages of research along with thousands of company reports in over 120 countries, as well as database figures on international trade, interactive tools to further exports, and, finally, a list of 40,000 California-based businesses, each identified according its field of expertise (Fry, 1998: 48).
Nationalism and paradiplomacy Nationalism is no doubt one of the most significant variables, yet it remains one of the most neglected in relation to the study of paradiplomacy. Minority nations that plan international strategies within multicultural states are a well-known and quite common phenomenon. The most active sub-state powers in the field of international relations (Flanders, Walloonie Quebec, Catalonia, the Basque Homeland) all share a single attribute: nationalism. Nation-building policies are elemental to any nationalist project. To achieve this goal, many sub-state leaders will map out international strategies. Regions with their own culture and a distinct language are liable to venture onto the international chessboard to search for resources or support that are unavailable to them on their own soil. This is especially the case when players in the middle of the board resist the requests for cultural protection and recognition of their nation. Quebec was quick to draft a series of cooperation policies (student and teacher exchange, alternated first ministers’ meetings, import of development models and public-service institutions, such as the Caisse de dépôt et de placement) with France and other francophone nations to help strengthen the French language as well as the Quebec nation. In light of the political situation in its province, the Quebec Government enlisted the support of France in 1980 and again in 1995 in case of a victory for sovereignty. The government of Quebec also petitioned the United States for financial aid in its work to develop the state of Quebec. As noted, the province’s hydroelectric projects were built, for the most part, with Wall Street funds. At one time, Canadian immigration came under a federal policy of assimilation of francophones, particularly in the West. As a result of these actions, the Quebec Government pressured its federal counterpart into allowing Quebec to select its immigrants on its own. The underlying objective of any nation seeking its identity is recognition. This need for recognition and legitimization would explain why the development of paradiplomacy by sub-state nationalist movements remains an indispensable priority. It also explains why these same nationalist movements often develop a
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more forceful paradiplomatic position. For instance, at the time of the 1992 Olympic Games, the Catalan government paid for special advertising that read: “Where is Barcelona?” The aim of this advertising strategy was to inform the population that Barcelona is in Catalonia, not in Spain. Two years later, in 1994, the Catalonia Generalitat took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, on which a large dot is drawn to represent Barcelona. The following question appears below: “In what country would you draw this dot?” The answer appears a few pages further on: Catalonia is a country in Spain with its own culture, its own language and its own identity … a country in which a large number of foreign companies have invested and continue to do so … a country that hosted the Olympic Games in its Capital City. (Barber, 1996: 176) Later, another advertising campaign spread appeared in Newsweek; it amalgamated the Catalan culture, that of Dali, Miro and Pablo Casals with a description of multinational companies using the following publicity slogan: “Catalonia, a modern-day country with centuries of tradition” (Barber, 1996: 176). The Catalan government actively promotes the Catalan language in university faculties of Spanish as well as in foreign academies and it has been recognized as a European language. Flanders’s foreign policy, under the guidance of its former Minister-President, Luc Van den Brande, was to put this region on the international map. It also wants the world at large to acknowledge the Belgian federal system from a foreign policy standpoint as well as being made aware of alternatives for a Flemish foreign policy (Massard-Piérard, 1999: 715). Public relations and diplomacy were closely linked to one another, and Flanders had yet to define and shape its role as a player on the international scene. Therefore, Mr Van den Brande took a series of initiatives to enhance the image of his country (Van den Brande, 1995; Criekemans and Salomonson, 2000). He formulated a policy to emphasize the concept of “economic culture” or “cultural economy” through which he attempted to place Flanders on the European political map, primarily by setting up an international foundation known as “l’Europe des cultures 2002,” by launching l’Assemblée des Régions de l’Europe, and by nominating cultural ambassadors (Keating, 2000: 3). All foreign relations vehicles (political, cultural, economic with elements of foreign trade and foreign investments, and development cooperation) were settled solely on the shoulders of the Minister-President. This brand image was used as an instrument to reach fundamental objectives. It was mainly the distinctly arrogant, anti-Walloon feature of such a policy, however, that left a strong impression on the public as well as on the media. The present government regime has chosen a more consensual domestic policy and an open dialogue between the Flemish and the Walloons. In Europe, regions that boast distinctive cultural identities will insist that the state and government institutions promote minority languages and cultures. A
84 Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle great deal of lobbying has been done with European Union, the Council of Europe, and UNESCO institutions. Sub-state nations also wish to actively promote the cultural exception clause found in regional and global economic liberalization treaties. In 2002, the Quebec Government convinced participants of the World Social Forum held at Porto Alegre to adopt a proposal aimed at creating an international instrument to protect and promote cultural diversity (Dutrisac, 2002). This “Quebec Amendment” suggests that cultural diversity should be managed by a binding international instrument, which would allow for the “elimination of principles of liberalization and mercantilism from culture.” International projection can also be a strategy on the part of entrepreneurs seeking an identity to reinforce the feeling of identity-search on the domestic front. Positioning a regional leader in an international perspective can have the effect of enhancing the leader’s image and prestige. Jordi Pujol does well at this game. The international strategies of the President of Catalonia are rooted in a public relations policy in which the President alone embodies the entire Catalan nation. With such international prestige, Jordi Pujol is in a strong bargaining position when the time comes to negotiate with the central authority. Theoretically, international relations are the stuff of sovereign nations. The symbolism is infinite; the player achieving international status can attend meetings with great leaders of the world. The prospect is very appealing for entrepreneurs seeking an identity (Lecours and Moreno, 2001: 4). The establishment of strong bilateral relations with a sovereign country such as France is equally essential. Quebec, as a sub-state entity, maintains better relations with France than Canada, as a country, sustains with Great Britain. General De Gaulle’s infamous speech of 1967 altered the psychology of the nation in Quebec. Another distinctive element of nationalism is a definition of a nation’s needs or interests. When regions maintain international relations, they are required to identify a “national interest” that may come into conflict with that of the central state. For example, Scots are more in favour of European integration than their neighbours to the south. In a vote on the introduction of the euro, the Scottish population may tip the scales. In Canada, the Quebec political parties’ unanimous endorsement of NAFTA facilitated its ratification; this unleashed a great deal of opposition in the rest of the country. The culture and definition of the national interest have a bearing on the choice of negotiators. While developing strong ties with the French Government, the Government of Quebec will force the Canadian Government to include the hexagonal factor in its international priorities. Conversely, the Flemish Government will promote solid bilateral linkage with the Netherlands and South Africa, because of its cultural affinities with these countries. Flanders is even looking to develop permanent anchor points in Dutch embassies based on the model of foreign cultural centres. The objective is to create a type of Dutch-Flemish house that encourages the dissemination of culture throughout both countries. In return, they will contest the granting of credits to act in Africa in French spheres of influence. The development of paradiplomacy is also a power struggle between sub-state nationalist movements and players on centre stage. The attitude of central
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governments relative to the intrusion of sub-state nationalist movements into the private preserve of their foreign policy and the country’s foreign representation is, from the offset, basically negative. Loss of monopoly gives central governments cause to perceive a great danger for the nation’s foreign image. It is important to remember that players in the middle are also nationalists. The hostile attitude of central governments allows entrepreneurs seeking an identity to carry out social mobilization against the centre’s argument over a policy of supremacy. Because foreign policy is perceived as a domain reserved to the state, the development of paradiplomacy becomes, in this context, a struggle for power and legitimacy (Lecours and Moreno, 2001: 5). Regions, particularly those with a distinctive identity, may also aspire to use their diaspora on foreign soil to enhance their political clout and gather resources. The Irish diaspora has played a significant role on numerous occasions in the Northern Ireland conflict as well as in the political process. The diaspora of the Basque in America provides forums for the Basque movement. Basques have set up 130 cultural centres throughout the world (Lecours and Moreno, 2001: 16), which serve to promote not only Basque culture but also its nation. They have recently begun to use their paradiplomacy to offset the negative image that has plagued them outside their country for more than 25 years. In other cases, a number of minorities may enlist the aid of their motherland to support their political projects or their social, economic and political growth. The case of Quebec–France relations is a case in point. Chicanos from the southern United States along with Latin Americans throughout the country are turning more and more to Mexico and other Latin American states for acknowledgement in their country. Minorities in Central Europe are also looking for support and assistance from their motherland in times of conflict or persecution. Policies have been enacted to reconstruct the networks that existed in the past. A number of minorities, such as Afro-Americans in the United States or Native people in Canada, have developed international strategies to put pressure on their respective countries in order to be guaranteed certain rights or to achieve their claims. The international public domain will be focused on the dramatic, media-enhanced Native people’s demonstrations. When the Haida people paddled a war canoe up the River Seine in Paris in 1989 to protest the wrongful appropriation of the Queen Charlotte Islands by big industry and the Government of British Columbia, the message spread throughout the world, as did the images of Mohawks besieged by the Canadian armed forces in 1990. Events of this type have helped publicize Native claims throughout the world (Forest and Rodon, 1995: 48). Additionally, Native people insist on the intervention of international public figures or institutions in Canada’s internal politics. In 1983 and again in 1987, Dene-Métis from the Northwest Territories petitioned for the intervention of His Holiness the Pope, and they were successful. In 1990, the Cree Indians of Northern Ontario requested that Bishop Desmond Tutu acknowledge the impact of apartheid on people of Native ancestry. These same people also called upon the United Nations and the European Parliament for support.
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The internationalization process and paradiplomacy Issues of international politics have been long dominated by themes that have little to do with the field of competence of sub-state entities. International relations have mainly to do with problems of war and peace, trade matters, or issues of monetary stability. The large arenas of international politics seldom stop to question sub-state entities directly. Since the 1960s, environmental issues, public health, communication, social services, transportation items, disputes over land use planning, and cultural issues, are all fields that usually fall under the jurisdiction of federal sub-state states or that of states with a decentralized organization are more and more troubled by limitations of the new international arena. Relations between central and sub-state governments are chiefly bothered by structural changes at the regional and international levels. Civil servants and politicians from sub-state entities worry about the fact that international issues affect their fields of jurisdiction. Sub-national entities will thus set up international positions for themselves because their failure to act would have given central governments a free hand. A typical example of this kind of phenomenon is the signature of the GATT Treaty as well as the Uruguay Round trade agreements that led to the foundation of the WTO. These treaties contain provisions that have substantial effects on the fields of jurisdiction of sub-state entities. These same treaties oblige governments to respect new international trade and investment standards. A number of environmental and banking practices, in the insurance or health policy sectors, will also be subjected to these new rules. Central governments will be directed to subject sub-state entities to these accords even though they might not always have the constitutional capability to do so. Quebec, as well as Ontario and Alberta have repeatedly been involved in countervailing duty lawsuits initiated against them by the United States. A large number of provincial grant programmes have had to be modified owing to the consequences of internationalization. The FTA (Canada–US Free Trade Agreement) as well as the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) are subject to the same logic. In fact, a number of provisions of the FTA and the NAFTA require that provincial governments make adjustments to their statutes. This situation has led the Ontario government, which was against ratification of the NAFTA, to envisage the possibility of challenging the constitutionality of the NAFTA before Canadian tribunals. The Ontario government led by Bill Davis determined with reason that the NAFTA cuts across provincial jurisdiction in matters of labor, the environment, services, and financial institutions. The GATT agreements of 1947 and the NAFTA of 1994 have had a significant impact on provincial jurisdictions and the balance of powers, because these treaties presuppose a more powerful federal government to enact these agreements. Thus, these treaties have had major impact on Canada’s internal constitutional order (Gosselin and Mace, 1996: 61). The European integration process actualizes this reality more glaringly. European countries generally acted according to a central state’s logical process when came the time to agree on the adoption of international policies. Not only
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did they have the corner on the definition of “national interest,” but they alone resolved their country’s positions before the European Community. Some countries adopted more or less formal ad hoc consultations; very little machinery, however, had been institutionalized. Nevertheless, European states’ policies have a significant bearing on the fields of jurisdiction of sub-state players. In some cases, these policies even worked to add force to the central government’s power over the regions. Let us look at the cohesion fund created by the Maastricht Treaty. Among other things, the objective of this fund is to give financial support to infrastructures and to determine policies regarding environmental issues. Following signature of a treaty, which involves a transfer of sovereignty from the sub-state entity to the federal state, the state now boasts greater authority than the regions to implement a policy in that region and override the sub-state entity’s fields of jurisdiction. As a consequence of European integration, we are thus witnessing a growing centralization of countries in Europe. To undermine this irrefutable fact, many regions will pressure their “national” government and European institutions into allowing regions of Europe to play a greater role. Sub-state entities are actually more and more active within certain institutions as well as in the decision-making process of European policies. Over the last few years, sub-state entities have become involved in five means of representation of regional interests (Hooghe and Marks, 1996: 73). These conduits are: 1 2 3 4 5
The regions’ committee; The Cabinet; Relations with the Commission; Regional representation in Brussels; Regional transnational associations.
Sub-state entities do not limit themselves solely to direct interventions with European institutions. Their position within a sovereign state also gives them access to the powers that be in the central government, which includes that country’s foreign policy players. Unlike other NGOs, these sub-state entities may actually gain privileged access to international diplomatic networks and may take part in international negotiation as well. Many European regions arrange to be given a role to play by their central state as regards European policies; such is the case in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy.
Conclusion To all intents and purposes the paradiplomatic phenomenon is inconsistent. It has always been stronger in federal regimes or in a decentralized structure, that is to say in the regimes in which sub-state entities have many political responsibilities. For instance, self-governing Spanish communities are more active than their French counterparts. There is also a great difference between regions in a single country: Quebec, for instance, is definitely more active than Ontario.
88 Stéphane Paquin and Guy Lachapelle At the level of sub-state entities, the development of a foreign policy is predicated upon the personality of the politicians. As Richard Balme stated, when writing about the role of political entrepreneurs in regional cooperation process: These partnerships are often carried to baptismal fonts by prominent regional leaders: O. Guichard, and prior to becoming Prime Minister, J.-P. Raffarin on the Atlantic front, L. Späth en Bavière, J. Pujol in Catalonia, to name but a few. Leadership accounts for the determinations of regional representative action. (Balme, 1996: 29, our translation) One of the first political deeds of Raymond Barre upon becoming Mayor of Lyon was to convince his colleagues from St-Étienne and Grenoble to implement a common paradiplomacy for the entire region. The city of Lyon has nine foreign representations, including one in Hong Kong and another in Montreal. Without the intervention of Raymond Barre, it is unlikely that such steps would have been taken. After all, the type of political regime as well as the personality of decision-makers can strongly influence the strength of a region’s paradiplomacy.
References Balthazar, L. (1991) “Conscience nationale et contexte international,” in L. Balthazar, G. Laforest and V. Lemieux (eds), Le Québec et la reconstruction du Canada, 1980– 1992, Quebec: Septentrion. Balme, R. (1996) “Pourquoi le gouvernement change-t-il d’échelle?” in R. Balme (ed.), Les politiques du néo-régionalisme. Action collective régionale et globalisation, Paris: Economica. Barber, B. (1996) Djihad versus McWorld. Mondialisation et intégrisme contre la démocratie, Paris: Hachette pluriel. Bélanger, L. (1994) “La diplomatie culturelle des provinces canadiennes”, Études Internationales, vol. 25, no. 3, September. Brown, M.D. and Fry, E.H. (eds) (1993) States and Provinces in the International Economy, Berkeley, CA: University of California, Institute of Governmental Studies Press. Criekemans, D. and Salomonson, T.B. (2000) “The foreign policy of federations: Flemmish versus Belgian image building,” unpublished document, University of Anvers. Desrosiers, É. (2002) “Forum économique mondial: des projets de 750 millions pour le Québec,” Le Devoir, 5 February. Dutrisac, Robert (2002) “Un ‘amendement Québec’ en faveur de la diversité culturelle,” Le Devoir, 5 February. Forest, P.-G. and Rodon, T. (1995) “Les activités internationales des autochtones du Canada,” Études Internationales, vol. 26, no. 1, March. Fry, E.H. (1998) The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in US Foreign Affairs, New York: A Council on Foreign Relations Book. Goldsborough, J.O. (1993) “California’s foreign policy,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 72. Gosselin, G. and Mace, G. (1996) “Souveraineté et mutation de territoire: le cas canadien,” in J.-P. Augustin (ed.), L’institutionnalisation du territoire au Canada, Montreal and Bordeaux: University of Montreal and University of Bordeaux.
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Hocking, B. (1999) “Patrolling the ‘frontier’: globalization, localization and the ‘actorness’ of non-central governments,” in F. Aldecoa and M. Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, London: Frank Cass. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (1996) “‘Europe with the regions’: channels of regional representation in the European Union,” Publius, vol. 26: 1, winter. Keating, M. (1999) “Regions and international affairs: motives, opportunities and strategies,” in F. Aldecoa and M. Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, London: Frank Cass. Keating, M. (2000) “Paradiplomacy and regional networking,” Forum of Federation: An International Federalism, October, unpublished document. Lachapelle, G. (2000) “Identity, integration and the rise of identity economy. The Quebec case in comparison with Scotland, Wales and Catalonia,” in G. Lachapelle and J. Trent (eds), Globalization, Governance and Identity. The Emergence of New Partnership, Montreal: Les presses de l’Université de Montréal. Lecours, A. and Moreno, L. (2001) “Paradiplomacy and stateless nations: a reference to the Basque country,” Working paper 01–06, Madrid: Unidad de Politicas Comparadas (CSCI). Massart-Piérard, F. (1999) “Politique des relations extérieures et identité politique: la stratégie des entités fédérées de Belgique,” Études Internationales, vol. 30, no. 4, December. Michalet, C.-A. (1999) La Séduction des nations ou comment attirer les investissements étrangers, Paris: Économica. Montserrat, G. (1999) Nations without States: Political Communities in a Global Age, Cambridge: Polity Press Paquin, S. (2001) La Revanche des petites nations: Le Québec, l’Écosse et la Catalogne face à la mondialisation, Montreal: vlb éditeurs. Paquin, S. (2003) Paradiplomatie identitaire en Catalogne, Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Porter, M. (1990) The Competitive Advantage of Nations, New York: Free Press. Soldatos, P. (1993) “Cascading subnational paradiplomacy in an interdependent and transnational world,” in D.M. Brown and E.H. Fry (eds), State and Province in the International Economy, Berkeley, CA: University of California, Institute of Governmental Studies Press. Strange, S. and Stopford, J. (1991) Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. United Nations (1999) World Investment Report, Geneva. Van den Brande, L. (1995) “La Flandre et sa vocation internationale: prioritiés politiques 1995–1999,” Minister of the Flanders Government responsible for External Policies, European Affairs, Science and Technology, Bruxelles: Publication gouvernementale.
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Sub-state governments in international arenas Paradiplomacy and multi-level governance in Europe and North America Robert Kaiser
Since the mid-1980s, globalization of markets and technologies has intensified significantly along with the establishment or deepening of various international regimes promoting economic integration at the multilateral or regional level. In reaction to those developments sub-state actors – and especially sub-state governments – within federal countries have redefined their role in a globalized economy responding to three emerging challenges. First, since regional or multilateral trade agreements set various standards that concern subnational policies, they have called for new procedures of vertical policy coordination in order to participate in measures taken at the national level that ensure compliance with those trade agreements. Second, since economic integration tends to generate both opportunities and problems, especially for border states, local and regional authorities have intensified trans-border cooperation with neighboring regions or cities in foreign countries. And third, since regional or even local patterns of economic specialization gain importance in a globalized economy, subnational actors embarked on various strategies aimed at attracting globalized resources such as investments, knowledge, or skilled personnel. As a result, subnational governments are today considerably more involved both in intergovernmental relations within their federations and in international arenas. In order to analyze this increasing role of subnational governments in a comparative perspective, the paper refers to recent developments in Germany and the United States. It applies two theoretical concepts – the concept of paradiplomacy and the concept of multi-level governance – which have been developed quite independently, focusing either on autonomous subnational action in the international sphere – identified primarily within the North American context – or on coordinated policy making across different territorial levels, thus mainly referring to recent developments in polity creation within the European Union. However, paradiplomatic activities can also be identified in the case of the German Länder (states), whereas multi-level governance structures to a certain extent have emerged even in the North American context. Therefore, the combination of both concepts in a comparative perspective, allows for the analysis of the whole spectrum of international engagement of subnational governments in both
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countries. Furthermore, the application of both analytical concepts seems to be appropriate especially because of the fact that paradiplomatic activities by subnational actors are closely linked with specific kinds of multi-level interaction. The chapter pursues a twofold argumentation. First, it will be argued that a multi-level governance system has emerged in Europe primarily as a consequence of an incremental transfer of legislative powers to the EU’s supranational institutions which, in the large majority of policy areas, lack the authority to implement their own regulations. Since the EU member states assigned exclusive competencies to the supra-national level only in a limited number of areas, decision-making authorities are dispersed across various territorial levels in a nonhierarchical and non-majoritarian institutional system.1 In contrast to the European situation, regional integration regimes in North America, that is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its side agreements, did not establish supranational institutions with far-reaching decision-making authority. Consequently, a multi-level governance structure emerged only in rare and specific cases. However, considerable reforms have taken place in the twolevel structure of the member states’ federal systems, within the EU and NAFTA. Second, concerning paradiplomatic action of subnational governments in Germany and the United States it will be argued that the level of international engagement is related to the degree of embeddedness of regional economies in international markets. This means that subnational entities in both countries have intensified their international activities in parallel to increasing global competition. This holds especially true for those federal states whose regional economies either depend heavily on export markets and/or in which hightechnology and science-based industries play a significant role. Such industries, for example, biotechnology, telecommunications, pharmaceutics, etc., have become more and more internationalized in recent years mainly due to the globalization of markets and technologies. The next section provides an overview of the theoretical concepts of paradiplomacy and multi-level governance. The following sections evaluate to what extent subnational governments in Europe and North America have become involved in multi-level governance structures, and subsequently compare paradiplomatic action taken by subnational governments in Germany and the United States. The final section will summarize the major findings and it will try to answer the question of what can be gained from a comparative perspective on the internationalization of subnational politics.
The internationalization of subnational politics: different theoretical perspectives from Europe and North America Given the fact that the intensity of regional integration differs considerably between Europe and North America it is hardly surprising that theoretical concepts for the analysis of internationalization of subnational politics in Germany and the US have taken different perspectives. Primarily with regard to subnational entities in North America, scholars introduced the term of
92 Robert Kaiser paradiplomacy in the early 1980s in order to demonstrate that external relations established by states, provinces, or localities exist parallel to the traditional foreign policy of the central state. Paradiplomacy occurs at least in three different forms, as transborder regional paradiplomacy (formal or informal contacts with neighboring regions across national borders), as transregional paradiplomacy (cooperation with regions in foreign countries), or as global paradiplomacy (political-functional contacts with foreign central governments, international organizations, private sector industry, interest groups, etc.). In each of these forms, external relations of subnational entities can be coordinated with and complementary to activities of the central state level, however, they might also be in conflict or in concurrence with traditional “macro-diplomacy” (Duchacek, 1990: 16; Soldatos, 1990: 34–53). The growing importance of regional trade agreements in North America as well as the deepening of multilateral integration, however, put pressure on the concept of paradiplomacy as it became more and more apparent that the classical separation of foreign and domestic policies was no longer convincing. Hocking, for example, explicitly dismissed the concept of paradiplomacy in favor of his concept of multilayered diplomacy. He argued that “what has been regarded traditionally as a phenomenon of international politics – diplomacy – has assumed a domestic dimension which, as trade negotiations demonstrate, is crucial to its success” (1993: 2–3). The most important aspect of the concept of multilayered diplomacy is the perception that international trade agreements tend to disregard shared or separated authority over trade-related measures in federal states. From the viewpoint of an international organization only the central state level is responsible for the implementation of new trade rules, independent of the internal distribution of powers. Consequently, even central state governments had to accept the participation of subnational actors in the process of multilateral and regional integration. Moreover, the concept of multilayered diplomacy aligned with a theoretical debate which emerged in the early 1990s with regard to the process of regional integration in Europe. Since the implementation of the European Single Market and increasingly after the establishment of the European Union (EU) through the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has been considered a dynamic multi-level governance system (MLG) that is characterized by a highly complex structure of collective decision-making involving actors at different levels across which competencies are dispersed. In this multi-level governance system different political arenas are interconnected and subnational actors operate in both national and supranational arenas. The European multi-level governance system consists of three distinct features. First, decision-making competencies are shared by actors at different territorial levels; second, actors and arenas are not ordered hierarchically as in traditional intergovernmental relations; and third, consensual or non-majoritarian decision-making procedures require a continuous and wide-ranging negotiation process. Like the concept of multilayered diplomacy, the multi-level governance approach rejects the separation of domestic and international politics as maintained by state-centric models (Grande, 2000; Hooghe, 1996; Hooghe and Marks, 2001a;
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Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch, 1996; Kaiser and Prange, 2002; König et al., 1996; Marks et al., 1996). However, the “European” concept of multi-level governance did not fully anticipate the increasing engagement of subnational actors, such as the German Länder, outside the EU political system, as it could hardly be applied to international engagement of non-European subnational entities. Many activities that are aimed at strengthening inter-regional or transregional cooperation, as well as the establishment of representations around the world, however, support the idea that subnational governments have learned to pursue domestic policy goals even on the international stage. From their perspective a new category of intermestic policies (Greß, 1996) has emerged, which inevitably challenges the traditional central state’s monopoly in foreign affairs. As a consequence – and not accidentally referring to the concept of paradiplomacy – it has been argued that the German federal state is likely to develop into a system characterized by a perforated sovereignty (Fischer, 2000). Hooghe and Marks have further elaborated the concept of multi-level governance by identifying two different (“ideal”) types of governance that have emerged in many western societies in a process of dispersion of authority “away from central government – upwards to the supranational level, downwards to subnational jurisdictions and sideways to public/private networks” (2001b: 3). They distinguish between governance organized around a limited number of non-overlapping jurisdictions at only few territorial levels which carry out multiple tasks (“Type I Governance”) and governance based on a large number of task-specific and overlapping jurisdictions at diverse territorial scales (“Type II Governance”). For two reasons this differentiation provides helpful conceptual guidance for the comparative analysis of international activities of subnational governments. First, subnational governments are quite obviously important actors of type I governance operating both within the constitutional framework of their respective federal systems as well as – to a varying extent – within supranational polities. In this area, institutional arrangements are extraordinary stable. In case of institutional reforms, however, changes often occur in the basic characteristics of the respective constitutional system.2 Second, subnational governments also play a role in type II governance. In the area of international activities, they are engaged in issue-specific transborder arrangements or inter-regional agreements, participate in single-issue international organizations, promote the establishment of transborder initiatives at the local level or join forces with the private sector in order to promote their regional economies. In contrast to type I governance, type II arrangements are not only concerned with specific issues, they are also more flexible to respond to changing needs (Hooghe and Marks, 2001b: 3–11). Therefore, the differentiation of these two types of multi-level governance on the one hand provides an opportunity to integrate various theoretical concepts on the dispersion of governance across multiple jurisdictions. On the other hand, it allows for the application of the MLG approach to new forms of governance that have emerged outside the EU polity where type I governance has increased mainly as a result of the decentralization of (federal) political systems, while
94 Robert Kaiser type II governance can be identified in at least as many variations as in Europe. The following two sections will provide some empirical observations on how subnational governance has changed in Europe and North America in the process of economic integration.
Economic integration and federal reforms in Germany and the United States In reaction to domestic implications of the process of economic integration, subnational governments in Germany and the US called for reforms of federal intergovernmental relations in a way that would allow them to participate in NAFTA or EU-related actions both at the central state level and – as far as possible – even on the international stage. They succeeded especially because of the timing of negotiations. In Germany, the federal government could not refuse to comply with subnational demands as the Länder had to approve ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht in the upper house (the Bundesrat). In the US, the situation was different insofar as the states could not rely on the Senate and its role in implementing NAFTA. When the US Senate discussed the free trade agreement, demands of the subnational level to participate in NAFTA affairs clearly were less important. But, as the NAFTA and the WTO agreement were highly controversial in the US Congress and in domestic politics, the Clinton administration was dependent on the majority of governors who supported the agreement, and therefore agreed to include federal-state cooperation and communication procedures in the implementing legislation (Kaiser, 1998: 199– 208). In principle, since the new participation procedures went into force, the subnational levels in both countries have become players in the federal trade and economic policies. Bearing in mind that the European Union is a much more integrated area than NAFTA, it is no surprise that the German Länder could obtain a considerably stronger position than the US states. According to Article 23 of the German Basic Law, any further transfer of competencies to the EU has to be approved by a two-thirds majority of both houses of the German parliament. Moreover, if measures are under consideration at the European level that fall within the national context under exclusive jurisdiction of the Länder, Germany’s delegation to the Council of the European Union consists of representatives from the Bundesrat who are authorized to act on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany. Additionally, subnational governments delegate representatives to EU’s Committee of the Regions (CoR) which was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in order to advise the European Commission on policies that have an impact on subnational affairs. However, the Committee of the Regions has proven to be unattractive for the Länder, since the large majority of regions and localities that are represented in the CoR have no legislative powers or considerable financial resources at their disposal. At the central state level, the Länder participate in the formulation of Germany’s
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position through the Bundesrat. Depending on the legislative competencies concerned, the federal government has either to consider or even to adopt the position of the Länder as the national position if a measure falls under the exclusive authority of the states. In view of their participation both at the national and the European level, the Länder had to concede to coordinate their interests in the Bundesrat, which is by definition a federal organ, as a precondition for their involvement in European affairs. However, the Länder have been able to maintain at least one channel of autonomous representation at the European level. Since the mid-1980s, all German Länder have established offices in Brussels which have three main functions: first, they collect information which is of special importance for the state administration; second, they lobby European institutions in order to influence decisions which have a direct impact on the state; and third, they provide infrastructure especially for private sector actors of their respective state. Whereas subnational involvement in international affairs is now constitutionally granted by the Basic Law in Germany, the reform of intergovernmental relations in the US federal system was prescribed by NAFTA implementing legislation. Due to a Statement of Administrative Action3 the United States Trade Representative (USTR) established a federal-state consultation process concerning all NAFTA-related measures that may have a direct impact on the states. As part of this process, states must have an opportunity to advise and inform the USTR and they have to be involved to the greatest extent practicable in developing the United States’ position regarding any NAFTA provision or dispute settlement affecting them (Farquhar, 1995: 4). In terms of institutionbuilding, this consultation process is handled by a NAFTA Coordinator for State Matters within the office of the USTR and a Single Point of Contact as part of the governor’s administration in each state. At the federal level, state and local entities are also represented in the Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee (IGPAC) which consists of 20 members from subnational governments (including six governors) and parliaments. However, it has been argued that the IGPAC is not very eager to deal with state-level concerns (Stumberg, 2001). As for the delegation of subnational representatives to NAFTA committees, the federal government showed reluctance to involve the states. In the words of the Statement of Administrative Action, the Administration will invite state representatives “where it determines that it is feasible and appropriate.” Nevertheless, the states delegate one representative to the Joint Public Advisory Council of the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation in Montreal and to the US–Mexican bilateral Border Environmental Cooperation Commission. Additionally, they are represented in the NAFTA Land Transportation Standards Subcommittee and they have the opportunity to defend subnational laws in NAFTA dispute settlement procedures if the administration agrees to that. In the mean time, there are indications that the subnational involvement on the international stage has intensified. At the winter 1999 meeting of the National Governors’ Association, states’ government leaders called not only for an expansion of existing trade agreements, they also demanded participation in ongoing
96 Robert Kaiser negotiations as demonstrated by the 1998 agreement on agricultural market access between Canada and the United States (NGA, 1999). Furthermore, the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States reviewed chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement in 2001, which is concerned with investment related measures. In view of dispute settlement procedures under chapter 11, the parties reaffirmed that subnational governments can be involved in such procedures at least on the basis of information exchange with the respective national government. Economic integration has been further intensified also by crossborder agreements of subnational jurisdictions. In 2001, the state of New York signed memoranda of understanding with two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, on public procurement that removed barriers to trade which still existed under the NAFTA and WTO agreements because the two provinces are not subject to respective procurement obligations (cf. De Boer, 2002: 18). All in all, it can be stated for both countries that federal reforms occurred within the traditional patterns of intergovernmental relations. That the participation of the German Länder in European policies has been concentrated on the Bundesrat is very much in line with the German model of cooperative federalism, which gave the Bundesrat an extraordinary strong position even in federal legislation. In the US, however, the Senate is traditionally not an institution that excels at defending states’ rights. As a consequence, the states became involved in federal trade policy mainly through an individual and bi-directional process of consultations with the federal trade administration. A similar consultation process had been in place in Germany until the end of the 1980s. However, with the deepening of European integration, individual participation of the Länder in European affairs was considered to be no longer feasible. This indicates that the intensity of integration has an impact on the degree of subnational participation in federal trade and economic policies. In a quantitative perspective, the involvement of the German Länder has increased considerably within the last decade. The Bundesrat is represented in about 330 of the 1,200 committees that exist at the European level. About 270 Länder representatives are involved in these participation procedures as members of committees established by the European Commission or the Council of the European Union (Berlin, 2001: 67). On a yearly basis, the Bundesrat receives more than 4,000 EU documents, of which about 150 are introduced in the parliamentary process. This holds true especially for legislative Acts originating from the European level. In the year 2000, the Bundesrat was confronted with 37 proposals for new EU directives (Baden-Württemberg, 2001: 183). On the US side, federal–state cooperation in NAFTA and WTO related measures is considerably less intense. Some empirical data suggest that the single point of contact system has not yet created a continuous and interactive consultation process between the federal and the state levels. Apart from the provision of press releases, the USTR, for example, does not contact the state administrations on a regular basis while the states’ single points of contact provide information primarily on request of the USTR. The delegation of representatives to committees at the federal or NAFTA level has taken place, if at all, in only rare cases.4 These
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data support Fry’s conclusion that the “single-point-of contact program […] is simply not working” (1998: 131).
The “foreign policies” of subnational governments in Germany and the United States Apart from their involvement in the processes of regional and multilateral integration, subnational governments have intensified their foreign relations in recent years, even though, at first sight, the German as well as the US constitution considerably restrict subnational activities beyond national borders. In the German case, the Basic Law allows for the conclusion of international agreements by the Länder in areas of their exclusive competencies. However, such an agreement is subject to prior consent of the federal government (Article 32, 3 GG). Such agreements allow for the transfer of certain duties, which are delegated to the Länder by the constitution, to transregional authorities (Article 24, 1a GG). The US constitution prohibits state actions that are aimed at the conclusion of treaties and agreements (Article 1, 10). Nevertheless, in view of competencies that are not constitutionally delegated to the federal level, the states have at least an implicit authority to engage in international relations as long as the Congress or the Supreme Court does not ban such activities. As a result, in both countries foreign activities of subnational governments are based to a greater or lesser extent primarily on political practice and intergovernmental comity (cf. Kincaid, 1999: 112). International engagement of subnational governments in Germany and the United States occurs primarily at three different levels. First of all, the states have considerably intensified their representation in foreign countries and with international organizations through the establishment of foreign offices which they operate autonomously or in cooperation with other states. Second, the German Länder and the states in the US have strengthened their trans- and interregional cooperation within the EU and NAFTA area as well as with regions from abroad. In case of cooperation with neighboring regions, the implementation of regional trade agreements certainly has supported the idea of much more integrated transborder regions that coordinate certain public policy activities. Third, state governments have also intensified “classical” diplomatic contacts as well as business contacts with representatives from foreign national and subnational governments as well as from private sector industries. These contacts are seen as increasingly important either for supporting the domestic export industry or for the attraction of foreign direct investments. In terms of foreign representations, the German Länder have established about 130 offices around the world since the 1970s of which 21 exist in the United States (Fischer, 2000: 355). Apart from the North American region, the Länder concentrated their engagement especially on Asia and the East European countries. A similar development can be seen for US states. In 1970, only three of them had established an office abroad, whereas by the end of the 1990s the number of foreign representations had increased to 183 (Kincaid, 1999: 111). In 2000, the
98 Robert Kaiser 240 foreign trade offices of the states exceeded the number of offices operated by the federal government which had offices at 174 locations around the world (Hannaford, 2000: 9). Subnational governments seem to establish foreign offices either in important export markets and/or in regions which have a compatible economic structure. California, for example, opened three new trade and investment offices in Shanghai, Singapore, and Argentina in the year 2000. As a result, the state is now present in all of its top-ten export markets. The German state of Bavaria has expanded its presence in North America since the end of the 1990s by establishing new offices in Palo Alto and Montreal and has thus complemented existing interregional agreements with California and Quebec with local representation. Moreover, the number of foreign offices established by individual states in both countries relates to the extent to which their regional economies are embedded in world markets. Subnational governments tend to invest more resources in the establishment of foreign offices the more their economies become integrated in international markets.5 Inter-regional cooperation, as a second form of international engagement of subnational entities, is not a most recent development; nevertheless, it certainly gained momentum in the processes of globalization and economic integration. This holds true primarily for transborder regional cooperation6 as well as for “strategic alliances” between regions in different countries. In view of these special relationships, economic complementary rather than proximity matters. The German state of Bavaria, for example, signed agreements on economic and technological cooperation with Massachusetts and California which both have, similar to the Bavarian case, a strong performance in the field of knowledgeintensive and science-based industries, such as biotechnology and information technology. An even more institutionalized cooperation exists between the four partner regions Quebec, Upper Austria, Shandong, and the South African region of Western Cape. In February 2002, the prime ministers of these regions agreed to establish an enduring partnership for economic, ecological, social, and cultural cooperation. Inter-regional transborder cooperation exists in several variations in Europe as well as in North America. However, in contrast to cooperation with distant regions, which is mainly motivated by economic and technological globalization, transborder cooperation can be considered both as a reaction to integration processes as well as a result of certain incentives for cooperation which originate from organizations such as the EU or NAFTA. In the European case, transborder cooperation has been supported by the EU through different programs. The EU’s INTERREG program, for example, financed the creation of transborder networks in the areas of environmental protection, tourism, and transportation. In addition, since the mid-1990s the European Union has provided funds for inter-regional cooperation in research and development which are aimed at upgrading the regional innovation capacity and strengthening the transregional technology transfer (cf. Kaiser and Prange, 2001; Kaiser, 2003). In the North American context, such incentives are still very limited. However, at least in view of the
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US–Mexican border region, the establishment of the NAFTA has led to a bilateral initiative that established a North American Development Bank (NadBank) and a Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC). US border states’ governments delegate representatives to both institutions which provide funds primarily for environmental projects in the border region. This bilateral initiative also has an inter-regional dimension, since California and the Mexican state of Baja California have established a regional border environmental cooperation commission. The intensity of inter-regional cooperation depends to a certain degree on the competencies and powers that are delegated to subnational levels. In Europe, for example, limits to inter-regional cooperation exist because of the fact that only a minority of member states has a federal constitution. Of EU member states that have a common border with Germany, only Austria and Belgium are federal states. As a consequence more comprehensive agreements on transborder cooperation, which do not involve the respective national government, have been established only between four neighboring regions in Germany and Belgium as well as between Bavaria and Upper Austria. In North America, however, all three NAFTA member countries have federal constitutions which delegate certain powers to their subnational entities. Under such circumstances, the institutionalization of transborder political cooperation seems to be considerably easier: border state governments have established a number of consultative bodies, such as the United States–Mexico Border Governors’ Conference, and there has been cooperation between the New England governors and the Eastern Canadian prime ministers. Finally, there is at least one element of subnational “foreign policy” in the United States that does not have a German “counterpart.” This element concerns economic sanctions against foreign countries or against domestic or foreign companies that do business with those countries. In the past, a large number of states and cities implemented sanctions against countries like Cuba, Indonesia, or South Africa. However, according to a recent decision of the US Supreme Court on sanctions against Myanmar, which were enacted by the state of Massachusetts (Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 99-474), it will be much more difficult in the future to maintain subnational sanctions if those sanctions do not match federal foreign policy.
Conclusion This chapter aimed to analyze how the processes of economic globalization and integration have motivated subnational governments in Germany and the United States to intensify their international engagement. It has been shown that the German Länder as well as the US states became more involved in intergovernmental relations within their federal systems as a result of regional and multilateral integration. Furthermore they increased efforts to support their domestic economies by establishing a large number of foreign offices and by intensifying inter-regional cooperation with neighboring or distant regions. Two analytical concepts – the concepts of paradiplomacy and multi-level
100 Robert Kaiser governance – have been applied in order to systematically compare the international activities of subnational governments in both countries. In conclusion, it can be stated that paradiplomatic activities of subnational governments certainly exist. However, the importance of such activities seems to decrease in favor of coordinated measures across borders or territorial levels. In this situation the more promising comparative approach is the concept of multi-level governance. If we follow Hooghe and Marks in their differentiation of two types of multi-level governance, it can be shown that “type I governance” arrangements are certainly more intense within the European Union, where subnational governments became an integral part of the political process. Within NAFTA, subnational governments participate in a very limited number of “supranational” policies that can be characterized as a hybrid form of both governance types: even though they are mostly organized around a limited number of non-overlapping jurisdictions at limited levels, they are also task-specific as in the case of environmental policies. Moreover, we can identify a large number of “type II governance” arrangements both in Europe and North America. The comparison confirms that those arrangements can be found at the edges of “type I governance” and that both types support each other. However, the compatibility of political systems, that is the existence of federal systems, is another important factor especially for transborder and inter-regional governance arrangements, because cooperation between subnational entities clearly benefits from the actors’ legislative powers and financial resources. In such arrangements, type I governance constitutes only the overarching structure that facilitates cooperation pursued mostly by task-specific type II governance jurisdictions.
Notes 1 It should be noted that decision-making competencies within the European Union are not only dispersed across various territorial levels, but also allocated sideways to quasi-autonomous regulatory agencies, non-public implementation bodies or institutions created as public–private partnerships (cf. Majone, 1996; Hooghe and Marks, 2001a, 2001b; Thatcher and Stone Sweet, 2002). 2 The stability of institutional arrangements and thus the difficulties associated with reforms of such institutional arrangements can be traced back primarily to the phenomenon of path dependency. Originally, the concept of path dependency was applied to studies of technological development in order to find an explanation for the persistence of inferior technologies and products on the market (cf. David, 1985). More recently the concept has also been applied to the analysis of institutional change either in view of the process of European integration (Pierson, 1996) or in view of the German federal system (Lehmbruch, 2002). 3 HR 3450, Title 1 Sec. 102 (b). 4 Information concerning consultations between the USTR and the single points of contact refer to the situation in the State of California. I owe this information to Ms Michele Gault, Single Point of Contact, California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, State of California. 5 Leading export states such as California or New York in the US or Bavaria and North Rhine Westphalia in Germany as well as states in which exports have increased significantly in recent years established considerably more overseas offices than most
Sub-state governments in international arenas 101 of the other subnational entities within their countries. However, there are some exceptions to this general trend. In the US, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Ohio, for example, have established an above-average number of foreign offices even though their economies’ exports are below average. 6 Inter-regional transborder initiatives exist in various forms in Europe and North America. Even though many of them were founded before regional integration programs started or deepened, both the EU and NAFTA promoted intensified transborder cooperation. In the European case, this certainly holds true for the so-called four “Euregios” which have been established along the border of Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These regional initiatives were heavily funded by the EU’s INTERREG program that co-financed such initiatives in the 1990s with about €500 million. Other forms of cooperation, especially regional lobbying associations, have also been spurred on by the process of European integration. Such associations exist for European border regions (Arbeitsgemeinschaft europäischer Grenzregionen), for regions with strong industrial traditions (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Regionen mit Industrietradition) or for regions located around the Alps (ARGE ALP). In the North American context, the most known transborder region certainly is the CASCADIA region comprising the Pacific Northwest of the United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia. However, since NAFTA came into force, regional cooperation has intensified primarily at the US–Mexican border both at the local level (e.g. San Diego–Tijuana) and the state level (e.g. Arizona–Sonora and California–Baja California).
References Aguirre, I. (1999) “Making sense of paradiplomacy? An intertextual enquiry about a concept in search of a definition,” in F. Aldecoa and M. Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, London: Frank Cass, pp. 185–209. David, P.A. (1985) “Clio and the economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review, vol. 75, pp. 332–7. De Boer, S. (2002) “Canadian Provinces, US States and North American integration: bench warmers or key players?” Choices. Canada’s Options in North America, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 1–24. Der regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin (2001) Berliner Europabericht 2000, Berlin: State Government of Berlin. Duchacek, I.D. (1990) “Perforated sovereignties: towards a typology of new actors in international relations,” in H.J. Michelmann and P. Soldatos (eds), Federalism and International Relations. The Role of Subnational Units, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–33. Eaton, D.J. (ed.) (1996) The Impact of Trade Agreements on State and Provincial Laws, Proceedings of Conference on the Protection of Regional Laws in the Arena of International Trade Agreements, Austin, Texas, 10 November 1995, Austin, TX: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Farquhar, D. (1995) “NAFTA and its effect on state environmental policies,” National Conference of State Legislatures: State Legislative Report, vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 1–9. Fischer, T. (2000) “Die Außenbeziehungen der deutschen Länder als Ausdruck ‘perforierter’ nationalstaatlicher Souveränität. Transföderalismus zwischen Kooperation und Konkurrenz,” in H.G. Wehling (ed.), Die deutschen Länder. Geschichte, Politik, Wirtschaft, Opladen: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 355–76.
102 Robert Kaiser Fosler, R.S. (ed.) (1988) The New Economic Role of American States. Strategies in a Competitive World Economy, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fry, E.H. (1998) The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in US Foreign Affairs, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Grande, E. (2000) “Multi-level governance: institutionelle Besonderheiten und Funktionsbedingungen des Europäischen Mehrebenensystems,” in E. Grande and M. Jachtenfuchs (eds) Wie problemlösungsfähig ist die EU? Regieren im europäischen Mehrebenensystem, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 11–30. Greß, F. (1996) “Interstate cooperation and territorial representation in intermestic politics,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 26, pp. 53–71. Hannaford, W. (2000) “Special report: states and foreign trade offices,” ERC Committee Reports, Spring, p. 9. Hocking, B. (1993) Foreign Relations and Federal States, London: Leicester University Press. Hooghe, L. (ed.) (1996) Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi-Level Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2001a) Multi-Level Governance and European Integration, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefields. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2001b) “Types of multi-level governance,” European Integration online Papers (EIoP), vol. 5, no. 11; available http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2001– 011a.htm. Jachtenfuchs, M. and Kohler-Koch, B. (eds) (1996) Europäische Integration, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Kaiser, R. (1998) “Regionale integration in Europa und Nordamerika. Vergleich von Europäischer Gemeinschaft (EG) und Nordamerikanischer Freihandelszone (NAFTA) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung bundesstaatlicher Organisationsreformen in Deutschland und den USA,” Nomos Universitätsschriften Politik, Band 79, BadenBaden. Kaiser, R. (2003) “Innovation policy in a multi-level governance system: the changing institutional environment for the establishment of science-based industries,” in J. Edler, S. Kuhlmann and M. Behrens (eds), The Changing Governance of European Research and Innovation Policy: The European Research Area, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Kaiser, R. and Prange, H. (2001) “Die Ausdifferenzierung nationaler Innovationssysteme. Deutschland und Österreich im Vergleich,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 313–30. Kaiser, R. and Prange, H. (2002) “A new concept of deepening European integration? The European Research Area and the emerging role of policy coordination in a multilevel governance system,” European Integration online Papers (EIoP), vol. 6, no. 18; available http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2002–018a.htm. Kincaid, J. (1999) “The international competence of US states and their local governments, “ in F. Aldecoa and M. Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, London: Frank Cass, pp. 111–33. König, T., Rieger, E. and Schmitt, H. (eds) (1996) Das europäische Mehrebenensystem, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Landesregierung Baden-Württemberg (2001) Baden-Württemberg in Europa. Bericht an den Landtag von Baden-Württemberg über die Europapolitik der Landesregierung im Jahre 2000/2001, Stuttgart: State Government of Baden-Württemburg.
Sub-state governments in international arenas 103 Lehmbruch, G. (2002) “Der unitarische Bundesstaat in Deutschland: Pfadabhängigkeit und Wandel,” MPIfG Discussion Paper 02/2, Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Majone, G. (1996) Regulating Europe, London and New York: Routledge. Marks, G., Hooghe, L. and Blank, K. (1996) “European integration from the 1980s: statecentric vs. multi-level governance,” Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 341–78. National Governors’ Association (1999) “Governors’ principles on international trade,” Resolution EDC-11, National Governors’ Association. Pierson, P. (1996) “The path to European integration: a historical institutional analysis,” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 29, pp. 123–63. Soldatos, P. (1990) “An explanatory framework for the study of federated states as foreignpolicy actors,” in H.J. Michelmann and P. Soldatos (eds), Federalism and International Relations. The Role of Subnational Units, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 34–53. Soldatos, P. (1993) “Cascading subnational paradiplomacy in an interdependent and transnational world,” in D.M. Brown and E.A. Fry (eds), States and Provinces in International Economy, Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies Press, pp. 45–64. Stumberg, R. (1994) “NAFTA rewrites status of states,” State Government News, May, pp. 10–13. Stumberg, R. (2001) “Written testimony of Dr Robert Stumberg, Harrison Institute for Public Law, Joint Hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and International Trade and the Senate Select Committee on International Trade Policy and State Legislation,” State Capital, Sacramento, May 16. Thatcher, M. and Stone Sweet, A. (2002) “Theory and practice of delegation to nonmajoritarian institutions,” West European Politics, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1–22. Thomsen, S. (1994) “Regional integration and multinational production,” in V. Cable and D. Henderson (eds), Trade Blocs? The Future of Regional Integration, London: Royal Insitute of International Affairs, pp. 109–26. United States Trade Representative (1999) The President’s 1998 Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program, Washington, DC: United States Trade Representative. Weiler, C. (1994) “Foreign trade agreements: a new federal partner?” Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 24, pp. 113–33.
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Globalization, welfare solidarity and sub-state governance Nicola McEwen
Globalization is a highly contested concept, with little agreement as to its meaning, its extent, or its consequences. In popular and political discourse, the term usually portrays some sense in which the very nature of world politics is changing. It has been variously conceived in terms of (i) action at a distance, that is where actions in one part of the world can have significant consequences in another distant region; (ii) time-space compression, where time and space become irrelevant as vast amounts of information, ideas, and money are transmitted across the globe at the touch of a button; and (iii) economic and political interdependence, generating new power relations and a new set of “global institutions” which limit the power and autonomy of nation-states (Held and McGrew, 2000: 1–40; Scholte, 2000). Globalization may be best understood as a set of processes leading to intensified human interaction in the economic, political, military, environmental and social spheres. Although it is more than an economic phenomenon, it is the economic and financial aspects of globalization which potentially have the most direct impact on the maintenance of the welfare state and social solidarity. One of the crucial functions of the welfare state has been to generate social solidarity and sustain the legitimacy of the capitalist state. In multinational states, that is states which encompass more than one national community, the development of state welfare may also have served to generate solidarity across sub-state national boundaries, reinforcing identification with and loyalty to the national state. Pressures upon the welfare state have been evident since the mid-1970s, most notably as a result of the emergence of neoliberalism. Yet the pressures of financial globalization – which may, in turn, have been fostered by the spread of neoliberalism – have constrained the degree to which states can continue to manage comprehensive welfare regimes. This paper will consider the territorial impact of the welfare reform and retrenchment which is taking shape within the context of economic globalization. Globalization also poses challenges for the management of welfare regimes at the sub-state level, and the chapter gives consideration to the degree to which sub-state governments are constrained in their capacity to meet welfare needs and demands. There is a growing literature that recognizes that globalization has gone hand in hand with regionalism and the restructuring of the state (Keating, 1996; Storper, 1995). Yet, globalization also implies increased interdependence
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between governments. The chapter will consider the degree to which sub-state regional and national governments need to forge relations with governments within and beyond the central state in order to effectively manage their welfare states. This chapter is intended as a “think piece” rather than an empirical study. It is therefore focused upon considering theoretically the relationship between globalization, state welfare, and territorial politics, in the hope that this may facilitate future empirical research.
The welfare state and social solidarity in a multinational state All advanced capitalist societies provide some degree of protection against social and economic contingencies such as illness, old age, or unemployment, although the extent to which they do so varies considerably (see Esping-Andersen, 1990: 26–33, for a useful typology of welfare regimes). Social solidarity is often considered to be an explicit aim of state welfare expansion. According to Marshall, the recognition of social rights, including the right to a minimum standard of economic and social welfare and security, differed from other citizenship rights in this respect. By generating “an invasion of contract by status, the subordination of market price to social justice, the replacement of the free market by the declaration of rights,” social citizenship rights were considered to be explicitly aimed at modifying the class structure (Marshall 1992: 40). In some cases, the extension of social rights may have been part of ruling-class strategies to accommodate the working class (Mann, 1987: 339–54; Gough, 1979: 58–9). In others, social rights may have been acquired from below as a consequence and outcome of social and political struggle (Turner, 1992: 41–7). Whether welfare services emerged in response to workingclass agitation or pre-empted and thereby prevented such mobilization, the welfare state minimized antagonism and nurtured solidarity between class as well as regional groups, and contributed to securing the state’s legitimacy. The class politics and class coalitions involved in determining the direction and scope of welfare programmes evolved within the context of the national state. The debate was played out on the national stage and securing control of the state’s resources was central to its outcome. Keating suggested that the welfare state’s rationale rested upon a sense of shared national solidarity, founded upon a common national identity (1996: 34). However, in multinational states in particular, the consequences of the welfare state for territorial politics and nation-building may be as significant. By generating social solidarity across sub-state national boundaries, the welfare state may have strengthened attachment to and consent for the existing political state. Class identities and alliances forged across the state territory can generate feelings of solidarity that may minimize the significance of sub-state national or regional identities. As Mishra observed, “the idea of maintaining and consolidating the national community – economically, politically and socially – was the ideological underpinning par excellence of the welfare state” (1999: 12). One can identify three distinctive ways in which the welfare state may have influenced state-level nation-building: by expanding the central state; by
106 Nicola McEwen recognizing social citizenship rights; and by reinforcing the symbols of nationhood and national solidarity. Expansion of the central state The development of systems of state welfare greatly enhanced the presence of the state in the everyday lives of its citizens. It reinforced the centrality of state-wide “national” political parties and leaders operating within state-wide “national” institutional frameworks. This shifted the focus away from sub-state political institutions and ensured that control of central institutions became the principal objective of political struggle. As Brass understood, the nation can be powerfully drawn upon, and thereby reinforced, by those mobilizing support to attain or maintain control over the distribution of resources (1991: 45–7, 63–5). The development of state welfare also expanded the network of social communication through which conceptions of the nation may be conveyed, strengthening the state’s capacity to transmit national symbols and to shape and reproduce “norms” of national behaviour, values, and priorities (Gellner, 1983: 35–43). The extent to which the welfare state performed a successful nation-building function was also dependent upon the structure of the state in which it developed. In unitary states, the centralization of political institutions enhanced the capacity of the center to command control over the development of social services, and gain recognition as the source and guarantor of social and economic security. The nation-building function of the welfare state was more constrained where the multinational character of the state was reflected in multilevel government. In federal states, in particular, the development of state welfare has often been shared between central and sub-state political institutions, constraining the efforts of the central state to develop state-wide social services. This was evident in the postwar development of the Canadian welfare state, which was hampered by provincial opposition, especially from the governments of Quebec and Ontario (Banting, 1987). Thus, the structure of the state will determine its capacity to direct state welfare development and generate social solidarity and national belonging through welfare provision. Recognition of social rights Notwithstanding the distinctive nature of the welfare regimes which emerged in Europe and North America, in all cases, the postwar welfare state engendered a breadth of social services, such as income security, health care, housing, education. Welfare service provision entails recognition of the social rights of children and parents, workers and the unemployed, and the elderly and the sick, safeguarding in some measure their social and economic security “from cradle to grave.” For the working class in particular, the welfare state opened up opportunities that had previously been denied and at least to some degree brought about a marked improvement in standards of living. Welfare states which guaranteed these services as a right of citizenship may
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have been better able to command the loyalty of their citizens. Citizenship has been conflated with nationality in political discourse, implying membership not merely of a political state but of a national community. The recognition of social rights in the development of the welfare state may thus have served to reinforce the ties that bind the citizens to the national state as the source and guarantor of their social and economic security. Where a state produces or is capable of producing (under the control of a particular party in government) social protection and security, citizens may be less likely to shift their loyalty to sources within or beyond the state. As Deutsch suggested, if they find not merely factories and slums but schools, parks, hospitals and better housing, where they have a political and economic “stake in the country” and are accorded security and prestige, there the ties to their own people, to its folkways and living standards, education and tradition, will be strong in fact. (Deutsch, 1966: 99) Providing direct services enhances the ability of the state to appeal directly to its citizens and, as a consequence, to encourage loyalty to the state as the source and guarantor of their social welfare. In multinational states, the welfare state may thus have strengthened the sense of attachment to the state among members of a national minority, by providing a rationale for the maintenance of the existing state structure. At the same time, the promise of social and economic security from the existing state may have heightened the risks and insecurity of increased autonomy or secession. Symbol of national solidarity The nation-building role of the welfare state may go beyond providing a rational, material basis supporting the national state’s territorial integrity. Guibernau observed that nationalism’s potency is partly explained by the emotional attachment which members of a national community invest in the symbols of nationhood (1996: 76–7). Welfare institutions represent a common heritage, a symbol of shared risks and mutual commitment, and a common project for the future. For example, in the political discourse surrounding its birth, the National Health Service in the United Kingdom was considered to represent a symbol of the solidarity and commitment demonstrated in “the people’s war” harnessed to build the “people’s peace.” The Canadian system of health care has represented an equally important national symbol and has often been held up as testament to the uniqueness of Canada vis-à-vis the United States. In exploring his idea of social citizenship, Marshall noted that, as well as reducing risk and insecurity, the welfare state had a symbolic role in contributing to the shared experience of citizens. All learn what it means to have an insurance card regularly stamped, to cash children’s allowances at the post office, or to benefit from the common experience offered by a general health service (Marshall and Bottomore, 1992: 33–4). This symbolism
108 Nicola McEwen may have served to reinforce the bond of nationhood among citizens throughout the state, thereby strengthening, to paraphrase Renan (1882: 19), the collective will to continue a life in common. Thus, the development of the welfare state implied a centralization of power and enhanced the significance of representation in and access to state institutions. In multinational states, the development of state-wide political and class alliances, the importance of state-wide political debate, and the national symbolism of welfare discourses and institutions may thus have contributed to generating a sense of community and identity to supersede, or at least sit alongside, sub-state national identities. The benefits and services offered by welfare states may also have contributed to reinforcing the rationale for the maintenance of the constitutional status quo among those who benefit from its services. At the same time, by heightening the risk that constitutional change might incur the loss of the security and services offered by the central state, the welfare state may have weakened support for sub-state nationalism and regionalism.
Globalization, welfare retrenchment, and territorial politics The welfare state has faced considerable pressure in recent years, raising doubts regarding the extent to which it can continue to perform a nation-building function within multinational states. These pressures have arisen from a number of quarters. From the mid-1970s, new social movements emerged to challenge the prejudices that underpinned the notion of “universalism” embodied in the postwar welfare state. Critics argued that the conception of national citizenship nurtured by the welfare state implicitly excluded ethnic minorities, the disabled, and women as workers (Lister, 1997: 65–8; Williams, 1989: 49–77). In addition, demographic pressures of low fertility and an ageing population point to proportionately fewer workers carrying the burden of financing an increasingly costly welfare system. This has given rise to the view that the welfare state has to be significantly reformed if it is to remain sustainable (but see Esping-Anderson, 1996: 1–40, for an alternative interpretation). Among the most significant challenges facing the welfare state in recent years have been the ascendancy of neoliberalism within the state and the influence of globalization beyond it. From the perspective of the New Right, the welfare state was unsustainable as it lacked the capacity to carry out the responsibilities it had acquired and the expectations it had raised. In addition, the welfare state was considered ungovernable as the interest group pressure it had generated, especially from the trade union movement, undermined its legitimacy and prevented the targeting of resources to those most in need (King, 1987: 49–90; Hoover and Plant, 1989: 42– 75). The welfare state reduced incentives to create wealth and represented an obstacle to economic growth. What was needed was a deregulated, flexible, freemarket economy which minimized intervention and “liberated” individuals from the shackles of the state. The New Right launched an assault on the very principle of social citizenship. Whereas Marshall maintained that social rights enabled the working class to acquire full and equal citizenship status, neoliberals argued that
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the welfare state had made the poor dependent upon the state without enhancing their opportunities. An emphasis upon social rights had produced a loss of obligation to the family and the community, as well as a loss of character and morale. In place of benefits or “state hand-outs,” which were deemed to have exacerbated this “dependency culture,” they advocated free enterprise, individual responsibility, and self-reliance. Neoliberalism has enjoyed greater influence in Anglo-Saxon countries than in Scandinavia or continental Europe. Even within the Anglo-Saxon world, the degree to which the welfare state has actually been “rolled back” has been constrained by the organizational interests it continues to nurture, by popular support for its key institutions, and by changing political leadership. However, even cuts at the margins can have a profound impact upon sections of the population, often the most vulnerable, and may bring into question the solidarity principle upon which the postwar welfare state was constructed (Rhodes and Mény, 1998: 1–3). The pressures arising from the advent of globalization may be having a wider and longer term impact. Financial globalization, in particular, has all but terminated the closed national economies upon which the Keynesian welfare state depended. The inter-related objectives of full employment, progressive taxation, and high levels of public expenditure have been largely abandoned as policy goals (Mishra, 1999: 5–28). The free movement of capital has reduced the autonomy of the national state by restricting its scope for economic management and limiting the degree to which it can implement “market-correcting” policies (Rhodes and Mény, 1998: 1). There is now a perceived trade-off between social security and economic growth, as between equality and efficiency (EspingAnderson, 1996: 3–4). In this context, all states have sought to trim welfare entitlements and introduce selectivity and targeting in welfare provision. The degree of policy convergence should not be exaggerated, however. While all welfare states are facing similar pressures as a result of globalization, how they respond to these pressures will depend upon the pre-existing institutional nature of the welfare regime (Esping-Andersen, 1996; Rhodes, 1998; Ferrera, 1998). As Ferrera noted in his study of the four “social Europes,” the configuration of the welfare state in a particular national context serves to “filter” common socio-economic challenges and determine the direction that welfare reform will take (1998: 88–93). The emergence of neoliberalism within the state and the development of globalization beyond it are not entirely distinctive phenomena. Globalization was fostered by institutional changes such as the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the creation of the International Monetary Fund. In turn, such changes, instigated by the national states most influenced by neoliberalism, facilitated capital mobility and the emergence of multinational corporations. As Piven noted, ideology can be a powerful force generating the institutions which subsequently shape our experience. In this case, “a hegemonic ideology supporting the necessity and inevitability of the free movement of capital and goods helped create the institutional conditions which then contributed to making the free movement of capital and goods a reality” (Piven, 1995: 112). Thus, as well as posing very real and concrete challenges to the state’s capacity for economic management and
110 Nicola McEwen welfare provision, globalization is also an ideological phenomenon, and its neoliberal bias is reflected in the policy goals of its institutions (Rhodes and Mény, 1998: 2–3; Mishra, 1999: 6–7; Piven, 1995). Where neoliberalism within the state led some governments to prioritize cuts in inflation and tax over the objective of full employment and welfare expansion, so globalization privileges the reduction of debt and deficits over public expenditure. Although the response to the globalization challenge varies between states, globalization may be undermining the social solidarity that postwar welfare systems helped to maintain. This places constraints upon the capacity of the state to promote national unity and secure territorial integrity through the symbolism and services of the welfare system. Mishra suggested that “if the incentive for and prospects of nation-building through collective social provision are weaker in today’s world, it is mainly because of globalization” (Mishra, 1999: 14). The full extent and impact of the globalization challenge may remain to be seen, but the impact of neoliberalism may prove instructive here. Where neoliberal ideas assumed prominence, the curtailment of welfare entitlements and provisions had a number of consequences for social and national solidarity. It weakened the degree of social and economic protection that the postwar welfare state had offered; it undermined the symbolic power of the welfare state as the embodiment of the nation; and it reduced the presence and relevance of the state in meeting the social and economic needs of its citizens. Such changes can have a significant impact upon territorial politics in multinational states. In nations within states where a significant nationalist movement advocates autonomy or independence, welfare reform and retrenchment diminishes the continued appeal and security offered by national states and, as such, may weaken an attachment to the state by a territorially bounded national minority. In turn, the uncertainty and risks associated with enhanced sub-state autonomy may diminish; where there is less to lose, a change in the structure of the state, and ultimately independence from it, may be presented as a viable and preferable alternative (see McEwen, 2001, for an analysis of this process in Scotland and Quebec). Wolfe and Klausen blamed the recent emergence of identity politics, including territorial politics, for undermining the welfare state by compromising the common culture and sense of national citizenship which made welfare states possible (Wolfe and Klausen, 1997). Yet, it is precisely in multinational states that the protection and security offered by systems of state welfare may contribute to promoting the idea of a social nation throughout the state territory, which can rest alongside a sense of identification with a cultural-historical nation within the state. Moreover, in the face of a territorial challenge to the integrity of the state, the economic and social security guaranteed by the welfare state could be contrasted with the insecurity of enhanced sub-state autonomy or secession. Conversely, where that economic and social security is weakened or withdrawn, we might expect a corresponding weakening in attachment to the national state, as well as a diminution of the costs associated with constitutional change. A retreat from state welfare may thus weaken part of the symbolism which gives the state its national character, and as a consequence, it may weaken the solidarity it portrayed
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and promoted. Rather than representing one of the causes of the challenge facing the welfare state, as Wolfe and Klausen argued, the emergence of sub-state nationalism may thus be one of its consequences. From this perspective, the coincidence of globalization and sub-state regionalism and nationalism becomes easier to comprehend. Inasmuch as globalization limits the autonomy of the national state, it has also limited its capacity to accommodate territorial minorities within existing political and institutional structures. Where the state can no longer guarantee protection from market forces, or resources to meet social and economic needs, the national state as a focus of identity and loyalty is weakened (Keating, 2001: 20–6). At the same time, globalization opens up new opportunities for sub-state nations and regions to exert influence on the international stage (Rhodes, 1996: 164–7). The reduction of international tariffs and barriers to trade and the development of international economic institutions such as NAFTA and the WTO (as well as international security and defence organizations like NATO) may have strengthened minority nationalist movements by reducing the perceived costs of self-government (Keating and McGarry, 2001). European nationalist and regionalist movements can also point to the additional economic and political security offered by the European Union, which represents a framework within which a smooth transition to greater autonomy or independence may take place.
Sub-state welfare regimes in the era of globalization Within state welfare regimes, a common national identity and territorial solidarity contributed to legitimizing redistributive policies and made possible the exchange between equality and economic efficiency (Keating, 1996: 20–1; Miller, 1995: 71–3). Social and national solidarity were, in turn, reinforced by the symbolism and services of welfare states that recognized social rights and met social and economic needs (McEwen, 2001). When such rights are denied and services withdrawn in the face of neoliberalism and globalization, social and national solidarity is weakened, contributing in some cases to increased demands for territorial autonomy at the sub-state level. Thus, globalization has coincided with, and may have fostered, sub-state nationalism. It has also gone hand in hand with a process of decentralization in most advanced capitalist states. Sometimes, this has assumed the form of a functional decentralization, inspired by the center, while in other cases, it has been in response to sub-state territorial demands (Keating, 1996: 20). The degree of decentralization and the powers afforded to sub-state governments differ between states, but it is now common for sub-state governments to assume some responsibility for the social welfare of those they serve. This intensifies the disassociation of state welfare from the national state, giving rise to the development of distinctive sub-state welfare regimes. Yet, substate welfare regimes face the same internal challenges to the maintenance of a welfare state system, and must also operate within the confines of the changing international order. If state welfare systems have had difficulty surviving in the face of globalization, are sub-state welfare regimes sustainable?
112 Nicola McEwen Hirst and Thompson noted that small highly internationalized states, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, were able to adapt to the changing international order without compromising their generous systems of welfare provision. In part, they suggest, this was due to the high degree of solidarity evident within these societies. Social solidarity can be nurtured by welfare states that promote social inclusion and an equality of status between their citizens. It may also encourage citizens to make sacrifices in periods of economic difficulty, and strengthen the capacity of governments to adapt to external pressures without fundamentally undermining the welfare system (Hirst and Thompson, 1999: 169–80). Similarly, where sub-state territorial governments represent communities that share a common sense of identity and belonging, they can draw upon a strong degree of social solidarity to nurture the collective action necessary to the successful management of the welfare regime in the face of external and internal pressures. According to Latouche, there is also a growing acceptance that local and regional frameworks of economic governance are more efficient than state systems, as smaller territorial economies may be more easily directed, better integrated, and better able to resist and take advantage of the vicissitudes within the global economy (Latouche, 1998: 185). Indeed, even in the context of economic globalization, business can benefit from being enmeshed in a network of co-ordination and co-operation between firms, government, and labor. Such “institutional thickness” reinforces the sense of trust among the partners, and facilitates negotiation and compromise between them (Hirst and Thompson, 1999: 273; Rhodes, 1996: 169). Networks of this kind may be more easily maintained in small, solidaristic nations, whether or not they enjoy independent statehood. Yet, sub-state governments do not have the same tools at their disposal as do small states such as the Netherlands and Denmark. The autonomous power of sub-state governments differs across states, but although they may have much responsibility for the development and maintenance of social services, they usually lack the fiscal autonomy and borrowing powers enjoyed by nation-states. In the context of UK devolution, for example, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly have extensive responsibility for social policy, but few fiscal or revenue-raising powers and, consequently, no powers over redistribution or borrowing. Moreover, as Piven argued, in the context of globalization, sub-state governments may be more sensitive to the political pressures from the business community for increased flexibility, lower taxation and lower public spending, because they are more vulnerable to the threat of disinvestment in an era where capital is increasingly mobile, and “when even a single corporate relocation can devastate an entire community” (Piven, 1995: 114). The extent to which sub-state welfare regimes can survive and develop in the context of globalization may depend on a number of factors unique to each case. These include the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the government, the nature of the economy and its dependence on inward investment, and the degree of social corporatism evident within the society. The political strength and ideological motivations of the government also have a part to play, though even social democratic governments are contending with issues of retrenchment and expenditure restraint.
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Much of the globalization literature emphasizes the degree of international “inter-connectedness” and interdependence of economies, institutions and political actors (see Jones, 1995). As well as coinciding with a degree of decentralization within the state, globalization has increased the economic and political interdependence between states. Sub-state governments do not exist in isolation from the new international order, and it seems plausible that they would be subject to the same pressures and necessities of a greater inter-connectedness with institutions and actors beyond their boundaries. Somewhat ironically, then, in the era of globalization, the management of sub-state welfare regimes which emerged as a consequence of decentralization may necessitate an intensification of intergovernmental relations, inhibiting sub-state autonomy to some extent. Such intergovernmental relations need not be confined to the national state, however. Within the European Union, for example, there is increasing cooperation between sub-state regions across states. The European Commission has also promoted regional development, and EU structural funds have opened up new development opportunities and additional resources to sub-state regions and nations within decentralised systems (Rhodes, 1996: 165–7). The European Union is itself developing a role in social policy, evident in initiatives such as the Social Chapter of the Treaty on European Union, and the Working Time Directive limiting the maximum weekly hours EU citizens may be expected to work. The European Court of Justice has also used its authority to impose requirements upon member states, for example, to ensure their social policies are compatible with labor mobility objectives and to secure entitlements to health care and social security for EU citizens throughout the Union (Leibfried and Pierson, 1995: 43– 77). The development of social policy within and beyond the state compels state and sub-state governments alike to manage welfare systems within a multi-tiered polity.
Conclusion Welfare states survived the onslaught of neoliberalism, albeit in some cases with battle scars, in the form of reduced welfare entitlements and increased targeting in service provision. Whether the welfare state can survive globalization remains to be seen. In all states, issues of expenditure, welfare curtailment, and selectivity are on the agenda, although states are responding to these challenges in different ways. Reducing welfare entitlements and departing from universal provision is likely to have consequences for social inclusion and social solidarity. Within multinational states, a weakening of social solidarity can also have territorial implications, fueling the demand for territorial autonomy. Social solidarity may be more easily maintained within sub-state nations that share a strong sense of common identity and a mutual sense of belonging. However, sub-state governments are not immune from the challenges of globalization. They are facing similar pressures and contending with the same spending and resource issues as national states. Quite how they respond to these challenges is a question for empirical research in individual and comparative case studies. However, the maintenance and development of sub-state welfare regimes will inevitably take shape within
114 Nicola McEwen the context of the increasing inter-connectedness that the new international order typifies. This may generate new economic and political opportunities for sub-state governments to forge connections and alliances with governments and institutions beyond the state, but it may also pose a challenge to the autonomy sub-state governments enjoy.
References Banting, K.G. (1987) The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism, 2nd edn, Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Brass, P. (1991) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison, London: Sage. Deutsch, K. (1966) Nationalism and Social Communication, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press. Esping-Andersen, G. (1996) “After the golden age? Welfare state dilemmas in a global economy,” in G. Esping-Anderson (ed.), Welfare States in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies, London: Sage, pp 1–31. Ferrera, M. (1998) “The four ‘social Europes’: between universalism and selectivity,” in M. Rhodes and Y. Mény (eds), The Future of European Welfare: A New Social Contract? Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 81–96. Gellner, E. (1983) Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge: Blackwell. Gough, I. (1979) The Political Economy of the Welfare State, London: Macmillan. Guibernau, M. (1996) Nationalisms: The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Polity Press. Held, D. and McGrew, A. (2000) The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (1999) Globalization in Question, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hoover, K. and Plant, R. (1989) Conservative Capitalism in Britain and the United States: A Critical Appraisal, London: Routledge. Jones, R.J.B. (1995) Globalization and Interdependence in the International Political Economy, London: Pinter Publishers. Keating, M. (1996) Nations Against the State, New York: Macmillan Press. Keating, M. (2001) “Nations without states: the accommodation of nationalism in the new state order”, in M. Keating and J. McGarry (eds), Minority Nationalism and the Changing International Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 19–43. Keating, M. and McGarry, J. (eds) (2001) Minority Nationalism and the Changing International Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press. King, D.S. (1987) The New Right, Politics, Markets and Citizenship, London: MacMillan Education. Latouche, D. (1998) In the Wake of the Affluent Society: An Exploration of Post-Development, London: Zed. Leibfried, S. and Pierson, P. (1995) “Semi-sovereign welfare states: social policy in a multitiered Europe,” in S. Leibfried and P. Pierson (eds), European Social Policy: Between Fragmentation and Integration, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, pp. 43– 77. Lister, R. (1997) Citizenship, Feminist Perspectives, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
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McEwen, N. (2001) “State welfare nationalism: the territorial impact of welfare state development in Scotland and Quebec,” unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. Mann, M. (1987) “Ruling class strategies and citizenship,” Sociology, vol. 21, pp. 339–54. Marshall, T.H. and Bottomore, T. (1992) Citizenship and Social Class, London: Pluto Press. Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mishra, R. (1999) Globalization and the Welfare State, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Piven, F.F. (1995) “Is it global economics or neo-laissez-faire?” New Left Review, no. 213, September–October, pp. 107–114. Renan, E. (1990 [1882]) “What is a nation?”, reprinted in H.K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration, London: Routledge. Rhodes, M. (1996) “Globalization, the state and the restructuring of regional economies,” in P. Gummet (ed.), Globalization and Public Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 161–80. Rhodes, M. (1998) “Globalization, labour markets and welfare states: a future of ‘competitive corporatism’?” in M. Rhodes and Y. Mény (eds), The Future of European Welfare: A New Social Contract?, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 178–200. Rhodes, M. and Mény, Y. (1998) “Europe’s social contract under stress,” in M. Rhodes and Y. Mény (eds), The Future of European Welfare: A New Social Contract?, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 1–19. Scholte, J.A. (2000) Globalization: A Critical Introduction, London: MacMillan. Storper, M. (1997) The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy, New York: Guilford Press. Taylor-Gooby, P. (1996) “The response of government: fragile convergence?” in V. George and P. Taylor-Gooby (eds), European Welfare Policy: Squaring the Welfare Circle, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 199–218. Turner, B. (1992) “Outline of a theory of citizenship” in C. Mouffe (ed.) Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship and Community, London: Verso. Williams, F. (1989) Social Policy: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press. Wolfe, A. and Klausen, J. (1997) “Identity politics and the welfare state,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 231–55.
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Sub-state strategies in an era of globalization and the information technology revolution Earl H. Fry
Globalization implies a growing interdependence and interconnectedness among nations and people (Held et al., 1999: 2).1 It suggests that events which transpire or decisions taken outside individual nation-states may have a noticeable impact on the daily lives of the average citizen, whether that person lives in an urban or rural setting. The combination of globalization and unprecedented technology change will have a growing influence on governance within nation-states for decades to come, and will greatly complicate the foreign and domestic decisionmaking process. In addition, sub-state or non-central governments within nationstates, especially those within federal systems, are facing major governance challenges, both as a result of international and national regulations which are being imposed upon them, and pressures from globalization which will prompt them to accelerate their own international activities in order to protect and enhance the interests of their constituents. This chapter will highlight some of these governance issues, with a particular focus on the relationship between the United States and Canada.
Globalization and the information technology revolution Globalization There are a variety of dimensions to globalization, which may be defined in basic terms as a growing interdependence and interconnectedness among nations and people in general. Most of the dimensions are self-explanatory, such as growing interdependence in resources, energy, the environment, and economics. Others are not so apparent, such as the rapid growth in international crime syndicates or the globalization of disease. In the latter case, for example, roughly 30 new diseases have emerged over the past two to three decades, including HIV/AIDS, the Ebola virus, hepatitis C, and the flesh-eating version of Group A streptococcus. In addition, older diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera have gathered renewed strength and have reoccurred in nations once thought to have eradicated these threats to human life. Diseases once localized have now spread globally, largely as a result of the record movement of people across national borders and record international trade in goods (Kassalow, 2001: 6–7). In view of the spread
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of new and old diseases across national frontiers, the US National Intelligence Council has warned that this will complicate US and global security over the next two decades, and these diseases “will endanger U.S. citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests” (Kassalow, 2001: 6). Economic globalization is manifested in the record levels of the cross-border movement of goods, services, capital, technology, and people. Annual world trade in goods is about US$6 trillion, with trade in services adding another US$1.5 trillion. The volume of world trade increased from an index of 2 in 1950 to 175 in 2001 (computed in current dollars), and, in recent years, crossborder trade has been growing at a rate almost three times faster than the aggregate growth in national economies (WTO, 2002). The year 2001 was an exception to this rule, with the volume of trade actually declining modestly for the first time since 1982. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is defined as an investor or company in one country either instaling a new facility or buying control of an existing company in another country. Most FDI is in the form of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rather than “Greenfield investments” such as building a new car assembly plant abroad. Trans-border M&A activity exceeded a record US$1 trillion in 2000, and both short-term and long-term investment flows more than doubled between 1995 and 2000. This M&A activity fell back to US$ 594 billion in 2001, but was still very robust by historical standards. The lion’s share of FDI is made by transnational corporations (TNCs). Roughly 65,000 TNCs currently operate 850,000 foreign affiliates. These affiliates employ 54 million workers worldwide and account for US$19 trillion in annual sales, far more than total global trade in goods and services (UNCTAD, 2002: 1 and 4). Without any doubt, one of the distinguishing features of globalization in the twenty-first century, especially when compared to the period of “internationalization” between 1870 and 1914, is the key role played by TNCs. Not only do these TNCs make most direct investments, but they also account for one-tenth of the world’s GDP and one-third of world exports (UNCTAD, 2002: 1). Furthermore, one of the heaviest concentrations of intra-firm trade (defined as trade between units of the same TNC) occurs in North America, with 67 percent of Canada–US merchandise trade and 63 percent of Mexico–US trade being intrafirm (Mataloni and Jorgason, 2002: 37). The international movement of people for business, tourism, and immigration purposes has never been higher, with almost three million people crossing national borders daily, triple the level of 1980 (Foreign Policy, 2001: 57). Roughly 693 million tourists traveled internationally in 2001 and spent US$463 billion, down slightly from the previous year but up dramatically from the 457 million travelers and US$264 billion in expenditures recorded in 1990 (World Tourism Organization, 2002). The transfer of money internationally has also accelerated dramatically, with daily transactions in foreign-exchange markets approaching US$2 trillion.
118 Earl H. Fry The IT revolution Revolutionary advances in communications and transportation are increasingly negating the importance of distance, space, and national boundaries. One of the chief accomplishments of the information technology (IT) revolution is the creation of cyberspace which allows a person anywhere in the world to communicate with a potential audience of hundreds of millions of people in other parts of the world within the blink of an eye. It also means that the nearest competitor to a business, which local governments depend on to create jobs and pay taxes, is less than a second away in cyberspace. The dominance of market systems around the globe, combined with extensive deregulation and privatization, has also diminished the capacity of governments to protect and enhance the interests of their constituents. As an illustration, with the growth in the internationalization of production, roughly divided into eight-hour segments beginning in Asia and the Pacific, then moving on to Europe and Africa, and winding up in the Americas, TNCs have the ability to shift jobs to low-wage countries or other nations which provide special advantages. However, workers who previously held these jobs are rarely themselves transferred, meaning they may wind up looking for new employment. For example, more than 100 US firms now out-source their software code cutting to sites in India, where the work is completed and then returned overnight through electronic networks (Neef, 1998: 3). Some customerservice centers are also being transferred to India and other developing nations; so that the friendly “this is Susan Sanders” telephone greeting directed at North American homes may actually be an Indian employee phoning from 8,300 miles away (New York Times, 24 March 2001). In his treatise on globalization, Richard Longworth calls it “a revolution that enables any entrepreneur to raise money anywhere in the world and, with that money, to use technology, communications, management, and labor located anywhere the entrepreneur finds them to make things anywhere he or she wants and sell them anywhere there are customers” (Longworth, 1998: 7). The IT revolution is accelerating this globalization thrust. The combination of globalization and the IT revolution is also accelerating the battle between Aplace and space and intensifying the impact of what Joseph Schumpeter calls “creative destruction.” This phenomenon is dramatically affecting businesses, workers, localities, and households. In the United States, about 600,000 businesses are created every year, but another 550,000 to 600,000 terminate operations during the same period (US Small Business Administration, 2001). Roughly 30 percent of US workers experience annually significant changes in their employment conditions, meaning their job has been newly created, terminated, or the job description significantly altered. Communities may also be affected quite differently as a result of major economic and technological transformations. Silicon Valley enjoyed a ten-fold increase in jobs between 1980 and 2000, while at the same time metropolitan areas such as Detroit, Newark, and St Louis suffered wrenching losses in manufacturing jobs. With the recent bursting of the “new economy” bubble, Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate has now reached almost 8 percent, well above the US and California averages, and
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far above its 1.3 percent unemployment rate in December 2000. Indeed, the Los Angeles region, which suffered a disproportionate loss of jobs during California’s painful recession of the early 1990s, now has an unemployment rate below Silicon Valley’s.2 In Canada, provincial and municipal fortunes differ significantly from one end of the country to the next, with Alberta’s per-capita GDP almost twice as high as Newfoundland’s. Between 1996 and 2001, three of the ten provinces and two territories actually lost population. Over 50 percent of new immigrants to Canada choose to settle in only one metropolitan area, Toronto, while most provinces and municipalities have immigration flows far below their percentage of Canada’s population. Canada has also been transformed into one of the most urbanized nations in the world, with almost 80 percent of the population living in urban areas with at least 10,000 inhabitants (compared with 54 percent urbanized in 1931). Although residing in the world’s second largest territorially nation, over half of Canadians have sequestered themselves in just four broad metropolitan regions, most of which are within close proximity to the border with the United States: Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe region of southern Ontario, Montreal, Vancouver and the lower BC mainland, and the Calgary– Edmonton corridor. Households may also be dramatically affected by globalization and rapid technological changes. Homes whose occupants have university degrees tend to have better paying, more secure jobs than those without post-secondary diplomas, but even those with degrees have been hurt by the recent downturn in the hightech sector. Many residents of Canada and the United States are apprehensive about globalization, perceiving it as facilitating the transfer of local jobs to lowwage developing countries. They also have second thoughts about the IT revolution where the information base may be doubling every half dozen years and workers may have to be retrained several times during their careers (echoing the words of Jeremy Rifkin that a major challenge in the twent-first century will be the ability to learn, unlearn, and then relearn). Many household residents are concerned that they, their children, or grandchildren, will not be able to keep pace with the rapid changes occurring in the information age and may eventually be counted among the digital have-nots instead of the digital haves. These apprehensions, combined with specific concerns which many Canadians harbor about becoming too closely integrated with the US, mean the issue of future bilateral economic relations becomes much more convoluted. Furthermore, the future course of the bilateral relationship will certainly have significant repercussions for the national government, provinces, cities, neighborhoods, households, and individuals alike.
Globalization and its impact at the local level Much attention has been paid to globalization and the IT revolution, but relatively little to a key third leg of the twenty-first-century tripod, urbanization. In 1800, fewer than 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities of more than 20,000
120 Earl H. Fry inhabitants. This number finally reached 25 percent in the mid-1960s, and then catapulted to 40 percent in 1980 and almost 50 percent by the year 2000 (United Nations Habitat Project). This trend has been mirrored in the United States with urban dwellers as a percentage of the total population almost doubling during the twentieth century. In 2001, 50 metropolitan areas had populations exceeding one million (up from 41 in 1990), 82 metro areas surpassing 500,000, and 260 topping 100,000 (US Census Bureau, 2000). The nation is now four-fifths urbanized, with almost three-quarters living in metro areas larger than 250,000 residents. With the lion’s share of export activity, foreign direct and portfolio investment, business creation and destruction, and the settlement of immigrants occurring within urban centers, much of the impact of globalization is being felt within municipalities. As a classic example of the churning and rapid change currently in process, New York City’s population grew by about 1 percent per year during the 1990s, but this gradual increase masked very dramatic demographic fluctuations as about one-seventh of the population exited the city, only to be replaced by an equal number of overseas immigrants. During that same decade, a major “white” flight occurred in 71 of the nation’s 100 largest cities, with non-Hispanic whites now being a majority in only 52 of these cities, down from 70 in 1990. In contrast, almost four million Hispanics moved into these same cities over the past decade.3 Whether in economic, social, or demographic terms, what is occurring within America’s cities echoes Bill Gate’s remarks about “punctuated chaos.” Gates, who has predicted that the key word for the first decade of the twenty-first century will be velocity, and who expects more change to occur in the business arena during the current decade than occurred over the past half century, asserts that previous economic cycles were marked by long periods of stability followed by short periods of industry-wrenching change; in other words, “punctuated equilibrium.” Today, he counters, “the forces of digital information are creating a business environment of constant change. This is constant upheaval marked by brief respites” – punctuated chaos (Gates, 1999: 411). Most of this chaos will be centered in the nation’s metropolitan areas.4
Sub-state strategies in the world economy States and municipal governments in the United States and much of the northern tier of nations are making an effort to maximize the benefits of a globalized economy and minimize the negative consequences. In an era of globalization, sub-state governments in several federations have decided that they must be actively engaged in the international sector in order to protect the interests of their local constituents. In most federal systems, international trade, investment, and tourism now represent a record percentage of overall jobs. For example, roughly one in six full-time jobs in the US private sector is linked to the global economy, and in Canada the number is one in three. Indirectly, even more jobs are tied to the international economy because import penetration is at record levels and local companies must compete in their own domestic marketplace against goods
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and services originating abroad. Over 99 percent of all private-sector jobs in the United States are provided by small businesses, defined by the US government as having fewer than 500 employees. Of the 25 million businesses which currently file tax forms in the United States, 5.8 million employ at least one worker, 9.9 million are owner-only (self-employed) firms, and the remainder may be classified as other (US Small Business Administration, 2000). Because such a large percentage of sub-state government revenues is generated from local business activity generated by small companies, these governments consider that it is imperative to be engaged both nationally and internationally. Secondly, the intrusiveness of the international level into the sub-state level is also prompting activism on the part of subnational governments in federal systems. International or regional agreements entered into by their national governments, such as membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union (EU), or the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), have also intruded into areas of responsibility constitutionally mandated to these subnational governments. This intrusiveness limits policy prerogatives at a time when state, provincial, Länder, or other subnational governments are increasingly engaged in a range of activities which overlap the local, national, and international arenas. The expansion of subnational government involvement in the international arena is impressive. In the United States, four states maintained offices abroad in 1970, compared with 42 states and Puerto Rico which currently operate 240 foreign offices in more than 30 different countries. Many governors and big-city mayors lead at least one international mission annually, and state governments allocate about $100 million per year to their international programs, in addition to pledging billions of dollars in grants, loans, or tax holidays to foreign companies setting up subsidiary operations on American soil. On a proportional basis, the Canadian provinces have more offices opened overseas and spend appreciably more on international programs than their counterparts in the United States (Fry, 1998: 68–78). German Länder, Swiss cantons, and Australian states are among the other subnational governments in federations which have been actively engaged in international activities, as well as some subnational governments in unitary systems such as France and Japan. In all likelihood, these international pursuits sponsored by subnational governments will increase in the future, a reflection of their own growing professionalism and revenues, their continued concern with representing the interests of their local constituents, the steady proliferation of intermestic issues that have both domestic and international implications, and the inextricable march toward globalization and regionalism.
Conclusion “Think globally and act locally” has been the traditional rallying cry for subnational governments to be actively engaged in the international arena. Within federations, this rallying cry can either be quite productive or somewhat disruptive, depending on who is allowed to participate and whether or not the interaction among
122 Earl H. Fry governments is generally cooperative or generally confrontational. As Peter Drucker emphasizes, “all institutions have to make global competitiveness a strategic goal. No institution, whether a business, a university or a hospital, can hope to survive, let alone to succeed, unless it measures up to the standards set by the leaders in its field, anyplace in the world” (1999: 61). The public sector at the subnational governmental echelon must be transformed more rapidly than ever before, and governance must adapt dramatically to the imposing challenges to be found in an era of globalization and the IT revolution. Without any doubt, this transformation process will be extremely arduous and will greatly test the acumen of leaders at the national, sub-regional, and municipal levels.
Notes 1 These authors suggest that “globalization may be thought of initially as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual.” 2 Unemployment statistics are for October 2002. LA County’s jobless rate was at 6.1 percent and California’s overall rate 6.4 percent. 3 Census 2000 data and Brookings Institution interpretation of this data reported in the New York Times (30 April 2001). Non-Hispanic whites now constitute 44 percent of the population in the nation’s 100 largest cities, compared with 52 percent in 1990. More than two million whites exited these cities over the past decade. 4 A good source of information about how municipalities are coping with globalization is found in the “mapping globalization” project sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP). The project provides case studies of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and Utah’s Wasatch Front (the region around Salt Lake City). Information about these projects can be found at www.pacificcouncil.org.
References Cusimano, M.K. (ed.) (2000) Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda, Boston, MA: Bedford and St Martin’s Press. Drucker, P.F. (1999) Management Challenges for the Twenty-first Century, New York: Harper Business. Elazar, D.J. (1994) Federal Systems of the World, 2nd edn, Harlow: Longman. Foreign Policy (2001) “Measuring globalization,” January and February, pp. 38–51. Fraser, J. and Oppenheim, J. (1997) “What’s new about globalization?” McKinsey Quarterly, no. 2, p. 172. Fry, E.H. (1998) The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in US Foreign Affairs, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Fry, E.H. (2002) “Québec’s relations with the United States,” The American Review of Canadian Studies, 32, Summer, pp. 323–42. Gates, B. (1999) Business @ the Speed of Thought, New York: Warner Books. Gordon, M.C. (2001) Democracy’s New Challenge: Globalization, Governance, and the Future of American Federalism, New York: Demos. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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International Trade Administration, US Department of Commerce (2002) “Top 20 Suppliers of Petroleum Products to US in 2001,” available on the ITA Website www.ita.doc.gov. Kamarck, E.C. and Nye, J.S. Jr (2002) Governance in the Information Age, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Kassalow, J.S. (2001) Why Health is Important to U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Council on Foreign Relations. Keohane, R.O. and Nye, J.S. Jr (1977) Power and Interdependence, Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Longworth, R.C. (1998) Global Squeeze, Chicago: Contemporary Books. Mataloni, R.J. Jr. and Jorgason, D.R. (2002) “Operations of US multinational companies,” Survey of Current Business, 82, March, pp. 25–54. National Academy of Sciences (US) (2000) “Emerging infectious diseases from the global to the local perspective: workshop summary,” available on the NAS Website www.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf. Neef, D. (1998) “The knowledge economy: an introduction,” in D. Neef (ed.), The Knowledge Economy, Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann. Nye, J.S. Jr (2002) The Paradox of American Power, New York: Oxford University Press. OECD Observer (2002) Supplement I, “Foreign born population 2000”. Reisen, H. (2002) “Tobin tax: could it work?” OECD Observer, May. Rosecrance, R. (1996) “The rise of the virtual state,” Foreign Affairs, 75(4), July–August, pp. 45–61. Sassen, S. (1998) Globalization and its Discontents, New York: New Press. Staeheli, L.A., Kodras, J.E. and Flint, C. (eds) (1997) State Devolution in America, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Statistics Canada (2002) Statscan Website, www.statcan.ca. UNAIDS/WHO (2002) “AIDS Epidemic Update”, www.unaids.org UNCTAD (2002) World Investment Report 2002: Transnational Corporations and Export Competitiveness, www.unctad.org. UN Habitat Project (2002). Web page www.unhabitat.org. UN Population Division (2002). “Number of world’s migrants reaches 175 million mark,” Web page www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm. “World population prospects: the 2000 revisions,” Web page www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm. US Department of Commerce (2002) “Tross state products, 2000,” Web page www.commerce.gov. US Census Bureau (2002) Census 2000 Data. Web page www.census.gov. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2002) Web page of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention www.cdc.gov. US Council of State Governments (2002) Web page www.csg.gov. US Small business Administration (2001) “Small Business Economic Indicators 2000”. Web page of SBA/APE www.sba.gov. Wieczorek-Zeul, H. (1998) Opening speech of the Conference on the Reform of the Financial Sectors, Deutsche Stiftung für Internationale Entwicklung. World Bank (2002) “DGPs of nation-states 2001,” World Bank Web page www. worldbank.org. World Tourism Organization (2002) WTO Web page www.world-tourism.org. World Trade Organization (2002) World Merchandise Export Volumes, 1950–2001, OMC Web page www.wto.org.
124 Earl H. Fry
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Identities and new state strategies
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Multiple identities and global meso-communities Luis Moreno
Modernization brought about the idea of all-embracing state national identities rooted in both cultural and civic axes. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, such identities are openly questioned and have become problematic. While being corroded by the forces of globalization they are also subject to fragmentation, competition, and overlapping elements of a multiple and diverse nature. Unquestionably, there is a noticeable strengthening of sub- and supra-state identities. The discontinuity and dislocation of social arrangements provide that different identities relate to each other in quite an unpredictable manner. As a matter of fact, citizens face a situation of advanced modernity with a degree of perplexity. They have discovered new horizons in the understanding of their own collective and individual life within a climate of uncertainty and rapid change. To a large extent, all these transformations have been accentuated by the telecommunications innovations. In plural societies individuals are tied to cultural reference groups that might be in competition among themselves. This results in a multiplicity of socio-political identities, dynamic and often shared, which not always are expressed explicitly. Therefore, identity markers are malleable and the intensity of their manifestation greatly depends upon contingent circumstances (Barth, 1969; Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983; Brass, 1991; Cohen, 1992). For social scientists a considerable problem arises in establishing boundaries and degrees to citizens’ self-identification, and in interpreting those causes for politicization and mobilization related to territorial identities (Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990). In fact, identities are shared to various degrees by individuals as they are subject to constant internalization by group members (Melucci, 1989; Giddens, 1991; Smith, 1991; Greenfeld, 1992). The interaction between the local and the global, the revival of territorial identities, and the increasing incidence of the meso-level in contemporary life concentrate the primary interest of this chapter. The focus on territoriality should not be considered as the neglect of other forms of functional identity politics also affected by globalization (class, gender, or religion). However, in this chapter the main area of analysis concerns identity and territory, and the spatial context of reference is in most instances that of the European Union. A theoretical review of the concept of multiple identities precedes a reflection
128 Luis Moreno on the implications of globalization, the extension of market values, and the relative loss of power and influence by the nation-state. The third section focuses on the growing role played by the global meso-communities in the context of the European Union. This development seems to be in line with a trend towards what can be labelled as a new cosmopolitan localism, which seeks to make the general and the particular politically compatible.
Dual and multiple identities in compound polities The revival of ethnoterritorial identities has coincided with an increasing challenge to the centralist model of the unitary state. In plural polities,1 decentralization, federalization and subsidiarity seek to accommodate a response to the stimuli of the diversity or plurality of the polities involved. These comprise groups and countries with differences of language, history, or traditions, which are often reflected in different party systems, channels of elites’ representation, or articulation of interests (Keating, 1998, 2001; Moreno, 1999; Safran and Maiz, 2000; Loughlin, 2001). There is a growing attachment of citizens to communities at local and mesolevel. By meso-communities we refer to those sub-state polities situated in a somewhat equidistant position between the nation-state (be it unitary or multinational), transnational regional bodies (APEC, EU, MERCOSUR, NAFTA), and other international frameworks (GATT, IMF, OECD, WB, WTO). Territorial identities associated with these communities have provided new political underpinnings for citizens and groups. Arguably, some “small” nationstates, which are already integrated in transnational contexts of governance as the EU, and which have “lost” substantial powers as former sovereign unitary states, could also be included in the meso-level category for the simplest reason of their size and their societal homogeneity (e.g. Denmark, Finland, Ireland, or Luxembourg).2 Citizens in multinational and compound national states3 often incorporate in variable proportions both sub-state/ethnoterritorial4 and state/national identities. The degree of internal consent and dissent in these plural polities has in the concept of dual identity or compound nationality a useful methodological tool for socio-political interpretations.5 Dual identity citizens within multinational states share their institutional loyalties at both levels of political legitimacy with no apparent fracture between them. The task of identifying and measuring the notion of dual identity is far from simple. The changing nature implicit in such a duality greatly complicates matters. Thus, positive perceptions about the intervention of the national state by individuals in sub-state stateless nations or regions can result in a loosening of their self-ascribed local identities with a corresponding reinforcement of their sense of membership within the national state, and vice versa. Changes of degree in one or the other components of the dual identity are produced according to subjective perceptions, often collectively shaped. In fact the reinforcement of one identity upon the other may well result in the complete disappearance of
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such a compound nationality. Arguably, this could have been the case for some groups living in countries subject to processes of de-colonization, ethnic cleansing, or sectarian political violence (e.g. Commonwealth dominions, ex-Yugoslavia, or Northern Ireland). The existence of this compound nationality in some European countries has had an institutional correlation in the setting up of regional legislatures and governments (e.g. Spain’s Comunidades Autónomas or UK’s devolved administrations). These processes of decentralization of power have not only preserved meso-level identities but have also projected the political aspirations of these sub-state communities, which have given priority to cultural, educational, linguistic, and media policies. The role of these self-governing institutions in the production and re-production of, for example, Basque, Catalan, Scottish, or Welsh identities has been very important (Giner, 1984; Moreno, 1995; Keating, 1996; Guibernau, 1999; Martínez-Herrera, 2002). But supra-national levels of ascription can also integrate both state and substate identities in apparent conflict among themselves. The question remains on whether two or more identities (state national and sub-state), which could be subsumed in one referred to a larger entity (e.g. European), would overcome their possible relationship of incompatibility between them: what could be in a multilevel EU the result of an interplay between exclusive forms of self-identification such as, for example, Basque–Spanish, Corsican–French, Flemish–Belgian, Padanian–Italian, or Scottish–British? The response cannot be simply dismissed as a political oxymoron. In the context of state political arenas, the quest for self-government and home rule by regions and meso-level communities is in full accordance with the variable manifestation of such duality in citizens’ self-identification: the more the primordial ethnoterritorial identity prevails upon modern state identity, the higher the demands for political autonomy. Conversely, the more characterized the state national identity is, the less likely it would be for ethnoterritorial conflicts to appear. At the extreme, complete absence of one of the two elements of dual identity would lead to a socio-political fracture in the pluriethnic state, and demands for self-government would probably take the form of secessionist independence. In other words, when citizens in a sub-state community identify themselves in an exclusive manner, the institutional outcome of such antagonism will also tend to be exclusive. Contemporary liberal thinkers have greatly revitalized the debate regarding individual rights and collective identities.6 Many of them can be labeled as “liberal nationalists” (Tamir, 1993; Miller, 1995). Some have argued persuasively for the case of multiculturalism and the politics of recognition for minorities (Taylor, 1992; Kymlicka, 1995; Walzer, 1997). However, some of their normative analyses insist upon the “improbability” of accommodating distinct societies and ethnoterritorial groups within multinational polities. National and state developments of Québec and Canada can provide analytical cases to reflect upon the moral foundations of asymmetrical territorial accommodation (Gagnon, 2001). In the context of a transnational institutional aggregation, such as the EU,
130 Luis Moreno identity politics and territorial claims face the complex challenge of being accommodated within a multi-tiered framework of governance. In this respect, Europeanization implies a confluence of resources and outputs and comprises countries sharing a somewhat common historical development and embracing values of democracy and human rights of an egalitarian nature.7 If it is certain that we witness a growing attachment to supranational levels of civic membership and institutional development, this process goes hand in hand with a strengthening of meso-level identities. As a result, citizens in advanced industrial democracies seem to conciliate supranational, state, and local identities, which majority and minority nationalisms often tend to polarize. The emphasis on territorial identities and polities showing a significant degree of internal diversity ought not to be placed merely on distinctiveness, but also on those relationships of interaction and congruence. Some authors seem to believe that political accommodation to secure institutional stability in plural societies or polyarchies is almost impossible, and is bound to result in either the break-up of the polity or the consolidation of a type of hegemonic authoritarianism for the maintenance of the state’s unity (Dahl, 1971; Horowitz, 1985). This chapter sustains the view that co-operation and agreement may not only overcome conflicts and divergence within plural polities, but can also provide a deepening of democracy by favouring the participation of citizens at all possible levels of institutional life and political decision-making. Such developments usually fit better in multinational polities where internal ethnoterritorial and cultural diversity are politicized, and territorial accommodation is made possible by decentralized structures of government.8
Globalization, market values, and the nation-state When certain universal visions of human existence were indicating a fusion of both individuality and globality, group affinities have returned to the fore as main protagonists of social life. Alternative views have envisaged a process of transit to a post-modern relativism. Citizens around the world have revived old particularities and communal roots. In this way spatial references multiply so that their social existence can be legitimized through a re-assertion of collective identities. Cultural myths and group affiliations continue to offer a substratum for the management of individual anxieties and aspirations. European societies, in particular, seem to reinforce secular ties of integration within the family,9 or to recreate medium-sized political communities as was the case in the early modern age.10 However, divergent effects resulting from the gradual configuration of the global village advanced by Marshall McLuhan can be observed. In the first place, the globalization and internationalization of trade encouraged by the telecommunication innovations are decisively affecting the economy worldwide, and have brought about a deep restructuring of contemporary capitalism. Other related developments have led some authors to point out that we are witnessing the
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emergence of a net society characterized by the exchange of transactions of an informational nature (Castells, 1997). Nowadays, individuals and groups have immediate access to a wide range of endless data, information, and news generated in the remotest corners in the earth. The integrated networks of personal computers, TV terminals, and web servers allow for a reciprocal and fluid communication between the house or workplace and the multifaceted external world.11 One consequence of these technological developments is a higher degree of democratization in the processes of dissemination and exchange of information. A myriad of facts, including those related to cultures and collectives all over the world are now available to the general public. The “digestion” of such avalanches of information increasingly conditions economic, political, and social activities. The restriction of information and representation images characteristic of power practices in the past has been progressively replaced by the efficient management of overwhelming masses of information produced swiftly and without restraint. The drive towards rebuilding relationships between the in- and out-spheres of human existence is shaped by citizens’ internalization of practicalities and values related to a global context affecting matters of everyday life. Market values of an individualistic and self-interested nature seem to have permeated citizens’ attitudes and perceptions worldwide.12 Identities are in the midst of a process of redefinition, with crucial derivations for political culture, social mobilization, and political institutions. The most important factor in all aspects of globalization can be considered as perception (Strange, 1995). Interpretations claiming that a blurring of local markers would follow the globalizing trends should nevertheless be qualified. Indeed, national economic policies are becoming more and more dependent on external factors and constraints beyond their control (Camilleri and Falk, 1992; Schmidt, 1995). But geographical mobility does not solely affect capital flows. Other production factors are also concerned, such as industrial components and parts manufactured in cheap-labour countries and imported for assembly, marketing, and sale in core industrial countries. International freight and a legion of stateless managers are other factors that are becoming increasingly transnational.13 Financial globalization has meant a transfer of authority and power from the nation-states to the markets. The very patterns of economic competition have to comply with the new rules of global markets and the strategies of transnational corporations. Some authors are of the opinion that global capitalism is deprived of any sense of territoriality. On selecting locations for investment, analysts consider first and foremost the level of profit that they expect to achieve. Indeed, they have a much wider perspective than that determined by purely national interests.14 But there are other crucial elements related to levels of social cohesion, the absence of political turmoil, or the stability of the institutions of the candidate countries which also need to be assessed. Other cultural aspects, such as educational systems or national languages, are important too. Furthermore, the processes of
132 Luis Moreno decision-making for investments are exposed to the input made by the media and opinion leaders, neither of which can be considered territorially “neutral.” National governments still maintain their nominal sovereignty empowering them to negotiate new economic frameworks. At the same time they also bargain with the transnational corporations. However, their economic maneuvering to put forward innovative polices outside global demands is becoming rather limited. Failure of the programs for indicative planning implemented by the first Mitterrand Government in the early 1980s illustrated the “persuasiveness” of the external constraints posed on national sovereignty in the most statist country in Europe.15 Together with the limits posed upon nation-states’ sovereignty by the internationalization of the financial markets, the regions and large cities have also exerted pressure on central governments for decentralization and autonomy. Both actions are having great repercussions on the traditional powers of nation-states. Increasingly, sub-state mesogovernments and local authorities do not require the rationalizing intervention of central bureaucracies and elites. In fact, the rules of the New World Order, Inc. often concern the action and policies of these substate layers of governments. They can activate policies of industrial relocation or attraction of foreign capital without the role of intermediaries at the state’s center. By means of local incentives, urban redevelopment plans, or favouring corporatist agreements with trade unions and industrialists, mesogovernments and metropolitan authorities can have direct negotiations with the transnational corporations involved. As a matter of fact, meso-governments do not restrict their action to the domestic arenas. They tend to project themselves as international actors and regard paradiplomacy as an important activity for the promotion of their interests. Territorial politics in advanced industrialized societies is undergoing a fundamental change with respect to its relationship with the “external.” International processes, globalization and the construction of continental regimes are becoming elements central to the study of regionalism and stateless nationalism (Lecours and Moreno, 2003).
Europeanization, subsidiarity, and multi-level governance Against this background of internationalization, the role played by medium-size polities is acquiring relevance in most aspects of contemporary life. The renewal of community life at the meso-level derives mainly from the combination of two main factors: a growing rejection of state centralization coupled with a strengthening of supranational politics, and a reinforcement of local identities and societal cultures with a territorial underpinning. Mesogovernments are no longer dependent on nation-building programs like those carried out during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their own entrepreneurs, social leaders, and local intelligentsia have adopted many of the initiatives and roles once reserved for the “enlightened” elites, who in the past held the reins of power at the center of their nation-states. Positions of influence are now more evenly distributed in central, meso-level, and local institutions. Furthermore,
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the co-option of regional elites to the central institutions of government is no longer the exclusive route available for “successful” political careers. The supranational framework provided by the European process of convergence brings with it a “new” element of further cosmopolitanism to meso-communities and local institutions. At one point, and in the face of hard economic competition from other world regions, the very idea of a “fortress Europe” was proposed by some analysts. According to this view, the secession from the international world arena would preserve the maintenance of the European welfare regimes. An economic “wall” around EU member states would guarantee the social rights achieved by generations of Europeans. It would also stimulate a balanced growth, which, in turn, would create new employment coupled with job-sharing and the reduction of working time. Immigration would be tightly regulated. Undoubtedly the implementation of this “virtuous circle” would mean a U-turn in the cosmopolitan approach of the European culture and a de-naturalizing change in its value-system. Besides, the current level of Europeanization would render the establishment of a strategy for achieving a monolithic autarchy unfeasible. The very idea of a “fortress Europe” cannot be embraced as a workable scheme, despite pressures produced by an increasing xenophobia in reaction to an intensification of illegal immigration. The common European matrix for human rights of an egalitarian nature should prevent such a development.16 Efforts of Europeanization to build up a macro community of trusts, which would dismantle internal boundaries,17 need to be reoriented towards transfering more responsibilities to the meso-layer of government. Among others, two factors can be identified as having greatly contributed to enhance the significance of sub-state communities: (a) The re-assertion of territorial identities, and (b) The implementation of the principle of subsidiarity. Let us briefly review both elements: The reinforcement of local identities This has provided civil societies with a more participative and active role. Examples in Western Europe are not limited to electoral deviations from national patterns (CiU-Catalonia, CSU-Baviera, Lega-Northern Italy, SNP-Scotland). Social movements and industrialists of the “new economy” have found a more flexible context for action at the regional level. Central state apparatuses are often clumsy and inefficient in dealing with bottom–up initiatives. Medium-size nation-states (Denmark or Finland), stateless nations (Catalonia or Scotland), regions (Brussels or Veneto), and metropolitan areas (London or Berlin)18 are well equipped to carry out innovation policies in a more integrated Europe. In particular, the quest of medium-size communities to run their own affairs and to develop their potentialities outside the dirigiste control of central state institutions is a generalized trend throughout the European Union. Many signs seem to point towards the rise of a European type of communitarianism, which should be regarded as quite distinct from that prescribed in North America for local communities (Etzioni, 1993). In the case of the USA, many of the communitarian experiences may be regarded as reactions to specific social
134 Luis Moreno cleavages and pressing social fractures (the criminalization of social life), as instrumental means of socialization in response to urban constriction (suburban isolationism), or as alternative lifestyles to dominant values (possessive individualism). In this respect, North American communitarianism can be seen mainly as socially defensive.19 In the EU, territorial identities are mainly pro-active. They are not mere mechanisms of response for controlling the informational avalanche generated by the telecommunications revolution. The reinforcement of sub-state territorial identities is deeply associated with powerful material and symbolic referents of the past (culture, history, territories). But they seem to have engaged in a process of innovation departing from a common ground and seeking to overcome the denaturalizing effects of global hypermodernity.20 However, their manifestations do not take refuge in a reactive parochialism. They emerge, therefore, as “project identities” characterized in many instances by pro-active attitudes.21 The principle of subsidiarity This principle was enshrined in the Treaty of European Union of 1992, known as the Treaty of Maastricht. It provides for decisions to be taken transnationally only if local, regional, or national levels cannot perform better. In other words, the preferred locus for decision-making is that closer to the citizen, and as local as possible. State political elites, reluctant to further the process of European institutionalization, interpreted the subsidiarity principle as a safeguard for the preservation of traditional national sovereignty and, consequently, the powers to intervene centrally. Until recent years, the case of the United Kingdom was paradigmatic concerning the refusal by the state-centered elites to implement downwards the rationale of European subsidiarity. According to such interpretations, defended by Thatcherism, the legislative supremacy of Westminster should be preserved from supranational intervention and regulation originated at the “federal” institutions of the European Union. However, the devolution of power from the center of the British state to the constituent nations of the UK, and to amalgamated local authorities like the Greater Council of London, could not be denied on the same argumentative grounds. The process of devolution of powers, which has developed in the UK since the election of New Labour in 1997, can be regarded as the implementation of the subsidiarity rationale tout court.22 The dilemma remains about the role to be played by the English regions in the future governance of the UK within the EU. Subsidiarity favours the participation of sub-state layer of governments in the running of public affairs, although global ones are also included. At the same time, it encourages intergovernmental co-operation on the assumption that the role of national states will be less hierarchical than it has been up until now. Territorial identities would be intertwined in a manner that would express the degrees of citizens’ loyalties towards the various sources of political legitimization: municipalities, regions, nations, states, and European Union. Accountability and
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territorial institutions would consequently reflect the political expression of people’s identities and democratic participation. Immigration from non-EU countries has certainly had an impact on the growing feelings of xenophobia in Europe. Nevertheless, immigrants who are willing to take on the values of civic pluralism and tolerance find no major difficulty of integration in the economic and social life at their first “port of entry,” that is local and meso-communities.
Conclusion: a new cosmopolitan localism The processes of bottom–up transnationalization and top–down devolution of powers have allowed a considerable extension of a type of European cosmopolitan localism. This is reflected in both societal interests, which are aimed at developing a sense of local community and at participating simultaneously in the international context. There is, thus, a growing adjustment between the particular and the general. European cosmopolitan localism mainly concerns medium-sized polities, within or without the framework of a state. In the “Old Continent” it can be detected in small nation-states (Denmark, Eire, Luxembourg), stateless minority nations (Catalonia, Flanders, Scotland), but also in regions (Brussels, Languedoc, Veneto) and conurbations (Berlin, London, Madrid). The latter, in particular, seem to follow a pattern of re-creating those political communities which flourished in the age prior to the New World discoveries (Italian city-states, Hanseatic League, principalities). However, and in contrast with the Renaissance period, there is now a common institutional tie inherent in the process of Europeanization. The majority of the EU peoples have internalized European institutions, albeit rather loosely and gradually. The European Court of Justice and the Schengen Agreement can be regarded as steps advancing firmly towards the very idea of European transnationalization. Democratic accountability and the full involvement of citizens were given priority by Prodi’s European Commission in a statement at the beginning of the millennium (EC, 2000). Territorial subsidiarity and democratic accountability are envisaged in the future European governance as involving the decentralization of day-to-day programs and tasks. The difficulties of implementing transnational policies from Brussels, particularly in the area of traditional national sovereignty such as social welfare,23 were implicitly acknowledged in such a statement. Further to this, the agreement made at the 2000 Nice summit to work out a EU treaty in 2004 based upon a new intergovernmental balance of powers seems to give support to the quest for more extensive decentralization. Europeanization should be regarded as a process of multi-level governance incorporating existing cultural systems and collective identities of both national and sub-national levels. In this way, it would avoid being seen as an exogenous process, which is superimposed on the internal interaction of communities with long-standing cultures and history.
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Acknowledgment I would like to thank the Spanish Secretary of State for Education and Universities (PR2002-0200) for financial support during the writing of this piece of research.
Notes 1 I refer to this notion, of a more general natural, based upon the ancient Greek idea of politeia, understood as a legitimate constitutional political body. Let us recall that most modern nation-states were built during the period 1485–1789. According to Stein Rokkan, the second phase of nation-building, the subsequent processes of mass democratization and the construction of welfare states completed the main four-stage political development in contemporary Europe (Flora et al., 1999). 2 The “No” result in the Danish referendum to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in June 1992, as well as the “Yes” ratification of the same Treaty with opt-outs in a similar referendum held on May 1993, can be regarded as expressions of the uneasiness of this “small and homogeneous” European state in accepting the loss of traditional sovereign powers. The negative outcome of the referendum on the Nice Treaty held in Ireland in June 2001 could also be interpreted, among other considerations, as a refusal of fiscal harmonization within the EU and fear about future majority voting by EU decision-making institutions. However, the referendum held in October 2002 produced a clear pro-EU result. 3 In 1991, Daniel Elazar concluded that nearly 40 percent of the world’s population lived in countries formally self-labeled as federations, while a further 33 percent were states that had adopted federal forms and practices. With the dizappearance of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia such figures should be revised. However, Russia maintained its political organization as a federation. Other countries, such as Belgium, Spain, or South Africa, have joined both sub-categories as federations or federallike countries. 4 By ethnoterritorial I refer to an identity dimension where conflicts and political mobilizations are developed and have as their chief social actors those ethnic groups which possess a geographical underpinning. Such a spatial reference is identifiable within the boundaries of a polity, usually of a compound or plural composition (Moreno, 1986; Rudolph and Thompson, 1992). 5 The example of Spain is illustrative. In all seventeen Spanish Comunidades Autónomas (sub-state regions and nationalities) there is a high proportion of citizens who claim some form of dual self-identification. The question addressed to them in successive polls has been as follows: “In general, would you say that you feel … (1) ‘Only Andalusian, Basque, Catalan, etc.’; (2) ‘More Andalusian, Basque, Catalan, etc. than Spanish’; (3) ‘As much Andalusian, Basque, Catalan as Spanish’; (4) ‘More Spanish than Andalusian, Basque, Catalan, etc.’; or (5) ‘Only Spanish’. In the period October 1990–June 1995 a degree of duality was expressed by around 70 percent of the total Spanish population (i.e. categories 2, 3, and 4). Approximately 30 percent of all Spaniards expressed a single identity (‘Only Spanish’, or ‘Only Andalusian, Basque, Catalan, etc.’)” (Moreno, 2001a). For an analysis of the case of Catalonia see Moreno et al. (1998). In the case of Scotland/United Kingdom, surveys using a similar scale were first carried out in the mid-1980s (Moreno, 1986: 439–41). 6 Already in the 1960s, Glazer and Moynihan (1963) questioned the very nature of the assimilationist melting pot in the USA. In their study on the city of New York, they concluded that prejudice and discrimination among descendants of AfroAmericans, Jewish, Irish, Italians, or Puerto-Ricans were more noticeable than their common features as American citizens. Later on the assimilationist “melting pot” was proposed to be a pluralist “salad bowl.”
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7 However, the concept is far from being precise and clear-cut. It is multi-semantic and subject to various degrees of understandings and interpretations. Europeanization is not a static concept, but a rather dynamic idea to found expression in the gradual development of common institutions in Europe (e.g. Agreement of Schengen, Court of Justice, euro currency). 8 For Juan Linz federalism and federal-like arrangements can consolidate liberal democracy in multinational polities (1997). For an analysis of the process of decentralization and federalization in the case of Spain, see Moreno (2001a, 2002). 9 This is the case in South European countries. In Spain, for instance, three-quarters of secondary education students consider the family to be the principal source of socialization and a locus where “all important things in life are said to be orientations towards future life” (CIS, 1996). In Italy, 93 percent of the respondents in a national survey expressed their trust in the family as compared to 20 percent who claimed to count on the state (La Repubblica, 29 November 2002) 10 As said above, this is particularly relevant concerning major conurbations, regions, stateless nations, and small nation-states. Within the context of the British Isles such typologies can be illustrated with reference to Greater London, the North East of England, Scotland, and the Republic of Ireland, respectively. 11 Immanuel Wallerstein, pioneer in putting forward the world-system approach that emphasizes a global rather than a state-centric perspective (1974), already underlined the growing importance of households as “part and parcel” of the world economy, as a basic unit of production (Wallerstein, 1984). 12 This statement should be qualified regarding popular sentiments held in some European countries where globalization is felt as a flood of ideas representing an increasing alien lifestyle imported from North America. It often happens that globalization and the universalization of the North American experience of deregulation are made synonymous concepts (Fligstein, 1998). 13 Boeing, for instance, decided to drop its labeling as an “American corporation.” Note that the components for their planes are produced in a dozen different countries outside the USA. Other companies take advantage of being a multinational consortium, as is the case of Airbus, the commercial arch-rival of Boeing. 14 William Greider (1997) holds the view that capital movements only take into account the potential level of profits disregarding geographical criteria. In any case, the recent economic crises in Japan and South East Asia seem to corroborate the axiom that the international financial markets are unstable by nature. 15 French governments after the Second World War put into action plans for economic growth. These were to be implemented in a hierarchical manner by the powerful French public sector, and were “indicative” of the industrial priorities to be taken by private businesses. The model worked satisfactorily in the post-war period allowing the French economy to perform at a good level. Right after the Socialist victory in the 1981 General Election, the Mauroy Government attempted a different path to the policies of economic austerity followed by the neighboring European countries. Not long after their initial implementation French economic policies suffered a Copernican turn and were to align themselves with the course of action taken by the rest of the central European economies. 16 Some authors are of the opinion that the latent possibility of rivalries between nation states is always potentially explosive (Chomsky, 1994). 17 Along the lines of Stein Rokkan’s “macro-model of European political development,” the accommodation of cleavage structures forged in centuries of history appeared to be a pre-requisite to any political attempt to dismantle internal boundaries in a supra-national Europe (Flora et al., 1999). 18 Other conurbations, such as those of Madrid and Paris are also recreating local civic cultures alongside their cosmopolitan traditions. Despite the lack of single identities or ethnic uniformities, large conurbations are in a similar position to that of the
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22
23
meso-communities as regards running their own affairs. A different issue is the location of central bureaucracies (or “Eurocracies,” as is the case of Brussels) in their territories. Likewise, some of the officials of the central institutions cannot refrain from having a traditional perception that capital cities are the very representation of the nation-state. Other functional identities linked to various dimensions of social life, such as cultural forms, gender, religion, and individual sociobiological conditions can also be interpreted as new forms of “resistance” (Kilminster, 1997). De-naturalizing is used here to mean the deprivation of the rights of citizenship within an established democratic polity. According to Manuel Castells (1997) “project identities” do not seem to originate from the old identities of the civil societies in the Industrial Age, but from the development of current “resistance identities” against the informational avalanche. This argument is rather circular as regards its territorial dimension. In the case of the USA sub-state spatial identities are not commensurable with the type of collective identities deeply rooted in the Volkgeist of the diverse European peoples. Of special relevance is the issue of state welfare nationalism, developed as nationbuilding policy after the Second World War, and the quest for further autonomy in the area of social policies claimed by devolved parliaments, as in the case of Scotland (McEwen, 2001). This area of social policy-making is highly shaped by local cultures and life styles, and is less likely to be dealt with in a homogeneous and decentralized manner from a supra-national entity (Moreno, 2001b). However, welfare development is increasingly analyzed from a supranational perspective (Kunhle, 2000; Taylor-Gooby, 2001; McEwen and Moreno, 2005).
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140 Luis Moreno McEwen, N. (2001) “State welfare nationalism: the territorial impact of welfare state development in Scotland and Quebec,” unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. McEwen, N. (2002) “State welfare nationalism: the territorial impact of welfare state development in Scotland,” Regional and Federal Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 66–90. McEwen, N. and Moreno, L. (2005) The Territorial Politics of Welfare, London: Routledge. Melucci, A. (1989) Nomads of the Present, London: Hutchinson Radius. Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Moreno, L. (1986) “Decentralization in Britain and Spain: the cases of Scotland and Catalonia,” PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. Moreno, L. (1995) “Multiple ethnoterritorial concurrence in Spain,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 11–32. Moreno, L. (1999) “Local and global: mesogovernments and territorial identities,” in W. Safran and R.R. Máiz (eds), Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Plural Societies, London: Frank Cass, pp. 61–75. Moreno, L. (2001a) The Federalization of Spain, London: Frank Cass. Moreno, L. (2001b) “Europeanization and decentralization of welfare safety nets,” in J. Clasen (ed.) What Future for Social Security? Debates and Reforms in National and Crossnational Perspective, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, pp. 87–100. Moreno, L. (2002) “Decentralization in Spain,” Regional Studies, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 399– 408. Moreno, L., Arriba, A. and Serrano, A. (1998) “Multiple identities in decentralised Spain: the case of Catalonia,” Regional and Federal Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 65–88. Rudolph, J.R. Jr and Thompson, R.J. (1989) Ethnoterritorial Politics, Policy and the Western World, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Safran, W. and Máiz, R. (eds) (2000) Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Plural Societies, London: Frank Cass, pp. 61–75. Schmidt, V.A. (1995) “The New World Order, Incorporated. The rise of business and the decline of the nation-state,” Daedalus, vol. 124, no. 2, pp. 75–106. Smith, A. (1991) National Identity, London: Penguin. Strange, S. (1995) “The limits of politics,” Government and Opposition, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 291–311. Tamir, Y. (1993) Liberal Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor, C. (1992) Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition”: An Essay, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor-Gooby, P. (ed.) (2001) Welfare States under Pressure, London: Sage. Walzer, M. (1997) On Toleration, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wallerstein, I. (1974, 1980, 1989) The Modern World-System, 3 vols, New York: Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. (1984) “Household structures and labour-force formation in the capitalist world-economy,” in J. Smith, I. Wallerstein and H.-D. Evers (eds), Households and the World Economy, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 17–22.
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10 Accommodation in Europe and North America André Lecours
Scholars have often announced the death of sub-state nationalism in Western liberal-democracies (Keating, 1999: 1). In the late nineteenth century, Emile Durkheim argued that functional, not territorial cleavages were to be of foremost importance in politics. In the 1960s, Karl Deutsch saw the advance of “centers” onto “peripheries” as the logical consequence of industrialization, progress and modernity. Of course, these predictions have proven false as there are currently vigorous nationalist movements in Canada (Québécois), Spain (Catalan, Basque, Galician), Belgium (Flemish), the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales), and even France (Corsica), which seek either increased autonomy or independence. Substate nationalism has forced states to develop strategies of management, from accommodation and compromise to assimilation and confrontation. These strategies have differed from case to case, as they have been shaped by the historical, cultural, and institutional features specific to each society. They have also left countries in different political situations. Recently, radical perspectives on globalization have again proclaimed the end of territory (Ohmae, 1994). Scholars should be suspicious of this new prediction about the demise of sub-state nationalism. There is no evidence that nationalist movements in the West are waning; on the contrary, they seem to be surging (Keating, 1996). This does not mean that globalization has no impact on substate nationalism. As a set of processes which weigh on the state, it affects the state’s relationship with the historical communities of distinct cultures that continue to press for political and institutional change. This paper examines the nationalist management strategies of three states (Belgium, Canada, and Spain) and the impact of globalization on them. More specifically, it performs three tasks. First, the paper identifies the key features of these strategies. In this context, it looks at three types of state responses: institutional design, with a focus on the centralization–decentralization and symmetry–asymmetry questions; intergovernmental relations, either between central and regional governments or between the sub-state units themselves; and political practices, either inspired by consociationalism/multinationalism or majoritarianism/integrationism. Second, the paper evaluates the success of nationalist management strategies. For this purpose, I consider three criteria: state survival, civil peace, and the
142 André Lecours quality of inter-community relations. I recognize that these criteria are subjective. Nevertheless, I will try to justify them quickly. The state survival criterion is grounded in the idea that secession almost never solves problems of sub-state nationalism since there is almost always a minority within the seceding group which does not accept the change of citizenship and/or itself seeks secession from the new entity. The second criterion takes violence to be an unwanted political outcome. The last criteria considers that a healthy relationship between communities fosters values of respect, tolerance, and understanding which can only improve the quality of (democratic) life in society. Finally, in its conclusion, the paper looks at how globalization is affecting the forms and effectiveness of nationalist management strategies used in Belgium, Canada, and Spain. It argues that the resilience of the arrangements devised to manage diversity are tested by global processes which diminish state powers of regulation and redistribution, and that their continued effectiveness in this era of change largely depends on inter-community solidarity. This level of solidarity, it is suggested, is a function of the countries’ different historical trajectories as well as socio-economic situations.
Belgium: federalism and consociationalism Belgian politics has been structured by the problème communautaire for most of the last 40 years. Created in 1830, the Belgian state was de facto Francophone throughout the nineteenth century, and remained dominated by French-speakers in the first half of the twentieth century, despite Dutch-speakers (Flemings) being a numerical majority (Beaufays, 1998). The Flemish Movement emerged in the mid-nineteenth century to shape Belgium as a bilingual and bicultural country but, facing resistance from the dominant French-speaking elites, it gradually switched its focus from the whole of Belgium to the predominantly Dutch-speaking territories of the north for which it came to advocate territorial unilingualism. It is in this context that Flemish nationalism emerged as the connection between population, language, and territory led to the articulation of a Flemish nation distinct from the larger Belgian entity (Deschouwer and Maarten Jans, 2001). A Francophone minority reacted to the Flemish Movement by creating and following a Walloon Movement, which also adopted a regional perspective as the model of Belgium as French was disappearing. Unlike the Flemish Movement, the Walloon Movement, which for the better part of the twentieth century excluded Frenchspeakers in Brussels, never really spoke of a “Walloon nation.” Throughout the twentieth century, these movements and the communities they claimed to represent struggled over linguistic rights, political power, and socio-economic positions. From 1970 onward, political actors on both sides agreed (more reluctantly in the case of Francophones) that managing community tensions called for decentralization. Belgium therefore embarked on a process of federalization which culminated in 1993 with the formal transition to a federal system. The Belgian federal model for managing diversity is unique for at least three reasons. First, the number of
Accommodation in Europe and North America 143 policy sectors which have been affected by the federalization process is quite extensive; for example, such matters as international relations and external commerce, which are typically the prerogative of federal governments, are, in the Belgian case, the realm of the federated units (Lagasse, 1997). The scope of this decentralization combined with the Europeanization of other fields (for example, the currency) means that the central state is involved in relatively few fields. The exception is social policy (sécurité sociale) which, uncharacteristically for a federation, has largely escaped decentralization and represents one of the last significant reminders of the Belgian state’s power to act. Belgian federalism is also unique because the division of power is “watertight” and arranged in a non-hierarchical fashion. In other words, the federal and federated levels are fully autonomous within their prescribed fields and their activities rarely overlap. This arrangement has the advantage of providing federated units with unconstrained leeway and of limiting conflicts over jurisdiction. However, it also favors a segmentation of civil society because the organization of groups and movements is structured by their strategic target which, in Belgium, is most often only a federated government. Indeed, the federalization process was accompanied by the split upon linguistic grounds of many trade unions, voluntary associations, and other “civil society” bodies. This, in turn, represents a great handicap for meaningful communication and understanding between the communities. To a large extent, the originality of the Belgian institutional model (its decentralized, non-hierarchical, and asymmetrical structure) stems from the fact that the group seeking to reform the state (Flemings) is dominant numerically and politically. As a consequence, and contrary to Canada or Spain, the voice for the status quo (in the Belgian case, a centralized unitary state) was much weaker than the voice for change. Two political-institutional features, the existence of language-specific political parties and the practice of the double mandate until 1993, also worked to make all politicians, including those operating at the federal level, “regional” rather than (Belgian) national ones (Lecours, 2001). As a result of the dichotomization of politics, the crucial relationships between governments are between the federated units themselves. In other words, intergovernmental relations in Belgium are relations between regions/communities rather than federal–regional relations. It can even be said that tensions are felt in relationships between groups rather than in relationships between governments. In this context, the federal level is not a prominent actor; rather, it most often feels the effect of relations between regions/communities in the form, for example, of state reform. To the extent that there are federal–regional relations in Belgium, they are driven by political parties. Party struggles and compromises are the motor for political relationships in Belgian federalism. The federalization process, both the early and more recent stages, were more the product of negotiations between political parties than the results of bargaining between regions and communities per se. Parties are always able to say that they speak on behalf of territorial units but it is their own logic and agenda which shapes the process of institutional change.
144 André Lecours A central feature of the Belgian approach to the management of majorityminority group relations is consociationalism. Initially developed to regulate relationships between ideological families, consociational practices were later applied to community relations. At the center of the consociational approach is the idea that the majority group will exercise restraint, share power, and accept minority vetoes. Hence, both the Belgian (federal) and the Brussels executives are composed of an equal number of French- and Dutch-speakers despite numerical differences. Several legislative mechanisms (“special laws,” “alarm-bell” procedure) provide the minority group with additional protection. It is these informal practices rather than the more formal institutional arrangements which form the basis of nationalist conflict management in Belgium. To what extent has this management been successful? Belgium’s future, indeed its survival, is uncertain. The state reform process has been peaceful, although quite tense at times. Tensions between communities have decreased since the 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s, although the issue of the 120,000 or so Francophones living in the Brussels periphery is explosive. From a broader perspective, however, the quality of inter-group relationships is quite poor. There is little contact, let alone empathy and understanding, between communities; this is the result of both consociationalism and the structure of Belgian federalism. Some observers would see great merit in Belgium’s decentralized and asymmetrical arrangements, for it seems to satisfy the recognition claims of the two linguistic communities. It should be remembered, however, that Francophones never wanted such major reforms to the Belgian state; therefore, it can hardly be said that both communities received what they wanted from the process of institutional change.
Canada: federalism and nation-building Linguistic duality has been central to Canadian politics since the country’s creation in 1867. In fact, the very choice of a federal model was the result of pressures from French-Canadian leaders who feared that as the minority group within a unitary state it would have to endure political marginalization, cultural assimilation, and religious oppression (Silver, 1997). French-Canadian nationalism had sporadic yet significant influence on politics in Canada in the late nineteenth and during the first half of the twentieth century: it sparked political crises about, most notably, language in schools (the Manitoba school episode), a Métis revolt in the West (the hanging of Louis Riel), and conscription. However, as nationalism in Québec before the 1960s did not articulate demands for political or institutional change, there was no real urgency to develop management strategies other than the 1867 federal framework. With the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, and as demands for increased political autonomy, if not independence, surfaced, federal politicians had to adjust. With respect to the federal framework, these politicians have implemented two different types of strategies (McRoberts, 1997). A first group, led by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, sought to transcend Québec nationalism by
Accommodation in Europe and North America 145 fostering political loyalty to a Canadian nation defined by the principles of bilingualism, biculturalism and multiculturalism, and underpinned by a welfare state with comprehensive social policies. From this perspective, Canadian federalism had to be centralized since an active central state was seen as the main instrument for political integration. Trudeau and like-minded politicians also argued that federalism should be symmetrical, or, in other words, that all provinces should have similar constitutional status and political powers. In addition to being driven by considerations of justice and equality, the symmetrical model of federalism was seen as the most conducive to marginalizing nationalism in Québec. A second group, including former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Lester Pearson, thought that Québec could best be integrated in Canada by accommodating, rather than confronting, this nationalism. From this angle, the Québec claim to limit the ability of the federal government to intervene in fields which are primarily provincial (through, for example, the so-called spending power) was something that could be negotiated. So could claims for a distinct status (asymmetrical federalism) either at the practical level of policy (immigration, pensions, etc.) or at the more symbolic level of the constitution. The workings of Québec City–Ottawa intergovernmental relations are heavily conditioned by political considerations in Québec. The relationship between the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) and federal parties (particularly the Liberal Party of Canada, LPC) is ambiguous. On the one hand, the PLQ puts pressure on the federal government to respond to Québec’s “traditional demands,” partly because it seeks (or, more accurately, has sought) to solve the “national unity” issue and partly because it has to be seen as aggressively defending the province’s interests. On the other hand, the PLQ is careful to avoid full-blown confrontations which could be trumpeted by the PQ as proof that Canadian federalism is inflexible and domineering. When the PQ is in power, there is less coordination of policy and political action, especially if the need for coordination stems from new federal programs or initiatives. For example, the Social Union, a framework for intergovernmental relations in the area of social policy constructed in 1999 and agreed upon by all provinces except Québec, was denounced by the PQ in these terms: “Le gouvernement fédéral (tente) de s’approprier les compétences du Québec dans les domaines tels l’éducation, la santé, la famille, la sécurité du revenu et l’aide au démunis. Cette prise en otage de nos politiques sociales menace directement notre développement social” (Parti québécois, 2000: 160). Then Premier Lucien Bouchard added: Cette “entente” est tellement viciée qu’elle permet à six provinces, représentant aussi peu que 15% de la population canadienne, de lancer de nouveaux programmes sociaux, en plus d’ouvrir toute grande la porte à de nouvelles intrusions fédérales dans les champs de compétence des provinces. Le Québec, qui compte pour le quart de la population du Canada, n’a toujours pas le droit de retrait avec compensation que tous ses gouvernements cherchent à obtenir depuis près de 40 ans. (Bouchard, 2000: 6)
146 André Lecours Canada can hardly be described as a consociational democracy; indeed, its politics follow a rigid majoritarian government–opposition pattern, and compromise and consensus are fairly foreign to its political culture. There are no mechanisms comparable to Belgium’s cabinet parity or language group vetoes. Nevertheless, since the Quiet Revolution federal politicians have developed political practices aimed at accommodating Québec; most importantly is the understanding that Francophones and Anglophones will alternate as Prime Minister (or at least as head of the LPC, which is roughly the same thing!). Although rarely discussed, this practice is probably the single most important one with regard to Québec, for it represents a strong element of inclusion. Ironically, there is, in this respect, a greater willingness to compromise on the part of the majority group in Canada than in consociational Belgium where the Prime Minister has been a Fleming since the 1970s and, in all likelihood, forever will be. Considering the close result of the 1995 Québec referendum on “sovereignty” (virtually 50–50), it is difficult to view Canada as a success of nationalist management. The key question to consider is which strategy led to such a strong showing by the secessionist forces in the referendum. Some would say that this result was the consequence of accommodation tactics with “soft nationalists.” It is indeed true that the immediate cause of the strong support for sovereignty in the early 1990s was the failure of the Meech and Charlottetown Accords but the demise of these deals had more to do with institutional constraints and partisan politics than with the coalition of forces put together by the Progressive-Conservative party (McRoberts and Monahan, 1993). It is more likely that the failure of some federal political elites to consider the politics of accommodation, even in circumstances which seem to call for them and where the prospect for long-term stability appeared great (for example, the Meech Lake Accord), is the more profound cause for the result of the 1995 referendum. Canada represents a more positive case if one looks at civil peace and community relations. Despite high stakes games such as referendums on independence, Canadian politics has remained remarkably under control and the language of politics is more civil than in Belgium where the tone is harshest and the rhetoric more battle-oriented (for example, in the Vlaams Blok’s discourse or during the Fourons political crisis).
Spain: political and institutional open-endedness At the heart of Spain’s contemporary sub-state nationalisms (Basque, Catalan and Galician) is the historical failure of the Spanish state to forcefully integrate its various territorial components and to assimilate its distinct cultures. In fact, these attempts at assimilation, sometimes brutal in the case of the Franco dictatorship, had the unintended consequence of discrediting centralism and the idea of a Spanish nation “one and indivisible” by linking those themes with authoritarianism and repression. In the same vein, Francoism unwittingly legitimized sub-state nationalism and regional autonomy by castigating them as one of the twin evils, along with Communism, therefore conflating them with the broader
Accommodation in Europe and North America 147 forces of democratic resistance. In this context, it was inevitable that Spain’s transition towards democracy would involve some system of decentralized political power which, with the brief exception of the Second Republic, would constitute a dramatic departure from previous management strategies of sub-state nationalism. A crucial feature of the Spanish institutional arrangement (Estado de las Autonomías) is its asymmetrical nature. Asymmetry is constitutionally specified as the Spanish supreme law recognizes the existence of both “historical nationalities” (Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia) and “regions.” It is also political and institutional. Here, the most significant factor in fostering differentiated political and institutional statuses is the open-ended nature of the Spanish framework which remains vague on the level of autonomy that can be acquired by each Autonomous Community (AC). Hence, the two-tiered system of autonomy suggested by the constitutional distinction between “historical nationality” and “regions” is not as straightforward as it seems. “Regions” are not all alike. Some, for example Andalusia, have been quite keen to acquire a level of autonomy close to that of the “historical nationalities.” There are also differences among the “historical nationalities.” Most notably, the Basque Country (along with a “region,” Navarre) enjoys special fiscal powers. As a result of the strong asymmetrical character of the Spanish system, it is difficult to judge its degree of decentralization; indeed, the arrangement is not equally decentralized (or centralized) for everybody. If one uses the fairly standard measures of allocation of power, public expenditure ratios, and autonomous fiscal resources, Spain appears to be a rather centralized federal system (Watts, 1999: 46–7; 126–30). But, of course, Spain is not, in the formal sense, a federation. Interestingly, there has been opposition to formally making Spain a federation: for political actors on the right, and that was especially true during the transition, federalism represents a threat to the unity of Spain; for sub-state nationalists, most notably Catalan leader Jordi Pujol, it implies symmetry and homogeneity, principles which they reject. As was the case for Belgium, relations between the regional units themselves are very significant in Spain. This is largely the consequence of the open-ended nature of the Spanish model where, contrary to Canada and Belgium, major changes need not result from constitutional politics. In other words, political relations between ACs make and remake the political dynamic and the institutional structure of the system (Colomer, 1999: 44–8). The status of the “historical nationalities” has had an effect on the “regions,” some of which (Andalusia, Valencia, the Canary Islands) have actively sought to play catch-up with respect to powers and autonomy. In turn, these three ACs have tried to stay ahead and preserve their political and formal distinctiveness. Relationships between the “historical nationalities” are also important, most notably Catalan claims for increased fiscal independence like that enjoyed by the Basque Country. This complicated web of inter-AC relationships suggests a very competitive type of territorial politics. There are, however, some instances of strategic cooperation. For instance, in 1998, the politicians of the three “historical nationalities” signed a common declaration (Barcelona) and an accord (Santiago) promoting a multinational understanding of Spain. Predictably, presidents of three “regions”
148 André Lecours (Andalusia, Extramadura, Castilla-La Mancha) signed their own declaration (Merida) opposing the claims put forward in the Barcelona and Santiago documents (Harty, 2002: 191–2). Intergovernmental relations featuring the central and AC governments are weakly institutionalized in Spain. There are “sectoral conferences” organized to structure cooperation in various policy areas but they are convened irregularly and often fail to respond to a specific agenda (Moreno, 2001: 139–40). Instead, central–regional relations hinge on a specific element of the political context: the position of the leading party in parliament. In Spain, if a party fails to win a majority of seats, it needs the parliamentary support of nationalist parties which typically ask for increased autonomy and fiscal resources in exchange. As a consequence, the Spanish system evolves quickly in situations of minority governments. Interestingly, both the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and the Partido Popular (PP) have sought the support of nationalist parties when they were unable to form a majority government. From 1993 to 1996, the PSOE governed with the help of the Catalan Convergència i Unió (CiU). From 1996 to 2000, the PP, which had previously decried the socialist reliance on the nationalists, sought support from the CiU, the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (for one year), and the Coalición Canaria. The dynamic is quite different when the leading party has a majority, for concessions are not necessary and not forthcoming. Therefore, accommodation as a general strategy for dealing with sub-state nationalism in Spain is really dictated by the configuration of political forces at a specific point in time; it does not arise from a consociational spirit, as is more the case in Belgium and, to a much lesser degree, in Canada. The Spanish model for accommodating sub-state nationalism as well as political regionalism has been rather successful if only because it has allowed Spain to smoothly undergo its democratic transition. In other words, the constitutional compromise between centralists and sub-state nationalists provided a framework where these two political forces could be reasonably comfortable. Moreover, as this model is rather vague and ambiguous, it fosters a fluid and open-ended political–territorial dynamic. This does not mean that the Spanish Estado de las Autonomías is a blueprint for political instability; on the contrary, it can adapt to change easier than, for example, the Canadian arrangement. Among the “historical nationalities,” the structure of the Spanish system suits Galicia and Catalonia best; the former because its nationalism is not as strong as the other two and the latter because it can play out its dual role of seeking to decentralize Spain while also assuming a leadership position within it. This system proves less satisfactory for Basque politicians and has been unable to curb ETA’s political violence. Therefore, from the “civil peace” angle, the Estado de las Autonomías has not been a success. However, it is difficult to see how, short of independence, the system could be altered to end the violence since the Basque Country already enjoys great fiscal autonomy, although it seeks increased political powers and the recognition of an inherent right to self-determination. The recent outlawing of Batasuna, considered to have close ties with ETA, could conceivably aggravate the violence as it removes a peaceful political channel for radical demands. The other possible scenario is that making Batasuna illegal will deprive radical Basque
Accommodation in Europe and North America 149 nationalism of the resources (financial and otherwise) enjoyed by political parties and, as a consequence, weaken ETA.
Concluding remarks: globalization and nationalist management strategies As I have discussed, Belgium, Canada, and Spain have devised different strategies to manage nationalist movements. How are these strategies affected by globalization or, considering that globalization seems to be gaining rather than losing momentum, to what extent will it undermine established institutional structures and political practices? For the purpose of this analysis, globalization will be understood as a set of processes (the liberalization of trade, the construction of supranational economic and/or political structures, technological advances in transport and communication) whose combined effect is to de-center the state. These processes take from the state some of its traditional ability to regulate social and economic relations, to command loyalty from all its citizens, and to maintain a coherent and unified society. In this context, globalization represents a centrifugal force for all states but particularly for multinational ones which are already subject to pressures from their various components. Of the three cases discussed here, Belgium is the country whose nationalist management arrangements are the most vulnerable to globalization. Two elements make the Belgian situation precarious. First, Flemings, who form the majority group, are net payers. In other words, policy formulated at the center which involves redistribution (for example, in the area of social services and social protection) rests primarily on the economic strength of Flanders. Second, intercommunity solidarity is very low in Belgium. In fact, Flemings, who were really second class citizens in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, tend to have a negative, rather than simply a neutral view of Francophones (McRae, 1986: 96). They display very little desire to help rebuild the poorer Wallonia or even preserve existing social arrangements which, if they were decentralized, could not in all likelihood be kept intact by Francophones alone. The forces of globalization are clearly contributing to the Flemish drive for a quasi-independence. Flemings are buoyed by a thriving economy in synch with current technological realities. They look positively at the EU without seeing themselves as dependent upon it, and they typically can communicate in several languages. Flemish leaders have always seen the Belgian decentralized arrangements of the day as only temporary, that is, as leading to more decentralization. They increasingly speak, and that is now the case of the traditional Christian-Democrat powerhouse CD-V (Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams), of a confederal model. They are currently pushing towards a decentralization of part of the social safety net which still rests within the central state (Poirier, 2001: 161). Therefore, Belgian federalism will continue undergoing important mutations in the near future. It is not impossible that this push towards confederalism, or for now, towards the “federalization” of social security, will jeopardize Belgium’s consociational practices. Indeed, Francophone parties oppose this idea and could conceivably refuse to form a government with their Flemish partners, although they have in the past shown
150 André Lecours themselves willing to make concessions about federalization in exchange for increased financing for their institutions. Nevertheless, the Flemish proposal to wrest social policy away from the central state certainly presents the potential for a major political crisis which could effectively destroy the Belgian system for managing relations between communities. Canada’s management structures are more likely than Belgium’s to resist the tide of globalization for at least two reasons. The first is the fact that, as one of ten federated units, Québec cannot impose, short of declaring itself independent, fundamental changes in the federal structures or in the way politics is conducted at the center. Also, other provinces, or English-speaking politicians more generally, have shown no signs of challenging the prominence of Francophone Quebeckers in federal politics, a key accommodation practice. The federal government (currently Liberal) does adopt, partly in reaction to the perceived threat of globalization to the social and political unity of the country, policies in areas where Québec expects to be sole policymaker. It thus pursues a nation-building strategy rather than defer to linguistic/national communities as is the case in Belgium. This being said, it is unclear whether the status quo in Canada’s accommodation strategies will suffice in bringing political stability to the country (indeed it has not in the past), although current changes in Québec’s political landscape, most notably the rise of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) which seeks to transcend the sovereignist/federalist cleavage, could help. The second factor which makes Canada’s arrangements more durable than Belgium’s is the nature of intercommunity relations: while solidarity is not very strong, feelings of bitterness between Francophone Quebeckers and English-speaking Canadians are not comparable to those between Flemings and Francophones in Belgium. In this context, a major difference with Belgium is that Québec, unlike Flanders, is not the wealthiest federated unit, and that it gains from the country’s equalization payments. As such, a more telling assessment of inter-community solidarity in Canada will come when/if Québec becomes a net payer in the federation. The impact of globalization on Spanish arrangements is more difficult to evaluate because of the fluidity of the system. On the one hand, this fluidity may favor smooth adjustments to global processes. On the other, it may take the country down a path of fragmentation which would break down existing arrangements. Here it is useful to distinguish between Catalonia and the Basque Country. Catalan leaders, more specifically Jordi Pujol, have often stated that the future of their community is inextricably linked to both Spain and Europe. Although at the helm of a wealthy region, they have never seriously questioned solidarity transfers. In this context, it is unlikely that global processes would lead Catalonia to adopt a position of retrenchment. The Basque case is different. Basque nationalists are clear that they want to have as little to do with Spain as possible. The special fiscal regime enjoyed by the Basque Country (and Navarre) accentuates feelings of distinctiveness and exceptionalism. As a consequence, relationships with the rest of Spain are thin. Moreover, as a result of political violence, these relationships are mainly negative. Although violence is condemned by Basque parties and the bulk of Basque civil society, it is often explained away. For example, whereas
Accommodation in Europe and North America 151 Spanish politicians favour taking a hard line towards political violence by outlawing Herri Batasuna, Basque leaders defend the party’s right to exist and to participate in electoral contests as demonstrated by a petition put together by the Basque religious establishment. The tense nature of relations between the Basques and Spain can only make more potent the de-centering effects of globalization forces.
References Beaufays, J. (1998) “Petite histoire d’un jeune État binational,” in M. Martiniello and M. Swyngedouw (eds), Où va la Belgique? Les soubresauts d’une petite démocratie européenne, Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 15–30. Bouchard, L. (2000) Discourse at the Conseil national du Parti Québécois, February 5. www.vigile.net/00–2/laval-bouchard.html. Colomer, J. (1999) “The Spanish ‘state of autonomies’: non-institutional federalism,” in P. Heywood (ed.), Politics and Policy in Spain, London: Frank Cass, pp. 40–52. Deschouwer, K. and Maarten Jans, T. (2001) “L’avenir des institutions, vu de Flandre,” in A. Leton (ed), La Belgique. État fédéral en évolution, Bruxelles: Bruylant, pp. 209–26. Harty, S. (2002) “Royaume d’Espagne,” in A.L. Griffiths and K. Nerenberg (eds), Guide des pays fédérés, Montreal and Kingston: Forum of Federations and McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 183–92. Keating, M. (1996) Nations against the State. The New Politics of Nationalism in Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland, London: Macmillan. Keating, M. (1998) The New Regionalism in Western Europe. Territorial Restructuring and Political Change, London: Edward Elgar. Keating, M. (1999) “Regions and international affairs: motives, opportunities and strategies,” in F. Aldecoa and M. Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action. The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments, London: Frank Cass. Lagasse, C.-E. (1997) Le Système des relations internationales dans la Belgique fédérale, Bruxelles: CRISP, 1549–550. Lecours, A. (2001) “Political institutions, elites, and territorial identity formation in Belgium,” National Identities, vol. 3, pp. 51–68. McRae, K. (1986) Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies. Belgium, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. McRoberts, K. (1997) Misconceiving Canada. The Struggle for National Unity, Don Mills: Oxford University Press. McRoberts, K. and Monahan, P. (eds) (1993) The Charlottetown Accord, the Referendum and the Future of Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Moreno, L. (2001) The Federalization of Spain, London: Frank Cass. Ohmae, K. (1994) The End of the Nation-State: The Rise of Regional Economies, New York: The Free Press. Parti québécois (2000) Programme du parti québécois, Quebec: Parti québécois. Poirier, J. (2001) “Pouvoir normatif et protection sociale dans les fédérations multinationales,” Canadian Journal of Law and Society, vol.16, pp. 137–71. Silver, A.I. (1997) The French-Canadian Idea of Confederation 1864–1900, Toronto: University of Toronto. Watts, R. (1999) Comparing Federal Systems, Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations and McGill-Queen’s University Press.
152 William Safran
11 Ethnonational minority identities in France William Safran
Postwar challenges to Jacobinism One of the most enduring legacies of the French Revolution has been the Jacobin doctrine of the unity and indivisibility of the nation. Under this doctrine, intermediaries of all kinds – religious, territorial, professional, and cultural – have been rejected as destructive of the direct connection between the people and the state. It is no wonder that French republican tradition has had some difficulty in accepting the concept of “ethnonational minority.” Officially, France does not acknowledge the existence of minorities on its soil; this is particularly true of ethnic groups, which have been regarded as basic forms of social organization in traditional societies rather than modern ones. The designation “national” applies to the citizens of France as an indivisible political community. If the term “ethnic” is used here, it is to refer to a concrete reality: social groups that are defined by characteristics that are neither “tribal” nor necessarily political. Ethnic “origins” are accepted; ethnic existential identity is not – at least not yet completely. The banning of associations (d’Allarde and Le Chapelier laws of 1791); the disestablishment of religions; the centralization of government; the institution of a national educational system; and the imposition of a common language – all these were measures introduced at various times in order to promote national unity. The measures were successful: ethnic identity weakened; the use of regional minority languages was dramatically reduced; and much of what remained of ethnic collective consciousness was relegated to the realm of folklore. Immediately after the Second World War, the articulation of ethnoregional identities was taboo, largely in reaction to Nazi attempts in occupied France to play on the vestigial ethnoregional sentiments of the Alsatians, Bretons, and Flemings. In the past generation, the ethnic reality has reasserted itself, and its articulation is increasingly accepted with the realization that it is social and cultural, and (with the exception of Corsica) not associated with political mobilization leading toward separatism. This development can be attributed to a variety of factors: 1
French republican history was tarnished, and the French commitment to its mission civilisatrice was challenged, by the country’s colonial behavior, the Vichy regime, torture in Algeria, and close relations with a variety of dictatorial regimes.
Ethonational minority identities in France 153 2
3 4 5 6
7
8
9
France’s claim to the purveyor of a universalizing ideology was challenged by the realization that it no longer has monopoly of secular republicanism, and it is not the only country whose language is associated with democracy and progress. The relatively sudden influx of non-European and non-Christian immigrants in large numbers threatened the assimilation machinery with overload. Unemployment and increasing violence led to a quest for scapegoats and the growth of racism. The realization that the centralized nation-state cannot solve all problems was reflected in the growth of supranationalism. European integration and globalization led to an “invasion” of French national culture, notably by the Americans and peoples of the Third World, challenged the cultural monism of France and threatened to undermine traditional conceptions of French identity. The guilty conscience of French intellectuals about France’s colonial record caused them to defend threatened ethnic groups in the Third World, an effort that led them to embrace the notion of “internal colonialism” a leftist application of the experiences of Third World indigenous peoples to the situation in the Hexagon, and generated an interest in restoring the identitive legitimacy of France’s own “ethnonations” (Lafont, 1967; Hechter, 1975; Geisser, 1997). The quest for various kinds of autonomy, which developed especially after the May 1968 events, led to a growing interest in decentralization, a process that, especially since the early 1980s, put new life into the provinces and gave them new decision-making responsibilities, including decisions over cultural matters. European norms regarding the protection of minority rights were introduced to supplement the existing rights of individuals.
Furthermore, both the reassertion of the ethnic identity of indigenous minorities and the “re-ethnification” of immigrant minorities have been a form of reactive behavior. In the case of the Occitans, Bretons, and Corsicans, the recovery of ethnic cultural identity was associated with the fight against economic oppression and class injustices (Safran, 1984). Non-indigenous minorities have not been forcibly ghettoized, expelled, or dispatched to death camps (except for the “historical parenthesis” of the Vichy state); but they have been mistreated in other ways. Jews have been the objects of antisemitic slurs by political leaders; Beurs have suffered from economic marginalization and, more recently, ethnoracial “profiling;” Vietnamese children have been sent to inferior schools, and West Indian and other Blacks have been the targets of racism.
The cultural-linguistic dimension The debate about the recognition of ethnonational minority identities has revolved primarily around language and, more specifically, around three issues:
154 William Safran (1) language as expressing the essence of a culture; (2) the fact that since the construction of national unity was achieved, and is being maintained, largely by means of the French language, its continued superordinate position must be assured; (3) the acknowledgment that the languages of indigenous ethnoregional minorities were a part of France’s cultural patrimony and as such deserved protection. Some leaders of the Revolution of 1789 had distrusted mininational cultures; this distrust was reflected in the widely cited remark, attributed to Barère and Grégoire, that “Federalism and superstition speak Low Breton; emigration and hatred of the Republic speak German; counter-revolution speaks Italian; and fanaticism speaks Basque. Let us break these instruments of damage and error” (cited in de Certeau et al., 1975: 295). But this opinion was not shared by all the revolutionaries; many of them, while stressing the importance of the French language as a vehicle of revolution, did not specifically intend to suppress minority languages. This broad view was embraced later on by Ernest Renan, for whom membership in the national community was not determined by language as much as by sharing national political values and a commitment to a common fate. Even Jules Ferry, the initiator of the national centralized school system, argued in a circular in 1880 that “in order to be appreciated, the schools must use local preferences and bow to local circumstances and traditions” and that the objective of the centralized school was not to make regional languages disappear but to get all French children to learn French so that they would become “republican, children of 1789” (Poignant 1998: 7; Ozouf, 1996). In 1925, Anatole de Monzie, the minister of public instruction, declared that “for the linguistic unity of France, the Breton language must disappear;” and in 1978, the French representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, asserted the following: France cannot recognize the existence of ethnic groups, whether minority or not. As far as religion and a language other than the national one is concerned, the French government recalls that these two domains do not come under public law, but belong to the domain of the private exercise of public liberties by citizens. Its role is confined to assuring the latter their full and free use within a framework defined by law and in [the context of] respect for the rights of everyone. The French government, finally, must note that the use of local languages may under no circumstances constitute a criterion of identification of a group for purposes other than scientific. (Héraud, 1990: 35) This reasoning explains the opposition of France to article 27 of the International Treaty on Civil and Political Rights: “France is a country in which there are no minorities, [and therefore the Treaty] cannot apply to the French Republic” (Journal officiel, 1 February 1981). Only 20 years ago, Anthony Smith, a scholar of nationalism, wrote of the “total failure of the Basques, Catalans, [and] Bretons … to win any form of recognition” (Smith, 1983: 214).
Ethonational minority identities in France 155 Yet there was a hesitant official acknowledgment of the ethnoregional reality in the twentieth century, embodied in a continuing series of measures beginning with the Deixonne Law of 1951 to the present. Not much happed thereafter; throughout the period of the “trente glorieuses” – the three decades following the end of the Second World War – most of the attention of decision-makers focused on economic development. With the election of François Mitterrand to the presidency, the recognition of the “droit à la différence” became official doctrine. Sparked by the propositions of the PSU and Socialist Party’s 110 Propositions pour la France, and following the recommendations of the Giordan Commission (Giordan, 1982). The Mauroy government in the mid-1980s inaugurated programs for ethnocultural minorities, among them the following: governmental subventions of the teaching of ethnic languages, among them Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, and Occitan; and provisions for the training of teachers of these languages; the support of ethnic museums, theaters, and literary projects; and the convocation of a National Council for Regional Languages and Cultures in 1986. This council has not been abolished, but it has hardly met again since then. These initial steps were followed by a succession of laws, ordinances, and policies relating to ethnic minority languages, among them the following: the Savary Circular (1982–3), the Destrade bill (1984), the Loi d’orientation of Jospin (1989), the Bayrou Circular (1995) reaffirming the commitment of the state to protect regional languages as an essential part of the national cultural patrimony (Grau, 1985; Safran, 1989). The application of these laws has been uneven, depending upon changes in government and the economic situation. Much of the evolving tolerance by the public authorities toward ethnic languages must be attributed to the conviction that their availability would serve to satisfy the quest of the minorities for the legitimation of their culture and would have little more than symbolic significance. According to a poll of 1995, 81 percent of respondents said they understood the Corsican language and 73 percent wanted to see their children learn that language (Guillorel, 2000: 71); but in 1997 only 6,887 were enrolled in lycée and college classes studying that language. The enrollment in courses in one or another regional language has grown steadily and now amounts to more than 500,000 at various levels, but that figure represents only 2 percent of the total school population. In the eyes of most French political and intellectual leaders, the risk that policies favoring ethnic-language policies would undermine French unity was increasingly perceived as minimal. Nevertheless, these policies touched upon sensitive cultural nerves. Of particular concern was a concern about the fate of the French language, already under attack from abroad. To face this attack, the Toubon law (1993) sought to purify the French language and to protect it against Anglo-Americanisms by a substitution of French neologisms for Anglicisms or franglais (Safran, 1999). This law, however, part of which had already been modified by the Constitutional Council, was never seriously implemented. The Toubon was an attempt to assuage the cultural insecurity especially of humanist intellectuals, who worried about the rapid influx of English words into the French language. They argued that in the interest of linguistic and cultural
156 William Safran pluralism on a European and global scale, special efforts must be made to protect the position and purity of the French language and for that reason internal challenge to its dominance posed by France’s regional languages should be prevented. This explains the amendment to the Constitution (Article 2) to the effect that “the language of the Republic is French” as well as the opposition to the ratification of the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1992. The refusal to ratify the charter was justified in terms of that new constitutional provision. The stance of political leaders did not help; Jean-Pierre Chevènement, an uncompromising enemy of ethnocultural pluralism, opposed any public support of minority languages as a matter of principle; in 1996, President Chirac declared himself in favor of the charter, and in 1999 reiterated his support of regional languages, but he has temporized, depending on the political climate in France. The threat to French does not come from the regional languages, nor is their promotion likely to undermine the political unity of the country. The three reports on regional languages submitted to Prime Minister Jospin in 1998 (Poignant, 1998; Péry, 1998; Carcassonne, 1998) all seem to agree on this matter. They favor the ratification of the charter for several reasons, including the absence of significant popular opposition. According to a poll (IFOP, 2000), 82 percent of the French favor it. They admit that the Council of State, in an opinion rendered in 1996, had raised questions about the constitutionality of the charter and about the use of regional languages in official business; at the same time, they agreed that a ratification of the charter would be compatible with the French constitution, or could be made compatible, perhaps by the addition to the stipulation that “la langue de la République est le français” the phrase “dans le respect des autres langues historiques de France” (Péry, 1998). In a juridical assessment, Guy Carcassonne (1998), a prominent constitutional theorist, evokes as a possible model (for the use in administrative and judicial proceedings on the mainland) a phrase in the 1996 organic law on Polynesia, which stipulates that “French being the official language, the Tahitian language and other Polynesian languages may be used.” In appointing the Péry Commission, Jospin pointed out that “regional languages are a treasured resources of our cultural patrimony. [and that] … the time is past when a State could consider that the teaching of these languages would … threaten national unity.” The argument that the cultivation of ethnic minority languages would lead to a breakup of France is met with the assertion that most of these languages are not limited to a specific geographical space, but diffused throughout France (e.g. Breton outside Brittany) and its overseas territories and are spoken even in foreign countries (e.g. Creole in various places in the West Indies) and therefore lack the demographic density and contiguity to promote separatism. For these reasons, ethnic minority languages do not conflict with the constitutionally asserted primacy of the French language within the Hexagon – as long as they do not replace the use of French in official business. Language diversity is an element of “cultural citizenship” does not aversely affect “republican citizenship,” especially since culture is increasingly supranational and global.
Ethonational minority identities in France 157 Moreover, the support of regional languages has a practical dimension. “Why not upgrade the standing of [these] languages as privileged transborder links for the diffusion of our common and universal values? Corsican toward Italy, Breton toward … the whole Anglo-Celtic region, Alsatian toward the Germanic world, Occitan, Catalan, and Basque toward the autonomous communities of Spain” (Péry, 1998). Some of these languages – Flemish, Catalan, Basque, Alsatian, and German, its written form – are “transborder” languages, which are “supported both by the regions [in France] and neighboring countries where the number of speakers is important. These [languages] enable the inhabitants of different countries to understand each other.” And since France’s orientation is becoming increasingly Eurocentric, why not encourage French people living near the borders of the country to speak their regional languages, making it easier for them to work, shop, or visit friends in a neighboring country? “Regional languages and French are friends … internally and allies externally” (Poignant, 1998: 2, 5, 9). This new thinking signals the changing position of border provinces. For example, Alsace was once considered a bridgehead of Germany in attempts to extend its influence into France by encouraging the diffusion of the Alsatian dialect – especially under the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. Today, however, Alsatians are regarded as loyal French citizens; the vast majority of them are Francophone, and the Alsatian dialect is spoken mostly by the older generation in rural areas.1 In the spirit of European integration, Alsace as a neighbor of Germany is seen by the French government not as a threat but an opportunity – not as encouraging separatism, but as facilitating trade between the two countries (Chirot, 1996); and for that reason, Alsatians engaged in commerce are encouraged to learn the appropriate language, which in this case is High German. In 1996–7, 80,000 students were taking courses in High German as a regional language in Alsace and the Department of Moselle (Poignant, 1998: 19). But there was no evidence that that fact contributed to developments: un favor of separatism or any other kind of political mobilization.
Secular and religious dimensions of French identity Although admitting that the revival of ethnic identities is unlikely to lead to the destruction of the French state, much of the country’s elite continues to be beset with cultural insecurity. This is nourished by the increasing complexity of French society, a function not of the assertion of infranational identities but of immigration. The belief that France will soon cease to be French (Raspail, 1985) is not so much based on the fear that people will cease to speak French as on the conviction that France will cease to be secular (Club de l’Horloge, 1985) – that among selected minorities, notably the Muslims, an ethnonationalism would develop that would have political implications insofar as it contained values incompatible with the secularism of the Republic. Some observers suggest that this argument is academic – that laïcité was betrayed independently of the mass immigration of Muslims (Vallet, 1996). They refer to the official celebration of the 1500th anniversary of the baptism of Clovis, Chirac’s visit to the Vatican, his
158 William Safran expression of hope to “strengthen the thousand year bonds between France and the throne of St Peter,” and his assurance to the pope of France’s “fidelity to its Christian heritage, its spiritual and humanitarian vocation … its origins, the sources of its culture and civilization,” and his promise to “pursue and nourish fruitful relations … between Church and the State” (Decamps and Tincq, 1996). Laïcité, a major element of Jacobinism, had already been undermined by a number of policies, including Sunday closing laws and public holidays based on the Christian calendar, the public funding of clergy in Alsace and Moselle regime, and the Barangé and Debré laws providing for the subventions of parochial schools (Safran, 2002). The Catholics allocated much more time for Sunday religious programming than other religions; and classes in public schools held in many communes on Saturdays put observant Jews and Muslims at a disadvantage. The argument that certain manifestations of religion – such as the cross on cupola of Panthéon, the secular “temple of the Revolution” – are merely de-theologized relics of the national patrimony is specious.
Varied facets of ethnocultural pluralism Despite French reservations about cultural pluralism, there are many indications of its growing acceptance. These include, inter alia, the freedom parents have in giving their offspring names that are not listed on the calendar of saints or are not even French; markers at tourist sites in Perpignan in French, Catalan, and English; the staging of Breton folk festivals; and the building of ethnic museums and archives.2 Cultural pluralism has been increasingly found in the electronic media as well. In 2000, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audovisuel asked a private television channel to institute a minimum quota of programs that would “better reflect the diversity of origins and cultures that make up the contemporary French [national] community.” At the same time, Catherine Tasca, then minister of Culture, suggested that the government introduce a bill to require public TV channels to move in the same direction (“Des quotas ethniques à la télévision,” Le Figaro, 30 May 2000). There is as yet no American-style affirmative action favoring one or another ethnic minority group. Yet the ideological barrier against “discrimination positive” has been broken, with special admissions of students from slum areas to SciencesPo in Paris and with the legislation providing for gender parity in the nomination of candidates for elective office. There is also an emerging interest in a selective treatment of Harkis, French citizens of Arab origin who served in the French army. They had been marginalized economically and little had been done to facilitate their integration. In 1997 an appeal was issued, signed by a number of prominent non-Harkis, including personalities of the right and the left, calling upon the government to grant reparations to “la communauté harkie [sic], parti intégrante de la communauté nationale” (Libération, 23 December 1997). This wording contrasts markedly with the Constitutional Council’s nullification of the phrase “le peuple corse, composante du peuple français” (contained in a
Ethonational minority identities in France 159 government bill (1990) to grant enlarged autonomy to the island) on the grounds that the French people are indivisible and cannot have subcomponents. In 1981, immigrants were granted the right to form associations; at the same time, Fonds d’action sociale (FAS) were established with government money. The FAS have subsidized the cultural programs of several hundred associations of immigrants in order both “to help them maintain a connection with their countries of origin and to sensitize the host society to the contributions of foreign cultures” (Hannoun, 1987: 137).
Ethnic minorities and national politics Such recognition, although significant, stops short of countenancing focused political identity based on ethnicity, for that would lead to the ethnification of the political process. It would lead to political behavior based on “communitarianism” (communautarisme), which, in turn, would end in the ghettoization of urban areas in which ethnic minorities are concentrated, and, finally, racism and segregation. A further consequence of the “ethnification” of the social system would be that it would strengthen the extreme right (Barou, 1998). Furthermore, France would come to resemble the United States, with its ethnic patronage and ethnic lobbies. In fact, however, there has been a gradual “Americanization” of electoral politics. There are no “ethnic” electoral candidates properly so called; and there is not a single Assembly deputy who is a descendant of African or Maghrebi immigrants. But ethnic lobbies do exist, and have even been selectively encouraged; ethnic parties are found on subnational levels; and politicians implicitly admit the reality of ethnic electoral patterns. The actual behavior of French politicians is often enough at variance with their official Jacobin beliefs. Although denying that ethnic minorities exist, and deploring the existence of ethnic lobbies as un-French, they try to propitiate those lobbies by paying attention to the ethnic communities’ “home countries” for domestic political advantage. This has been especially the case since the election of Mitterrand to the presidency. Even a year before the 1981 presidential campaign, Mitterrand solicited Jewish votes, successfully as it turned out, by participating at a mass rally of Jews (“Douze Heures pour Israel”) and once elected, sponsoring Jewish cultural programs; and undertaking several trips to Israel. Other Socialists followed suit, as did Gaullists and Giscardists, and pre-election “pilgrimages” to Israel followed in quick succession throughout the 1980s (Ravanno, 1986). Early in 2002, Chevènement, the most Jacobin of the presidential candidates, made a trip to Maghreb countries to stress his long-standing friendship with Arabs, ostensibly in the hope of garnering the support of the Arab/Muslim electorate for his candidacy.3 For more than two decades, there have been debates about whether the Jews have been an electoral factor. Due to the fact that Jews in France account for less than 2 percent of the electorate, the Jewish vote was significant only in selected cities and in tight national races; nevertheless, they were an important part of the Socialist electorate, and were a factor in the election of Mitterrand in 1981.4 In order to make inroads into that
160 William Safran electorate, Michèle Alliot-Marie, the secretary-general of the Gaullist party, called for a “reweaving” of contacts with Jewish and Muslim minorities after certain verbal faux pas regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict (Le Point, 17 November 2000: 18). Before the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, Chirac himself visited a number of minority communities in Île-de-France, assuring them of his commitment to pluralism and equality. About a decade ago, Chirac, as mayor of Paris, had made a critical reference to the “noises and odors” of (largely Muslim) immigrants; and subsequently, expresident Giscard d’Estaing had suggested that jus soli be replaced by jus sanguinis, in determining entitlement to citizenship (Giscard d’Estaing, 1999). Such incidents are not likely to recur. In recent years, the Muslim electorate, which is now four or five million strong, has gained in importance. This fact explains the appointment of two individuals of Maghrebi origin to ministerial posts in the Raffarin government. “France Plus,” established in 1985, is essentially organized as an “ethnic” group and thinks of itself as a sort of ethnic lobby, based on its electoral potential (Hargreaves, 1995: 144). A recent reflection of this potential – and of ethnic political pandering – can be seen in an internal memo (circulated within the Socialist party executive) suggesting that the party pay less attention to the Jews and more to the Muslims; the inaction of the Jospin government in apprehending and prosecuting the perpetrators of anti-Jewish violence; and Jospin’s interest in granting non-citizens the right to vote in local elections. At present, the National Assembly does not contain any deputy who was elected on an ethnic basis or claims to speak for an ethnic community.5 There are, however, numerous Muslim municipal councilors, who do not bother to hide their particularist identity and who are members of Muslim or Beur associations. The acknowledgment of the growing presence of Muslims in France on the part of public officials occasionally takes on a religious tone and reflects a foreign-policy dimension. There is a reciprocal relationship between ethnic identity (and ethnic voting) and anti-ethnic attitudes. On the one hand, anti-Jewish pronouncements, the demonization of Israel, and what is interpreted as kowtowing to Arab countries and to the domestic Muslim electorate reinforce the ethnic identity of Jews and results in “defensive” voting; on the other hand, such behavior reinforces the belief among the majority that ethnic identity triumphs over French identity (Stora, 2002) and results in charges of “dual loyalty.”
The impact of supranationalism, globalization, and international politics on identities There is a constant spillover of interethnic conflicts across frontiers, which is made easier by the greater permeability of frontiers associated with the development of the European Union. For example, Basque refugees from Spain, making use of the right of asylum, have settled in France. These include militants who provide sanctuary for ETA activists. The latter have on occasion also found refuge in Breton cities, whose mayors, although not separatists or autonomists themselves,
Ethonational minority identities in France 161 have shown a kind of interethnic solidarity with these Basques, and have complained about the French authorities’ tendency to deliver them up to Spanish justice (Paringaux, 1996). There are ambiguities, however. Basque organizations in Spain have signed agreements with selected politicians of Basque origin in France to help their “northern brethren” maintain radios, schools, and cultural associations in the Basque language; but while the Spanish Basques are highly respected by their co-ethnics in France, many of the latter, primarily rural, are worried that the Spanish Basques are using their economic power to “gobble them up” (Garicoix, 2001). The above instance of interethnic cooperation does not necessarily serve as a model. Notably, it does not apply to the relationship between the two largest ethnoreligious minorities in France: the Maghrebis and Jews. To be sure, the leaders of the two communities, Dalil Boubakeur of the Great Mosque in Paris, and Joseph Sitruk, France’s chief rabbi, occasionally get together and adopt common positions regarding French political values, patriotism, and opposition to violence; but the Arab–Israeli conflict, especially since the onset of the second Intifada, has soured Maghrebi–Jewish relations and led to a growth of antisemitism (especially among the Left) and numerous attacks on Jewish targets. The concern with threats to national identities has acquired new urgency with the spread of global diasporas, which have become a theme of growing academic interest. Transnational identities are fostered by ease of travel, growing commercial and cultural relationships with countries of origin, and dual nationality, and they are considered less “abnormal” than used to be the case. Supplementary or “double” identities were once a matter of grave concern to many French elites who were suspicious of communities of immigrants and their descendants as less than fully committed to France and who entertained the notion of an ultimate return to their countries of origin, such as Poles, Chinese, Maghrebis, and Jews. But return has become largely millennial or mythic, and it has ceased to exist for the first generation of Maghrebis born in France. Algeria is forgotten, their parents have no longer to speak much about it; they have acquired new habits; their older brothers who dreamed of their roots never had the courage to leave [France] or [after they did go back to their countries of origin,] they returned [to France] without illusions … at the same time, [they] [the young Algerians] learn to distrust the French, for their fathers tell them: “Never forget that you are an Arab, that they have killed a million of us during the Algerian war.” (Boubeker, 1983: 32) While not wishing to return and hoping for integration, Maghrebi immigrants also want to halt what has been called l’immigritude (Wihtol de Wenden, 1992: 33) by maintaining a modicum of intraethnic and intrareligious solidarity. For this purpose they maintain numerous associations, which were legalized in 1981, build on traditional intraethnic or intrareligious solidarities and help perpetuate the ethnic cultural heritage, whose maintenance is considered a basic right of
162 William Safran citizenship. Their activities, which are often subsidized with national or local public funds, are also supported from abroad, either in terms of money or cultural “infusions.” In any case, they contribute to the repli communautaire. In the case of the Armenians, for example, the permanence of their residence in France “allowed them to break with the clanic tradition” that had existed in the 1930s and to form neighborhood associations that are more transparent, more functional, and more secular than older forms of social organization, and hence more attuned to the French situation (Hovanessian, 1992: 188). Although France has for many generations been a host country of immigrants, its “melting pot” machinery functioned well; the immigrants arrived in small numbers; and since they had come mostly from Europe and shared cultural characteristics and racial phenotypes with the indigenous members of society, the fiction concerning “nos ancêtres les Gaulois” could be made to apply to them without much difficulty. It was possible to include a certain category of Jews, whose ancestors had been brought into Gaul in the wake of Caesar’s Gallic conquests; and it was even possible to include the relative handful of Black inhabitants of French overseas departments and territories, especially if most of them stayed away from the mainland. But such inclusion was unrealistic in the case of the hundreds of thousands of Maghrebis, Vietnamese, Turks, and sub-Saharan Africans, whose cultural and religious backgrounds are quite different from those of indigenous French society. Yet although the French government is worried about the impact of Islam on the country and about the increasing difficulty in assimilating its Beurs, it must take care not to alienate the Arabs because of the growing political influences of Muslims as electoral factor; the fact that Arab countries are a source of oil, and a market for French military industries; and France’s vulnerability to Islamist terrorism. Many French Jacobins are disturbed by the fact that social relations of members of minority communities are not confined to “vertical relations between citizens and the state, among minorities themselves … [and] horizontal relations among minorities themselves inside the country but also beyond its frontiers” ( RoussoLenoir, 1992). The belief that Muslims tend to have an excessive “transborder” orientation is fortified by the fact that many imams and Islamic religious teachers are imported from North Africa; that the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris was built and is maintained with funds from Saudi Arabia; and that the French state, in its efforts deal with the Islamic community, must depend on a foreign country – Algeria which, since 1922, has nominated the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris. To the extent that recently arrived immigrant communities are diasporas, French authorities have not been able to deal with them in the same way as they have dealt with indigenous ethnic minorities. Descent of individuals belonging to the latter group is not punished; and “cultural particularism” is not outlawed; it is merely assigned a lesser value by labeling it folklore and its language a “dialect,” and relegating both to the private sphere (Schnapper, 1994). That is why Raymond Aron’s “origine israélite” was ignored, and Charles Aznavour’s Armenian roots were accepted and his memories were honored (Sotinel, 2002). For several reasons this may be too much to expect in the case of “transnational” minorities. Many
Ethonational minority identities in France 163 “homeland” societies are not “primordial” but complex; unlike Breton culture, most of which cannot be restored and is a matter of nostalgia (Hélias, 1975), homeland cultures cannot be dismissed as mere folklores. Unlike indigenous minority communities, diasporas maintain an orientation to an anterior homeland that defines the identity of the person concerned in more than a symbolic sense and heavily influences his or her behavior. This reality is increasingly accepted, but with a degree of unease. The Haute Conseil à l’intégration (which was created in 1989) is quoted as follows: To affirm that French people of foreign origin, or foreigners who live on our national soil, whether or not [in process of] becoming French by choice or by right, do not have to erase the memory of their previous path … does not mean yielding to … communitarian strategies. Integration cannot be organized by means of injunctions; rather, one must appeal to the autonomy of the [individuals concerned]. If we do not do this, we provoke all kinds of ethnic or fundamentalist reactions (Lutter contre les discriminations). (Regards sur l’Actualité no. 256, December 1999: 37) Unfortunately, orientation to an original homeland raises the question of political loyalty or allegiance. This may be unfair and misleading; for many immigrants do not have a “home country” with which they can easily identify. Vietnam, the home country of most of the Chinese who have settled in France, is not China; and while their identification with China is a cultural one, their nostalgia is focused on Vietnam. Most of the Armenians who have settled in France have come, not from Armenia, but from Istanbul, Lebanon, or Iran, and their orientation toward Armenia has become indistinct and is not political. The country of origin of the majority of Jews in France is not Israel, but Algeria, and that of most of the remainder, Eastern Europe; but given their experiences in either of these two regions, these origins are not reflected in any sort of political allegiance other than French. There are, to be sure, cultural, linguistic, and religious elements of the identity of the members of these minority groups; but these have become hopelessly weakened: Armenian, Vietnamese (or Chinese), and Yiddish are no longer spoken by the vast majority of the members of the respective “categoric” groups; and the religious basis of their identity has been undermined by rapid secularization. The identification of Armenians with France has received a boost since the French Parliament acknowledged the historicity of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks. Among Jews there has been a revival of interest not only in the Hebrew language but also a growing Israelocentrism, which has little to do with culture, religion, language, or loyalty but is essentially a reactive identity, occasioned by recent history, antisemitic pronouncements, and what is perceived to be a one-sided pro-Arab policy that has been accompanied by a relentless demonization of Israel and led to a revival of antisemitic stereotypes and attacks on Jewish targets. Much of the identity of immigrant minorities is symbolic ethnicity, which is defined by Herbert Gans (1979) as an ethnicity of last resort expressed in
164 William Safran “transnational” terms: for Maghrebis, in terms of international Islam (Kastoryano, 1996: 111); for Jews, in terms of the survival of Israel; for immigrants from subSaharan Africa, in terms of négritude; for Armenians, in terms of solicitude for the victims of earthquakes. Such symbolic ethnicity is facilitated by developments associated with globalization: (1) increased commercial contacts with “home countries;” (2) continuing influx of immigrants and visitors from home countries; and (3) growing electronic communication with fellow ethnics in home countries and elsewhere in the diaspora that replenish ethnic identity and contribute to the critical mass required for the maintenance of community institutions – a development now facilitated by electronic communication, and especially websites, which, by fostering a “cyber-ethnicity,” contribute to the reification of imagined or half-forgotten communities. The impact of globalization on ethnic consciousness remains a matter of controversy. On the one hand, while the ease of communications contributes to the maintenance of cultural contacts with fellow ethnics in the homeland, the cultural homogenization associated with globalization has a leveling effect on ethnic as well as national particularism. On the other hand, to the extent that globalization leads to the weakening of the capacity of the welfare state, it reduces the ability of the nation to integrate ethnic minorities, and encourages a “repli identitaire.” It has been said that “ ethnic minorities are like snails: when it gets cold outside, they creep back into their shells” (Epelbaum, 2002). This, of course, assumes that ethnic community institutions still exist to make this possible. The complaint is often heard that these “tentations communautaires” will lead to a “multiculturalisme du réfus” that will have a negative impact on individual equality, modernity, and political unity; and that it will lead to an American kind of situation and civic disorder. This view rests on a misunderstanding of American multiculturalism, a misunderstanding to which “politically correct” Americans have themselves contributed by their ambiguous use of the term (Lacorne, 1997: 30–8). (Curiously, the much more institutionalized Canadian ethnic “communalism” is not savaged, for the obvious reason that the Canadians who want to fortify that institutionalization are francophone.) Despite these criticisms, the ethnonational reality in France has been gradually accepted in practice, and will assert itself even more in the future if the tentative proposals of Prime Minister Raffarin to deepen the political-administrative decentralization that was begun two decades ago make legislative headway. Under these proposals, France would move toward a “république de proximité,” which would recognize the right of regions and communes “to be different” and give them power to experiment in their own way with policies, inter alia, in the fields of education, culture, and tourism, power that would enable these units to take into account subnational identities and give a boost to particularistic, including ethnic, cultures and identities.
Ethonational minority identities in France 165
Notes 1 In deference to that generation, Catherine Trautmann, the former mayor of Strasbourg, has occasionally made public speeches in Alsatian. 2 In 1998, a Jewish Museum, funded by the national government and the city in Paris, was opened. Its official name is the Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, so as to stress the cultic, rather than the ethnic communal, identity of the Jews in France. This distinction cannot be easily maintained in practice, and the Museum now includes exhibits that are clearly “communal” and ethnic. 3 In 1998, as minister of the interior, Chevènement had appealed to foreign Islamic clerics for approval of the official French position on the “Islamic veil” carried by Muslim school girls to public school classes (Telhine 1998). 4 For articles on Jewish electoral “sensitivities;” see “Elections Legislatives de mars 1978,” Le Monde, Dossiers et Documents, March 1978, p. 59; and, “Les Israélites ont voté Giscard, les Juifs, Mitterrand,” Tribune juive, 12 June 1981, p. 4; Safran, 1983. 5 There is a National Conference of elected Socialist officials of Maghrebi origins (which includes Muslims, Jews, Christians, and laics), the Association Arabisme et Francité.
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166 William Safran Hechter, M. (1975) The Celtic Fringe, London: Kegan Paul. Hélias, P.-J. (1975) Le cheval d’orgueil: Mémoires d’un Breton du pays bigouden, Paris: Plon. Héraud, G. (1990) “Libertés publiques et minorities ethniques indigenes de France,” in Actes: Les Cahiers d’Action Juridique, no. 69 (Droit et minorities nationales), January, pp. 33–7. Hovanessian, M. (1992) Le Lien communautaire, Paris: Armand Colin. IFOP (2000) http://perso.wanadoo.fr/escoles/CHARTE.htm. Kastoryano, R. (1996) La France, l’Allemagne et les Immigrés, Paris: Armand Colin. Lacorne, D. (1997) La crise de l’identité américaine, Paris: Fayard. Lafont, R. (1967) La Révolution régionaliste, Paris: Gallimard. Ozouf, M. (1996) Preface to J.-F. Chanet (ed.), L’école républicaine et les petites patries, Paris: Aubier. Paringaux, R.-P. (1996) “Les excès de la traque aux réfugiés basques en Bretagne sont dénoncés,” Le Monde, 3–4 March. Péry, N. (1998) Rapport d’Etape: Langues et cultures régionales, Paris: Documentation Française. Poignant, B. (1998) Langues et cultures régionales. Rapport de Monsieur Bernard Poignant, Maire de Quimper, à Monsieur Lionel Jospin, Premier Ministre, Paris: Documentation Française. Raspail, J. (1985) “Serons nous encore Français dans 30 ans?” Figaro-Magazine, 26 October. Ravanno, E. (1986) “Le ‘miscroscome’en Israël: terre promise, mais pas dupe,” Libération, 21 January. Rousso-Lenoir, F. (1992) “Que faire des minorités?” Le Monde, 2 November. Safran, W. (1983) “France and her Jews: from ‘Culte Israélite’ to ‘Lobby Juif’,” Tocqueville Review, vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring/Summer), pp. 101–35. Safran, W. (1984) “The French Left and ethnic pluralism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 7, no. 4 (October), pp. 447–61. Safran, W. (1989) “The French state and ethnic minority cultures: policy dimensions and problems,” in J.R. Rudolph and R.J. Thompson (eds), Ethnoterritorial Politics, Policy and the Western World, Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner. Safran, W. (1999) “Politics and language in contemporary France: facing supranational and infranational challenges,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, no. 137, pp. 39–66. Safran, W. (2002) “Religion and laïcité in a Jacobin republic,” in W. Safran (ed.) The Secular and the Sacred: Nation, Religion and Politics, London: Frank Cass, pp. 54–81. Schnapper, D. (1994) La communauté des citoyens, Paris: Gallimard. Smith, A.D. (1983) Theories of Nationalism, New York: Holmes & Meier. Sotinel, T. (2002) “Aznavour, L’Arménien des Arméniens,” Le Monde, 22 May. Stora, B. (2002) “Communautarisme blanc ou République?” Le Monde, 25 April. Telhine, M. (1998) “Laïc, Chevènement?” Libération, 23 April. Vallet, O. (1996) “La France n’est plus laïque,” Le Monde, 11 May. Wihtol de Wenden, C. (1992) “Les associations ‘beur’ et immigrées, leurs leaders, leurs stratégies,” Regards sur l’Actualité, no. 178 (February), pp. 31–44.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 167
12 Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country Francisco Letamendía
Two attitudes or life styles have emerged out of globalization (simultaneity of information, the immediacy of the effects of long-distance actions; Giddens, 1993; Castells, 1998; Beck, 1998; Robertson, 1992): the attitude of the de-identified subject, or, to be more exact, the subject that experiences an identity made up of unconnected pieces or scraps; and the attitude of the subject that is submerged in strong collective identity reactions that fight against the flexibility and evanescence of the space–time coordinates characteristic of globalization. These antagonistic attitudes coexist de facto in a single society. As opposed to the consumer individualism that is characteristic of the first attitude, compact edifices of identity rise up as “black holes,” where concepts of men and society and forms of collective action based on the ethnos, sexual option, gender, rather than on what is done, gravitate around these dense mass of identity (Barber, 1995). Therefore, the identity-attribution moves to the forefront of the mobilization. Even though this is not always the case, these processes frequently go hand in hand with the closure of the identity field, which happens when the them–us interaction is blocked. The personality that adheres to this identity block usually is of the “authoritarian” type, determined by the identification with power. The cognitive tendencies take the shape of hostile stereotypes and the affective tendencies replace them–us with friend–enemy polarization. The cleavages of modernity – capital–work, Church–state, rural–urban (Rokkan, 1970) – are either replaced by a multiple set of polarizations induced by globalization, or they weaken as a result of the center–periphery cleavage. Identity, the reason for the basic polarity of them–us, breaks away from the ideology. Either in its soft style, of configuring individual lifestyles, or in its strong style, of immersing in collective dense identities, identity does not use the major macroideologies – liberalism, socialism, communism… – in the same way it used them in the past. The nation-state (Held, 1998; Loughlin, 1999) is also being subjected to the questioning of one of the elements that most deeply contributed towards building its imaginary. In the world of globalization, it is not possible to continue to maintain the well-meaning fiction of the non-problematic character of the “demos” in the territorial boundaries of the state. Nearly all state societies are multi-cultural, as
168 Francisco Letamendía they contain some groups of immigrants or indigenous peoples in their territory. And quite a few of them are also pluri-national, as they contain various national groups – with these being defined by their shared specific culture, the awareness of their historical difference, and the desire to maintain their distinctive character in the public sphere (Caminal, 2001; Requejo, 2000). The consociationalism and the recognition of cultural differences (Taylor, 1994b) are resources used to integrate the ethno-cultural groups coming from immigration. Yet, the territoriality inherent to the existence of various national groups and, therefore, to the pluri-nationality of the state, raises another level of problems. The minimum requirements for respecting the plurality of the demoi involves a plural federalism (Elazar, 1991, 1994), adapted to the diversity, in line with the divisibility of the demos, which separates citizenship from nationality in pluri-national societies, which is based on federal polycentrism and asymmetries, and which includes federal agreements in the symbolic, jurisdictional, institutional and decision-making spheres. These solutions should be open to higher degrees of self-government, should this be decided by a democratic majority of the demos. The Basque case – and I am here referring to the territories located in the Spanish state – is an extreme case of divergence with respect to this normative solution. The Basque identity reaction caused by the centralist national oppression – oppression by the dictatorship under Franco, and “democratic” oppression, in the sense of it being driven by Spanish public opinion, during the post-Franco period – has led the radical wing of Basque nationalism to adhere to a dense violent reaction, led by an armed group, ETA, which has been involved in terrorism for 40 years. The prolongation of this situation has meant that the nature of the Spanish national identity in the post-Franco period has become authoritarian, departing from the light, fragmented, and modular lifestyle which is the case of contemporary national identities, and has led to the emergence of a dense antiterrorist nationalism by the state, whose tacit silence backed the episodes of the dirty war, and which currently supports all the hard measures against Basque selfgovernment. Located between the two extremes, Basque majority public opinion – structured by the nationalist and left-wing parties that have led the Basque autonomous government during the last years, the Basque trade union majority, the pacifist groups and the movements in favour of dialogue – all believe in a solution that defends the radical rejection of violence, respecting the Basque right to decisionmaking – including the right to self-government – and dialogue between all the parties as the way to solve the conflict. Spanish centralism, which has adopted the motto of “freedom” as opposed to “dialogue,” has come up with a hard identity reaction, which consists of the following elements: there is no “Basque conflict” and the violence is just a simple problem of common criminality; non-violent Basque nationalism, which is the majority in the country, is morally a party to terrorism; we cannot talk about a Basque decision-making sphere, and even less about self-government, as the only constitutionally defined sovereignty is that of the Spanish people; the existing
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 169 Basque self-government should be limited, as it is being used by Basque nationalism as the way to independence. The Spanish government of the Partido Popular, which is the driving force behind this centralism, believes that its attitude is given legitimacy on the international stage by the events of 11 September 2001. Therefore, the identities are presented as antagonistic and incompatible, the way to recognizing them is blocked, and the solution to the conflict seems to have come to a dead end. I will now outline the historical background to the problem.
Notes on Basque history The social triangle formed in the Basque modern age shreds some light on the current political situation. On the one hand, there were the Basques loyal to the imperial monarchy, which like other empires did not impose ethnic homogeneity: the conquistadors from the costal villages, privileged in the Americas by their status of universal nobility; younger sons who had taken holy orders and were sent by the church to serve the universal Christian empire, such Saint Ignacio de Loyola; the landed gentry, who were also the aristocracy of trade and a cultured elite who led the Enlightenment throughout the state in the eighteenth century. Then, there were the steady Basque-speaking peasants, who, since the Council of Trent, the church had educated with catechisms and biblical stories in Basque in order to safeguard them from the threat of Protestantism from the north. Sociable people, lovers of their language and their customs, fond of religious or secular celebrations, they can be considered as having been the origins of the future Basque nationalists. Finally, there was a deeper and more irrational social stratum, that of the Basque rebels, who were shepherds and farmed common land, who had been destroyed by the stabling of the livestock and the private property of land that followed the discovery of America. Guardians perhaps of the traces of paganism to be found on the sheer slopes and in the caves where they sheltered, they were persecuted by the new Basque lords, by the Holy Inquisition, and by the monarch’s followers. These were the people brought to trial in the witch hunts that lead to the massacres in Zugarramurdi and Laburdi on both sides of the border in the seventeenth century. It is possible to see a link between these Basques and today’s radical nationalists. If the construction of modern Spain was anomalous compared with France, for example, the case of the Basque Country was a case apart within this anomaly. In modern times, any attempt to unify Spain has always clashed with the Basque singularity: throughout the process to construct the Spanish state, there have always been Basques opposed to this for various reasons. In Spain, the industrial revolution was late and dependent on foreign investments. Liberalism did not come from an enterprising bourgeoisie, but from military uprisings. The Carlists went to war to defend the Ancien Régime against the Liberals. In the Basque Country, the civil war between the Carlist countryside and the liberal cities became a Basque war against the Spanish liberal troops.
170 Francisco Letamendía Basque Carlism united defending tradition and its language, its customs, and its privileges (“Fueros”), in a war of the poor against the rich. There was an underlying opposition between moderates and radicals, but the latter denied any political chicanery. At the end of the nineteenth century, the victors in the war, the rich Basque traders, became the owners of the iron mines in Vizcaya and of iron and steel companies and paper mills, which opted for Spain and its market. At that time, the first Basque nationalism emerged among leading traditionalists, with the objective of building the Basque nation, against these entrepreneurs and bankers, but also against socialist and anarchist ideas, which offended a religiousness inherited from Carlism. Yet, the Nationalist Basque Party’s wing believing in autonomy clashed with that believing in independence, with the latter admiring Ireland’s fight for freedom. During the Republic, Basque nationalism pointlessly fought to achieve the same autonomy as the Catalans. In 1936, Franco’s uprising unified the various camps. The monarchist industrialists and bankers and the Carlism of Navarre sided with Franco. Basque nationalists, socialists, and republicans came together for the first time in an anti-fascist Basque autonomous government. The alliance between the nationalists and the socialists lasted for the dictatorship’s four long decades. Yet the dictatorship’s violence created the ideal situation for a sui generis bud to appear on the secular tree of radicalism, Euskadi ta Askatasuna, ETA (Basque Country and Freedom), which emerged as MarxistMaoist during the 1960s. Their models were the guerrillas of Cuba, Algeria, and Vietnam; their bedside reading was the speeches of Sartre and Fanon, which proclaimed that violence turned the colonized “thing” into a man. Yet, Basque radicalism had its own line of thought, which outlined a common ideal between the war of the Basque Carlists against the Spanish liberals, that of the nationalist defenders of Gernika against Franco’s army and the Nazi planes, and ETA’s fight against Franco’s regime and against those that they consider to be the regime’s successors (Letamendía, 1994). The transition, the result of the alliance between supporters of Franco and Spanish moderates against Franco’s regime, disappointed the Basque nationalists and encouraged the radicals to implement violence that was greater than that carried out during Franco’s regime. The political context of the Basque Country was therefore quadrangular and not triangular: left- and right-wing parties loyal to the state, Basque nationalists who supported the Basque Autonomy Statute, and radical nationalists oposed to the Statute. Lack of communication has been the common feature of the relations between all the sectors. I will now move on to describe the situation of the Basque collective actors – political parties, trade unions, movements for dialogue – in this scenario.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 171
Collective actors Political parties All the analysts agree that Basque parties can be defined by polarized pluralism and a high degree of fragmentation. Eight parties are represented in the Basque parliament and they are grouped around left–right-wing and central–peripheral (Basque nationalists–Basque non-nationalists) lines. This is the dominating axis and the one where there is the highest polarization. The Basque parties that are represented in the government of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAPV) during the period in question, are as follows: • Partido Nacionalista Vasco • Eusko Alkartasuna (a breakaway group from PNV, 1986) • PSE/PSOE, Partido Socialista de Euskadi, (since 1993, PSE-Euskadik Ezkerra) • Partido Popular • Unidad Alavesa • Izquierda Unida-Ezker Batua • Herri Batasuna/Euskal Herrritarrok/Batasuna. Trade unions Four representative trade unions are active in the Basque Country. ELA, set up in 1911 under the aegis of Basque nationalism, is currently the dominant trade union in the country and is nationalist, socialist and autonomous from all parties. LAB was set up in 1975 under the aegis of radical nationalism coming from ETA. Comisiones Obreras de Euskadi is part of Spain’s CCOO. The Basque Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) is part of Spain’s UGT. Since the middle of the 1980s, all the delegates from these four trade unions represent 85 percent to 90 percent of the workers in Euskal Herria. Table 12.1 Elections to the Autonomous Parliament Seats
1990
1994
PNV PSE-EE HB-EH PP EA IU EE UA
289,000 (22) 202,000 (16) 186,000 (13) 83,000 (6) 115,000 (9) 14,000 (0) 79,000 (6) 14,000 (3)
303,000 173,000 165,000 146,000 104,000 93,000 – 27,000
1998 (22) (12) (11) (11) (8) (6) – (5)
346,000 218,000 222,000 250,000 108,000 70,000
(21) (14) (14) (16) (6) (2)
15,000
(2)
172 Francisco Letamendía Table 12.2 shows how the representation of the trade unions evolved in the CAPV in the trade union elections held from 1980 onwards: Movements for dialogue: Elkarri Elkarri emerged at the end of 1992 as a “Social Movement for Dialogue and Agreement in Euskal Herria.” Elkarri claims that the confrontation in Euskal Herria is at many levels: political confrontation, which is about whether or not the legal-political framework is valid, and which counters the defenders of the Constitution and those of the right to self-determination; violent confrontation, which confronts the people that legitimize the Spanish Army and the defenders of ETA; social confrontation, between the Spanish nationalists and the Basque nationalists; and socio-economic confrontation, which divides those who consider that the most valid development framework is Spain and those who believe that it is Euskal Herria. This varied confrontation, which is the result of a conflict of sovereignties, can only find a solution by means of dialogue between the parties involved. Elkarri was set up to be involved in these dialogues, which it believes is the dominant attitude in Euskal Herria (Letamendía, 2002). I will now look at the relationship between ETA’s violence and the successive networks to pacify/legitimize the system, which have been successively created in the Basque Country or in relation to it from 1988 onwards.
ETA violence since the transition after the end of Franco’s regime At the end of the 1970s, ETA defined the target of its armed struggle as being the members of the security forces and the military (with these forming the nucleus of its war against the state, these two categories accounting for the majority of its victims during that period); the Lemóniz nuclear power station; and, since 1980, the people responsible for drug trafficking. We also have to include the organization’s “defensive” attacks: the so-called “revolutionary tax,” which was introduced in 1975: the kidnapping of people who would be freed on payment of a ransom; and some attacks that could be called “internal,” those carried out against former members or collaborators, who ETA considered to be “traitors.” The selective approaches of the terror attacks during that period deteriorate after 1985, when ETA began to use unselective measures, such as car bombs or Table 12.2 Shares in trade union elections in the CAPV (%)
ELA LAB CC.OO UGT
1980
1982
1986
1990
1995
1998
25.6 4.7 17.6 19.2
30.2 5.8 17.1 21.5
34.5 10.7 17.0 18.9
37.8 13.1 17.5 18.9
40.0 15.4 16.4 16.1
40.2 15.5 17.5 15.9
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 173 letter bombs. The number of potential targets was becoming increasingly larger and more indiscriminate: hypermarkets, barracks where the families of civil guard officers lived. The armed conflict between ETA and the police force answering to the Basque Autonomous Government, the Ertzaintza, which began at the start of the 1990s, is a singular case of an armed group clashing with the police forces of a territorial government controlled by a nationalist party, the PNV. Following Franco’s death and up to the start of the 1990s, the number of people killed by the different branches of ETA is as follows: 9 in 1977; 67 in 1978; 72 in 1979; 88 in 1980 (the jump in the number of victims occurred during the first years of the transition); 38 in 1981; 44 in 1982; 44 in 1983; 31 in 1984; 37 in 1985; 41 in 1986; 52 in 1987; 19 in 1988; 19 in 1989; and 25 in 1990. In 1995, thresholds were once again crossed: ETA’s murder of the Basque PP leader, Ordóñez, marked a new type of terror attack against the leaders of political parties, which ETA had forbidden itself for a long time, as they were considered to be “adversaries” and not “enemies.” Now, the “social acceptability” of the support group, Herri Batasuna, began to crack. An internal front emerged inside radical nationalism in answer to the violence and counted on a certain number of supporters. During the 1990s, and up to the ceasefire called in the autumn of 1998, following a transitory peak in 1991, the number of people killed in terror attacks fell, but their social impact increased. These are the figures: 46 in 1991, 26 in 1992, 14 in 1993, 13 in 1994, 15 in 1995, 5 in 1996, 14 in 1997, and 6 in 1998. The results of the radical Basque nationalist party that historically emerged from ETA, HB, in the elections held during this period show satisfaction regarding ETA’s decision to halt the violence following the Lizarra agreement: the results were much higher, a third better than the best results obtained in an election up to then (Letamendía, 2002). Following the end of the ceasefire at the end of 1999, the number of victims killed in terror attacks are as follows: 23 in 2000, 15 in 2001 and 5 in 2002 at the time of writing. The profile of the victims of violence has changed from the 1970s and 1980s, when they basically were members of the state’s police forces and the military, as numerous sectors of civilian society have been hit by the attacks. In the first year and a half of this period, from January 2000 to June 2001, the number of members of the FSE and the military who were killed did not even account for a fifth of the total. It can be broken down as follows: 3 soldiers, 3 members of the FSE, 2 ertzainas (members of the Basque Autonomous Police Force, 1 mosso d’esquadra (members of the Catalan Autonomous Police Force), 1 prison officer, 2 judges, 4 PSOE politicians, 6 PP politicians, 1 businessman, and 5 civilians. This profile was maintained in the year 2001. The 15 people killed during that period can be broken down as follows: 1 soldier, 1 member of the FSE, 4 ertzainas, 1 mosso, 1 judge, 1 PSOE politician, 2 UPN/PP politician, 1 journalist, and 3 civilians. The electoral results of HB/Euskal Herritarrok/Batasuna in the autonomous elections held in May 2001 were the lowest of their history. This clearly shows the falseness of the principle on which the PP government is basing its policy
174 Francisco Letamendía with respect to the – denied – Basque conflict: contrary to what is claimed by the central authorities, Batasuna is not ETA. Legitimization/pacification policy networks I will now move on to analyze the incapacity of the three successive policy networks (Marin and Mayntz, 1992; Marsh and Rhodes, 1998; Hay, 1998) – the Ajuria– Enea Agreement, the Lizarra–Garazi Agreement, the PP–PSOE Agreement – to work towards achieving a sustainable reconciliation. The double goal of the Ajuria–Enea Agreement (1988–98) was the legitimization of the implementation of the Basque Autonomous Statute as a solution to the national conflict, and to achieve an anti-terrorist agreement. While the second objective had practical repercussions, these were missing in the first. The agreement rested on the violent/democrats dichotomy; agreement was not sought on the way of integrating the people believing in violence into the democracy (not only ETA, but also the civilian organizations of the MLNV, Basque National Liberation Movement), but rather it was imposed on them. Therefore, the Ajuria– Enea Agreement was not a point of union (“locus”) between different people. The centrifugal nature of the strategy of the political parties belonging to the network and the impact of not implementing the Statute on the national conflict would result in the Basque nationalist/Basque non-nationalist conflict prevailing over the democracy/violence conflict when there was a hope of a permanent ceasefire, and then in the destruction of the network. The Lizarra Agreement (1998–9) emerged as a method of conflict resolution, in particular the Basque national conflict. Yet it was implemented when the preparatory stage of the network, the setting up of the meeting point between the parties, that is, the “locus”, was not complete. This defect, which was not desired by the parties coming from the Ajuria-Enea Agreement, ended up weighing down the Lizarra Agreement and giving credibility to the interpretations of the absent centralist parties, which defined the agreement as a tool of the hegemony of the Basque nationalists. Furthermore, the Lizarra Agreement sector near to ETA, saw it as a way to exclude the Basque non-nationalists. This led to the emergence of a social counter-movement attacking Basque nationalism as a whole, which was fed in turn by ongoing low-intensity violence (“kale borroka”) aimed almost exclusively against these non-nationalist players. (The rage of ETA and of the “kale borroka” against the persons and headquarters of socialist militants can be seen from these figures: 12 attacks against PSE interests in 1999 out of a total of 16; 8 in the year 2000 out of a total of 15; 4 socialist militants murdered during 2001 and 2001 out of a total of 10.) It was also taken for granted that something that depended on the context the ETA ceasefire, was permanent, or at least the Lizarra Agreement acted as if it was. The rejection by the central government of the PP of any strategy that did not involve confrontation strengthened the excluding attitudes of the MLNV in the Lizarra Agreement. This ended with their turning against the other parties of the agreement. The final straw to the agreement was when ETA broke the ceasefire.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 175 The PP–PSOE pact for freedom and against terrorism is explicitly an antiterrorist agreement, which almost completely lacks a plan to solve the conflict. It is likewise the expression of a social counter-movement: a counter-movement against violence, but also against Basque sovereignty, which is accused of complicity in the lack of freedom of sectors in the Basque Country (if it did not become a counter-movement against Basque nationalism as a whole, this was due to the influence of the PSOE). Therefore, this pact is structurally incapable of becoming a point of union (“locus”) of people leading to the culmination of a peace process (Letamendía, 2002). We can see from the description of the indicators of Basque political culture during 1995–2000 (Cuadernos Sociológicos Vascos, 2000) that the majority of citizens consider the right to self-determination to be legitimate and identify it with the expression of the will of the majority of the Basques. This supports the belief that the current political framework should be opened up and reformed. The majority reject violence and believe that the solution will be found through dialogue with all the parties involved. These criteria coincide with those of the coalition that won the Basque Autonomous election on 13 May 2001. The PNV–EA coalition got 599,000 votes, with 42.7 percent of the electorate, which was 40,000 more votes than both parties got in the 1998 Autonomous election, and broke through the electoral vote ceiling of both parties. The PSE–EE won 250,000 votes and 17.8 percent of the electorate, which was a much poorer performance than their results in the general election held in March 2000, but two-tenths better than their results in the 1998 Autonomous election. The PP got 324,000 votes which broke through their electoral vote ceiling, but not the percentage of the electorate, which then stood at 23 percent, while they had reached 29 percent in the 2000 general election. However, their performance was much better than the results in the 1998 Autonomous election, where they got 250,000 votes and 20 percent of the electorate. Ezker Batua overcame its electoral losses and got 5.5 percent of the electorate (its votes would be added to those of the tripartite and it would become part of the Basque Government). Euskal Herritarrok suffered the double impact of the breaking of the ETA ceasefire and its tougher political positions, and got the worst results in its history, with 142,000 votes and 10 percent of the electorate, 80,000 votes less than in the 1998 Autonomous elections. The consequences of 11 September and the tougher position taken by the Spanish centralism The strengthening of centralist identity that could be seen in the anti-terrorist pact, has deteriorated in the wake of the events on 11 September. In the USA, positive processes that had begun in the fields of social theory and practice during the 1990s, have undergone a brutal about-turn under Bush. American social scientists – including Taylor (1994a), Gutmann (1992), Kymlicka (1995) – had prepared the theory of multiculturalism based on respecting cultural differences and de facto equality between ethnic groups. The 2001 attacks reduced the
176 Francisco Letamendía practical repercussion of this work to rubble. The war-mongering against the new enemy – Islamic fundamentalism as the axis of evil – has abandoned Keohane (1996) and Nye’s theories of “complex inter-dependence”, which had prevailed during the Clinton era. These theories advocated international relations based on the initiative of various multiple players working together, in the absence of a hierarchy and the lack of domination of military might. The North American single way of thinking (“pensée unique”) has spread like an oil slick throughout western societies, creating a trail of conservative states or reinforcing the reactionary sentiments that already existed. This reactionary wave tends to link any intellectual dissidence to terrorism, and this is particularly the case of any movements defending national and ethnic differences. Any repression on the basis of either difference is therefore linked to the fight against terrorism, which provides the basic grounds for legitimizing the new situation. If the wave has had a devastating effect here, it is due to the fact that the seed has fallen on the fertile ground that the Partido Popular and Aznar’s Government have been preparing for many years. The result is the theory prepared by the Spanish Government, and shared by the Socialist opposition, which is as follows: the identification for all purposes, including penal aspects, between ETA and its “environment”, which would be ETA itself (a vaguely defined environment, as it can even include, when necessary, the civil groups which have voted for HB/ Batasuna, and even people or groups outside this circle); and the attribution of moral, political and intellectual responsibilities with terrorism to the whole of Basque nationalism, now under suspicion, and whose inevitable relations with this extensive and undefined “ETA environment” will mean that it is likely to form part of it. Popular Party Conservatism, this party’s dominating ideology, revives national traditions. Yet, while there are progressive traditions in the Anglo-Saxon world – the British Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution – Spain’s past includes military uprisings, the armed defence of centralism, and Franco’s dictatorship. The studies on Spanish political culture carried out in the transition all highlight the large amount of authoritarian culture among its citizens, whose effect includes the non-critical acceptance of power. The Fourteenth Congress of the Partido Popular, held in February 2002, raised the principle of “constitutional patriotism,” identified with the defence of the center against Basque nationalism, to be the guiding light of the party. Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) The ideological influences acknowledged by the current General Secretary of PSOE, Zapatero, are those of communitarism and republicanism. Yet, it has been the centralist vision of republicanism that has become the dominating belief. In the work of Pocock (1985), Skinner (1990), Pettit (1997), republicanism is defined
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 177 by the following characteristics: being against tyranny, freedom understood to be living in a free state, the unrelenting defence of civil values – courage, patriotism, commitment to the fate of other people. Aristotle and Arendt provide the basis for their ideal of citizenship. The institutions should encourage public discussion about the common good. Yet, in reality, republicanism is a political theory that is perfectly in line with defending single-string perfectionist state that protects a single cultural setting: the only one that exists – which is unusual in today’s society – or that of the majority culture, that is to say, the Spanish culture.
The Political Parties Act and the outlawing of Batasuna The most noticeable result of this hardening of positions has been the Political Parties Act, which was introduced as part of the Anti-terrorist Pact in February 2002. The Act came into force on the 29 June and was applied in August and it has been instrumental in the outlawing of Batasuna. Even though its authors claim that the Act is aimed at preventing the complicity of a party, by means of declaring it to be illegal, with terrorism, its vagueness and the large number of articles that have been drawn up ensure that such a relation always exists, when needed. Article 9 of the Political Parties Act, which deals with the reasons for the outlawing of a party, is a good example of this. The causes can be active – not being in line with constitutional values, destroying freedom or the democratic system – or passive – defending or exonerating the breach of these rights or freedoms – using non-democratic procedures, but also using democratic measures when they delegitimize democracy; praising the action of the terrorist or helping to multiply its effects by means of the following casuist profuse points: exonerating or minimizing terrorism; intimidating, neutralizing, or isolating those people who are against violence; electing people who have not condemned the means or the aims of the terrorists (sovereignty, self-determination, for example?); using symbols that are identified with terrorism or with conduct associated with it; collaborating with entities that agree with terrorism or support terrorists (support groups for the families of prisoners?), or which create a favorable climate for them. Such a vague text has to be subject to interpretation. However, it is much clearer who is in charge of interpreting this legislation: the initiative is always in the hands of Spanish institutions and parties – the Government, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the Spanish Congress. It is therefore an act to outlaw Basque political parties, placed in the hands of Spanish political parties and institutions, to be decided by a judgment of a special court of the Spanish Supreme Court with maximum rapidity and enforcement and without recall to any appeal. The Act has been opposed by the three parties that make up the Basque Autonomous Government and reflect the democratic majority of Basque society, which has therefore come under suspicion for being in cahoots with terrorism.1 On 5 August 2002, an ETA bomb went off without any prior warning next to the Civil Guard barracks in Santa Pola, Alicante, and killed two people – including a six-year-old girl – and wounded five more.
178 Francisco Letamendía The mechanism for the outlawing of Batasuna, envisaged in the Political Parties Act and approved by the Spanish Congress, was immediately implemented. Several days later, this was followed by a criminal action brought against the party through the judicial channel. On 7 August, during an extraordinary session of the Congress, the PP and PSOE approved referring the actions of Batasuan to the Solicitor General. On 25 August 2002, a green paper was put to Congress by the PP and PSOE, urging the Government to outlaw Batasuna and this was approved by 295 votes, representing 88.5 percent of the MPs present. Yet, these were members of the PP and the PSOE, together with two small regionalist parties, Coalición Canaria and the Partido Andalucista. The nationalist parties on the periphery either voted against the green paper (PNV, EA, Ezquerra Republicana, and Iniciativa CatalanaEls Verts) or abstained (Convergencia i Unió de Cataluña and la Junta Aragonesa, as well as Izquierda Unida). The following day, a court order (auto) was issued by Judge Garzón, sitting in Criminal Court no. 5 of the Spanish National Special Criminal Court (Audiencia Nacional), as part of the case being brought against Batasuna for the crime of “belonging to a terrorist organization” (that is to say, to ETA). The judge sought the suspension of its activities as a precautionary measure pursuant to Article 129 of the Criminal Code. The grounds were the secret reports, dated July 2002, prepared by the UCI (Central Intelligence Unit) of the National Police Force belonging to the Ministry for the Interior. The suspension of activities involved closing the Batasuna offices. In order to enforce the court order issued by Judge Garzón, the Basque Government’s police force, the Ertzaintza, raided the Batasuna offices in the three capitals of the CAPV, while the FSE (state Security Forces) did so in Navarre. This measure, which the Basque Government was forced to enforce against its will, was bitterly criticized by the three Basque parties in power. In accordance with the decision of the Spanish Congress, the Government submitted its demand to outlaw Batasuna to the Supreme Court on 3 September. On the very same day, the Solicitor General, Mr Cardenal, submitted another similar demand to the Supreme Court. Cardenal said that its objective was “to free the part of Spain that is the Basque Country from the Batasuna Nazis.” On 7 September, a group of leading figures announced the “Gora Euskal Herria” demonstration to be held in Bilbao on 14 September. It was banned by Judge Garzón on the eve of the demonstration. The Basque Government, who had authorized it as it considered that it did not infringe the previous court orders issued by the judge, informed the organisers of this new court order, but they refused to cancel the demonstration. On 14 September, over 50,000 people took part in the demonstration that brought together the supporters of Batasuna and many Basques, who, while not belonging to this group, wanted to protest at the deprivation of 15 percent of the Basque population of their rights to meet, express their beliefs, and to demonstrate, and against that fact that the Spanish police, government, legislation, and legal system were deciding which Basque political activities were allowed and which were not. As it could not break up the
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 179 demonstration, the Ertzaintza blocked the roads to the march half an hour after it started, which led to incidents and some arrests. The court orders issued by Criminal Court no. 5 of the Spanish National Criminal Court became the operations guidelines that affect the Basque country’s political nerve. As the judge prepared the court orders using the reports prepared by the National Police’s Central Intelligence Unit, it is finally the Spanish Ministry for the Interior who decides which activities will be allowed and which are forbidden for the Basque. The outlawing of Batasuna was decided against the opinions democratically expressed in the Basque Parliament by the parties of the coalition in power. Yet, it is the Basque Government that has to enforce the decisions of the three central powers and on occasions this involves the Ertzaintza. The goal of Aznar’s Government is transparent. Outlawing Batasuna deprives the people who voted for the party of their electoral representation. Yet, at the same time, it forces the Basque Government to act in a way that the latter does not find acceptable, thus maintaining the abstention of this sector. It therefore wants to ensure the triumph at the polls of the state’s parties in the Basque Autonomous Community, which would be unlikely to happen if it were left to the free will of the electorate. New pacification/self-government projects: the Lehendakari’s proposal The 1998 Lizarra Agreement was inspired by the Northern Ireland peace process. The current plans for Basque self-government reflect the situation in Quebec. They are sovereignist projects that want to articulate something which is essential to make any sustainable solution to a national conflict viable: allowing the citizens of Euskal Herria to discuss and vote on their future. Various collective actors have submitted their projects. On 22 April 2002, ELA’s National Committee published its “Notes for a Sovereignist Process.” The proposed sovereignist channel, whose explicit point of reference is Quebec, is put forward as a gradual and democratic action, which is therefore incompatible with the current legal-political framework and armed action. The recognition of the right to self-determination is not conceived as a requirement prior to distension, but rather as the main objective of the sovereignist process. The forces that participate in it cannot therefore be subordinate to institutional restrictions or obligations arising from expressions of violence. Consulting the people should not involve time being wasted on looking for formal-legal backing that the bloc supporting the state will make sure is destroyed. The participating social and political forces should be capable of involving the Basque institutions in the leadership of the consultation, and thus endowing it with the greatest legitimacy possible. The proposed territorial sphere combines defending principles with realism. Initially, this would be all of Euskalherria, but if the representative organizations did not consider this to be viable, the process could start in an incomplete sphere – which should be taken to be the three territories of the CAPV.
180 Francisco Letamendía With respect to its contents, the consultation would involve two phases. The first one would explore the majority opinion of the citizens with respect to their decision-making sphere. The second would consider the declaration of sovereignty. It would be necessary to make society aware of the consultation and an extensive debate would need to be held involving the whole of Basque society and not just among Basque nationalists. ELA, as a player in the workers’ movement, proposes to give the proposal a social dimension. ELA’s proposal does not specify the details of how the consultation will be carried out. It says that this will depend on the positions of the various political, social, and institutional players. If the territorial sphere were partial, the Government and the Parliament of the CAPV would be in the spotlight. The Quebec model shows that we should not be impatient: even if a sovereignist referendum is won, there will still be a long and difficult negotiation period with the central government. ETA should stop its policy of violence from the start, as this is incompatible with the self-determination of the Basque citizens.2 I shall now move on to analyze the background and contents of the proposal that Lehendakari Ibarretxe submitted to the Parliament and the Basque citizens on 25 September 2002. The Government’s strategy that emerged out of the elections held on 13 May 2001 was made known in July 2001. It involves a staggered peace process with the following stages: dialogue between the parties, distension, reaching agreements, and organizing a referendum for Basque society to express their opinions about the agreements. With respect to the end to the violence, it states its support for the victims and for ensuring the safety of the citizens. The two central issues of the peace process and self-government have been put to the Basque Parliament. The Self-Government Commission published its ruling (“dictamen”) of 8 July 2002, which was divided into three parts: executive, declarative, and operative. The executive part refers to the central government’s failure to comply with the Statute and states that it should define the terms of this non-compliance within two months. It is based on the principle, that should the areas of jurisdiction legally belonging to the CAPV not be implemented, the CAPV will begin to exercise them. The declarative part puts forward the following principles: • • • • •
The Basque people are political subject of the seven territories located in the Spanish and French states. The four territories located in the Spanish state are entitled to establish any legal relations that they so desire, based on the wishes of their citizens. Channels to facilitate relations with the Basque territories located in the French state will be provided. By virtue of the right to self-determination, the Basque people are entitled to be consulted over the status they desire. Establishing the jurisdictions and the presence of the Basque language in Europe will be laid down in a political agreement with the state.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 181 The operative third part describes how the Basque institutions will be at the forefront of turning these proposals into a project, or projects, which will be the result of an open process with the maximum participation of the cultural, social, trade union, economic, and political actors, or players. The ruling (“dictamen”) was approved by the session of the Basque Government held on 11 July 2002, with the votes in favour of the coalition. Batasuna abstained. It expressed its disagreement with the first part, the executive section, as it believes that the statutory process has been a failure, and its agreement with the second part, the declaration, which talks about the need for a new framework. According to the PP and the PSE, the ruling commemorates the Lizarra Agreement. The PP added that the PNV had agreed the session with ETA. On 26 September, Lehendakari Ibarretxe submitted the Basque self-government proposal based on this ruling to the Gasteiz Parliament and the Basque citizens and agents. Far from being archaic, it is backed by the most recent developments in social sciences on the nature of pluri-national states, which I will later discuss. The obscurantism and the distortion with which it has been treated by nearly all the Spanish media, institutions, and agents needs to be explained. The proposal is a means to get out of the dead end caused by the action of ETA and the block imposed by the PP and the PSOE on any solution to the conflict. A coexistence project has to be based on free association and shared sovereignty, it is said, and not on subordination and submission: the Basque people are not a subordinated part of the state, but they have their own identity and capacity to join a pluri-national state on the basis of free association. In its second part, the Proposal describes the foundations of the project for a Free Association Status with Spanish state. The Free Association with the state Agreement proposes reinforcing Basque self-government in the following terms: •
•
• • • • • • • •
Legal recognition of the identity of the Basque people and their right to decide their future. The CAPV will have to organize referendums to discover what the people want. Free relations between the CAPV and the Autonomous Community of Navarre, with respect to the principle that only the people from Navarre can decide their future. Relations capacity with Iparralde, based on community law and on the extension of cross-border relations. An autonomous Basque judiciary which includes all levels of justice. Capacity to autonomously institutionalize Euskadi. Preservation of its cultural identity, which involves exclusive jurisdiction in the fields of culture and education. Setting up of a social protection, economic and labour sphere. Management of Basque infrastructures and natural resources. Establishing a bilateral system of guarantees with the state that prevents the unilateral amendment of the pact. To have its own representation in Europe and the world.
182 Francisco Letamendía With the 2004 reform of the Treaty of the Union on the horizon, it is proposed that the status of the Basque Country in the Community is that of a nation or associated region. The problem is political, concludes the proposal. It involves establishing if the agents really want to work towards a consensual and flexible solution that will become the reality of the pluri-nationality of the state. It claims that this model could be used for other people or nationalities in the state. The principle of co-sovereignty has been applied in construction the European Union. Its theoretical approaches do not differ from the asymmetric federalism proposed by sectors of the PSOE and the free association federalism put forward by Izquierda Unida. According to the Proposal, the Process has to be based on social participation and on the principles on non-exclusion and flexibility. It states that the referendum will have to be held in a background “without violence and without exclusions”. The five following stages are envisaged: 1 Presentation of the Proposal. 2 Social participation: of the political parties, of the trade unions, of the media, of the university and cultural spheres ... 3 Preparing a draft of the text within 12 months. 4 Opening a new social participation process in the contents of the Agreement, as a step prior to its being put to Parliament. 5 A referendum to be held to approve the agreement reached with the state, or the Plan approved by the Basque Parliament. With respect to the evolution of the state of the Autonomies, the proposal highlights a fundamental incongruity of the Spanish Constitution. Between 1977 and 1978, it was a response to an intense national conflict, which had flared up in Catalonia and, in particular, in the Basque Country, at the end of Franco’s regime. This is the reason for the difference between nationalities and regions that appears under its First Heading. However, its subsequent development followed the logic of symmetric autonomy, where the initial differences between fast-lane and slow-lane autonomies disappeared. In 1981, this logic inspired the main parties of the time, the UCD and PSOE, to prepare the LOAPA (Harmonization of the Autonomy Process Act), which would subordinate the autonomy of the communities to the one decided by the state. This continued to be expressed in the successive Autonomy Agreements, which were entered into by the PP and the PSOE during the 1990s, which would end the work of putting nations and regions on an equal level. Therefore, the pluri-nationality of the state was replaced in theory and in practice by the symmetric autonomy. The proposal answers – and obviously does so from an Autonomous Community where the sovereignist approaches are accepted by a democratic majority of nationalists – the double problem of recognizing pluri-nationality and joint cosovereignty.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 183 Theoretical sources of inspiration Three intellectual debts can be observed, the first two of which have been acknowledged by the Lehendakari. The first relates to plural federalism, the second to the principle of governance against hierarchy, and the third to the neoinstitutionalist theory of the importance of history and culture in institutional construction. The current concepts of federalism (Elazar, 1991, 1994), associated with multicultural societies, link it to the recognition of plurality and assign it the ethical values of respect and reciprocal recognition. In Elazar’s analysis, federalism includes the following points: its cornerstone is civil society and the associative life; there is not a sovereign government, with the exercising of the sovereignty being shared by the different federated government. The territorial concept is based on the division and inter-dependence of powers, in a model with a polycentric structure and plural operations. The balance between the federated units does not imply symmetric equality. Federalism as a government structure has to be accompanied by a federal political culture. The foundation of shared sovereignty has to be related to globalization, an ambiguous phenomena that, however hypothetically, depicts a world without a center, which would run by the horizontal principle of shared governance (Mayntz, 1998; Vallés, 2000). The emergence in Europe of four levels of political power – local, regional, state, and community (Morata, 1999) – involved in relations based on conflict and cooperation, can multiply the federal loyalties and the phenomena of shared sovereignties. In the medium and the long term, in a horizon that is currently impossible to see, this dynamics could erase the lines between territorial self-government and independence and thus eliminate the traumatic costs of secession. The principle of historical rights is intellectually legitimized by the thoughts of neo-institutionalism (March and Olsen, 1989), which is based on the principles that “culture matters,” that preferences are configured by institutions insofar as they create collective identities, that in short “history is what is important” (Orren and Skowronek, 1999).3 Reactions to the proposal The reaction of the two majority parties, PP and PSOE, radically hostile and excluding any possibility of dialogue, is due to the lack of room in its practical and theoretical approaches for the new theoretical perspectives of pluri-nationality, which are being used to find an answer to other bitter national problems, such as the case in Northern Ireland. The reaction of the outlawed Batasuna has been also negative. They accuse the project of being unviable and not credible, and claim that it is impossible to achieve from a legal point of view; they discuss also the principle of sharing sovereignty. On the peripheries, the reaction has been reserved, but not hostile. Without joining the project – and even rejecting it as has been the case of the Partido
184 Francisco Letamendía Socialista de Catalunya – Catalonia’s political parties have been receptive towards the new aspects of the proposal to turn the Spanish state of Autonomies into a pluri-national state. The Catalan parliament expressed its desire to urgently review its Statute. An openly favourable attitude was expressed by the Bloque Galego. In any case, the proposal has points that are not sufficiently clear. Is it viable from the point of view of rigorously respecting the legislation in force that is contrary to any sovereignty that is not the constitutionally defined of the “Spanish people”? Article 46 of the Basque Autonomy Statute states that any reform to the Statute has to be with the agreement of the Spanish Parliament, which is currently impossible. The PP government, with the backing of the Socialist opposition on this point, have announced that they intend to “apply the law” against this initiative. Has the tripartite government considered the possibility of a confrontation against the radically closed posture of the central government? On the other hand, the proposal states that the referendum should be held “without violence or exclusions.” What will happen if ETA does not call a ceasefire? Furthermore, the PP has announced that it is against any referendum being held on this subject, and it has said that only it has the jurisdiction to call such a referendum. Which specific mechanisms will be used to tackle the issue of territoriality, or in other words, the complex question of standardizing a strategy designed for all the Basque territories (and not only for the CAPV), with the – required – respect for the wishes of the citizens in each of the territories? Finally, the social participation proposed by the Lehendakari can not be just tagged on, but it is a fundamental requirement to build from all sectors – including the socio-labour setting – the Basque decision sphere. Yet, in any case, Lehendakari Ibarretxe’s proposal is the only thought-out and credible one that has been put forward by the democratically elected institutions, which endows it with legitimacy. The other channel proposed by the centralist forces stands out a mile: outlawing Batasuna, accusing any cultural or political initiative and social movement that has anything directly or indirectly to do with Batasuna as being criminal, multiplication of the sphere of the persons that can be persecuted by the police and by the state’s judicial system. The results can be clearly seen in the intensification of the – entirely reprehensible – campaign of violence by ETA.
Conclusion As has been the case in other latitudes and countries, we are facing two conflicts in the Basque Country. One conflict, that exists between national groups within the pluri-national states, questions issues such as nationality, citizenship, selfgovernment. This conflict implies achieving agreements on citizenship and selfgovernment at two levels: the internal level of nationality and the external level of the relationship between nationality and the pluri-national state. Another conflict is the one created by the use of violence as a political instrument within a profoundly divided society. Ending this implies the consummation of the process of sharing wishes which is the grounds of a sustainable reconciliation.
Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 185 Although the two conflicts can – and should – be separated for theoretical purposes, the solution of each of them greatly helps to solve the other. The sustainable reconciliation theoreticians (Lederach and Mitchell,1998) have depicted a complex synopsis, which involves the following interrelated elements: forming the “locus” of sustainable reconciliation as the setting for the physical meeting of the players; a role in the international mediation; cushioning of the feedback effects of the violence; and central issues to be dealt with. The issues are as follows: decommissioning the arms of the violent groups; a judicial policy, once the arms have been decommissioned, towards releasing prisoners; reforming the police and respecting human rights; and compensating the victims. The Lehendakari’s proposal involves solving the first conflict, the national conflict. Yet, as all the country’s players become involved in the process, they will also be working on one of the essential elements of the second conflict, that of building up the “locus” of sustainable reconciliation, that is, the setting for the physical meeting of the parties. Even if it were only for this, and with all the reservations that I have already expressed, it is worth taking into account.
Notes 1 This has been reflected in the reactions provoked by the statement by the three Basque bishops, which expressed the feeling of the Basque church regarding the Political Parties Act and also on other issues. The concern regarding the impact that the Act will have on “the Basque Country’s already seriously disturbed society” and on the “extremely likely” impact that it will have and which “should be avoided,” are common-sense points of view that are shared by believers and non-believers, by the members of the national parties and of Ezker Batua, but also by a substantial number of members of Basque non-nationalist parties. The bishops clearly define ETA’s terrorism as being “seriously negative,” as well as the fact of “collaborating with terrorist actions, harbour them or defend them.” They express their solidarity with the victims and the people being threatened, and explicitly mention the PP and PSOE councillors, and add that attacking a councillor is “a hard blow against democracy.” That the President of the Spanish Government interpreted this type of text to mean that “the best thing that can happen to the victims is that the criminals are on the loose,” and dared to accuse the three bishops who are supposedly authorities on ethical questions of being “morally pervert,” is an indicator of the centralist frenzy. 2 Even though located in a different perspective, in February 2001, the Elkarri movement for dialogue submitted its Peace Conference plan, backed by 50,000 signatures and inspired by the fundamental principle of equal democratic, political, and living conditions. The Conference opened in October and was attended by all the Basque parties, except for the PP. The Committee of Honour include seven Nobel prize winners, including the Irish Prime Minister, Hume, the Dalai Lama, the writer Saramago. In September 2002, Elkarri announced that it would publish the conclusions of its Peace Conference at the end of October. Elkarri recognized that the situation in the country is “serious and progressively worsening”, and “society’s hope for peace and understanding is caught between the two dominant and unviable strategies: violence and outlawing”. In September, Elkarri submitted two draft agreements to be approved by the Conference. The first would prepare the “agreement page”, which was the objective the Peace Conference. The second offered its interpretative framework. The first draft contained the following principle of a process to reach an agreement between the political forces:
186 Francisco Letamendía • • •
Respecting the dignity of people and all human right and collective and individual liberties. Recognition of ideological, political, and social pluralism and of the plurality of national identities. Equal democratic conditions for the political confrontation.
The Process should be based on the following commitments: • • • •
Absence of any type of violence, coercion, or threat. Acceptance of the non-unilateralism of any decision that could be taken in the process. Acceptance of the non-immutability of the current political-legal framework. Acceptance that the outcome of this process should be democratically legitimized by the society.
The Conference held in October 2002, which has admitted its failure to obtain the agreement of the political parties, has accepted the aforementioned principles, proposing a new “bake bidea” (way of peace) based on them. 3 These taking up of positions are congruent with the vigorous defence of the rights of the state-less peoples that is being carried out by the anti-globalization “movement of movements,” which exploded in Seattle, Genova, Porto Alegre over recent years … or, more precisely, the fight for an alternative globalization to the current one. The Manifesto of the II World Forum in Porto Alegre, which went against the flow of the wave of state emphasis that has followed 9/11, defined the cultures and identities of the peoples as “heritage of humanity for the present and future generations,” in the same way as its waters, land, and forests; and defends the selfdetermination of the peoples. “We should encourage dialogue, negotiation and the non-violent resolution of the conflicts” stated the Manifesto (Pastor, 2002). As is clear, many of the claims of this “movements of movements” coincide with the feeling of the democratic majority of Basque people.
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Multiple identities and self-government in the Basque Country 187 Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lederach, J.P. and Mitchell, C. (1998) Construyendo la paz. Reconciliación sostenible en sociedades divididas, Bilbao: Bakeaz. Letamendía, F. (1994) Historia del nacionalismo vasco y de ETA, 3 vols, Donostia: R&B Ediciones. Letamendía, F. (ed.) (1999) Nacionalidades y Regiones en la Unión Europea, Madrid: Ed. Fundamentos. Letamendía, F. (2000) Game of Mirrors: Centre–Periphery National Conflicts, Aldershot: Ashgate. Letamendía, F. (2002) Redes políticas en la CAPV y en Iparralde, Donostia: EREIN. Loughlin, J. (1999) “La autonomía en Europa occidental: un estudio comparado,” in F. Letamendía (ed.) (1999) Nacionalidades y Regiones en la Unión Europea, Madrid: Ed. Fundamentos. March, J. and Olsen, J. (1989) Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics, New York: The Free Press. Marin, B. and Mayntz, H. (1992) Policy Networks, Boulder, CO: Westview. Marsh, D. and Rhodes, R. (1992) “Policy communities and issue networks: beyond typology,” in D. Marsh and R. Rhodes (eds), Policy Networks in British Government, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mayntz, R. (1998) New Challenges to Governance Theory, Jean Monnet Chair Papers, Florence: European University Institute. Morata, F. (1999) La Unión Europea: procesos, actores y políticas, Barcelona: Ariel Ciencia Política. Orren, K. and Skowronek, S. (1999) “Orden y tiempo en el estudio de las instituciones: un alegato a favor del enfoque histórico,” in J. Farr, J. Dryzek and S. Leonard (eds), La ciencia política en la historia, Madrid: Istmo. Pastor, J. (2002) Qué son los movimientos anti-globalización, Barcelona: RBA integral. Pettit, P. (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pleno del Parlamento Vasco (2002) “Debate de política General,” 27 September, Discurso del Lehendakari Ecmo. Sr D. Juan José Ibarretxe Martiartu. Pocock, J.G.A. (1985) Virtue, Commerce and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Requejo, F. (2000) “Federalism and the quality of democracy in plurinational contexts: present shortcoming and possible improvements,” International Conference on Does Federalism Matter? Political institutions and the management of territorial cleavages, Princeton University. Robertson, J. (1992) Globalisation: Social Theory and Global Culture, London: Sage. Rokkan, S. (1970) Citizens, Elections, Parties, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Skinner, P. (1990) Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor C. (1994a) Multiculturalisme. Différence et démocratie, Paris: Aubier. Taylor, C. (1994b) “The politics of recognition,” in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism. Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vallés, J.M. (2000) Ciencia política. Una introducción, Barcelona: Ariel Ciencia Política.
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Index
Abu-Lughod, J.L. 21 Afghanistan 52, 58; UN’s role in 67 aid see international aid Ajuria–Enea Agreement (1988–98) 174 Alliot-Marie, M. 160 Alsace 157 ambassadors, cultural 83 Annan, K. 60, 69, 70 anti-Americanism 65 anti-globalization 18, 52 Arabs, in France 158, 159–60, 161, 162 Armenians, in France 162, 163 Aron, R. 162 asymmetrical federalism 142–4, 147–8 Autonomous Community (AC) 147–8, 182 Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAPV): elections 171, 172, 175, 180, see also Basque Country autonomy: federal 143, 147–8; and mesolevel identities 129–30; Spanish ACs 147–8, 182 Aznavour, Charles 162 balance of power 61–4, 67–8 Balme, R. 88 Balthazar, L. 81 Barber, B. 83 Barcelona 83 Barre, R. 88 Basque Country 147–8, 150–1, 168–9; ETA’s activities in 168, 172–7; history of 169–70; and Political Parties Act 177–9; political process 171–2; selfgovernment proposals 179–83 Basque diaspora 85, 160–1 Batasuna 151, 173–4, 177–9, 181 Bavaria 98
BECC (Border Environment Cooperation Commission) 99 Belgium, federalism in 142–4, 149–50 Bentham, J. 14 Bernal, M. 21 Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) 99 borders: and interethnic conflicts in Europe 160–4; national, and meanings of globalization 17; transborder allegiances 162; transborder languages 157; transborder regional paradiplomacy 92, 96, 97, 98; transboundary policies 81; transcendence of national 2 Boubakeur, D. 161 Boubeker, A. 161 Bouchard, L. 145 boundaries see borders Brass, P. 106 Braudel, F. 21 Brown, M.D. 79 Bush Administration see Republican government (US) businesses: impact of IT revolution on 118–19, 120; small and medium-sized 79; and sub-state global economic strategies 121 Cable, V. 81 California 79, 82, 98, 118–19 Canada 64, 80, 86; federalism in 144–6, 150; immigration flows in 119; welfare state in 106, 107 capitalism: politics and justice 9–12; and state functions 7–9 CAPV see Autonomous Community of the Basque Country
Index Carcassonne, G. 156 Carlism 169–70 Castells, M. 24 Catalan Convergència Unió (CiU) (Spain) 148 Catalonia: as Autonomous Community 147–8, 150, 184; paradiplomacy in 80, 81, 83 Catholicism 157–8 centralization: in Canada 145; of the central state, and welfare provision 106, 108; in OECD countries 87; in Spain and the Basque Country 168–9, see also decentralization Chevènement, J.-P. 156, 159 China 41, 42 Chirac, J. 156, 160 choice, and politics of globalization 33 Christianity 157–8 cities see sub-state regions citizenship: and democratic accountability 135; republican ideals of 177; rights of and the welfare state 105, 106–7; social rights of and dependency 108–9 civil liberties, effects of capitalist expansion on 11–12 class (social), and the welfare state 105 Cold War period 40; US policy post-Cold War (1989–2000) 54–5 colonialism: French views of 153; globalization as result of 19, 38 Committee on the Politics of Local– Global Relations (IPSA) 40–1 Committee of the Regions (CoR) (EU committee) 94 communication, social 106 communications: and ethnocultural pluralism 158, 164; and globalism 28; identity and the nation-state 131; and supraterritoriality 25 communism, collapse of 39, 40–1, 42 communitarianism 133–4 community relationships, and federalism 142, 143, 146, 149–50 community values: capitalist destabilization of 10, 11; need for international community 68 compound nationality 128–30 conservatism 176 consociationalism, in Belgium 144 consumerism 31, 167 cosmopolitan localism 128, 135 crime, and punishment 59
189
cultural homogenization 30–1 cultural imperialism 31 culture: ethnocultural pluralism 158–9, 161–4; French 152–60; multiculturalism 164, 167–8, 175; promotion of sub-state cultures 83–4, 153–7 cyberspace 118 Davis, B. 86 De Gaulle, C., General 84 decentralization: in Belgium 143–4, 149; European 42, 135; in France 153, 164; as result of globalization 111, 132; in Spain 147, 150–1, see also centralization decision-making: at the local level 134; for international policies 57 defence budgets, United States 50 Defense Department (US): Nuclear Posture Review 50; policy-making issues 55 democracy: and capitalism 11; in Europe 135; issues of and power of international institutions 66; and the local 39, 42–6 Democracy and Local Governance Research program, 1990–7 (IPSA) 41, 42–5 demonstrations, political 178–9 Demscore correlations: local autonomy, political conflict and international identity 44; market economy correlations with global impact, and international identity 44; market economy, support groups and decisionmaking 43; meso regional correlations 45; value scale items 48 Denmark 112 Desrosiers, É. 80 destabilization, and capitalism 9–10 Deutsch, K. 107, 141 diasporas 85, 161–4 diplomacy see paradiplomacy diplomacy/defence dichotomy 55 diseases, global spread of 116–17 domestic policies, of US vis-a-vis international issues 55, 57 Drucker, P.F. 122 dual identities 128–30 Durkheim, E. 141 Eban, A. 62–3 economic sanctions 99
190
Index
economics: economic definitions of globalization 17, 18; economic globalization 117; economic growth and social security 109–10; emergence of global political economy 41–2; growth of global links 22; sub-state economic governance 112; sub-state global economic strategies 120–1; subnational economic integration and federal reform 94–7; US post-September 11 economy 51, see also market economy The Economist (magazine) 11–12 ECOSOC (UN Economic and Social Council) 71 education, and the IT revolution 119 ELA (Basque trade union organization) 171, 179, 180 Elazar, D. 183 elections: to parliament of Autonomous Community of the Basque Country 171, 172, 173–4, 175, see also voting systems electronic communication see communications; Internet use 11 September see September 11 terrorist attacks Elkarri 172 employment: and growth of tourism 81–2; and the IT revolution 118–19; and sub-state global economic strategies 120–1 England, regional governance in 134 equality: political equality 48, see also inequality ETA (Basque separatist organization) 148, 168, 172–7; legislative measures against 178, 184 ethnic identity, in France 152, 153–64 ethnocultural pluralism, in France 158–9 ethnoregional languages, in France 153–7 Europe: as balance for US power 63; compound nationality and identity in 129–30; foreign policies postSeptember 11 53; integration and substate identity in 86–7; multiple identities and meso-communities in 127–35; regional identities in 83–4, 135 European Union (EU): Committee of the Regions 94; directives 96; interregional transborder cooperation in 98, 99; as multi-level governance
system 92–3; social policies and sub-state cooperation 113; supranational and sub-state governance in 91 Europeanization, subsidiarity and multilevel governance 132–5 Euskadi ta Askatasuna see ETA Euskal Herria (Basque Country) 172, see also Basque Country exceptionalism 54, 56, 62 exclusion 108 exports: growth of in sub-governmental regions 78; impact on local governance 44 federalism: in Belgium 142–4, 149–50; in Canada 144–6, 150; and plurinationalism 168; in Spain 146–9, 150–1, 183; and subnational economic integration 94–7 Ferguson, N. 59 Ferrara, M. 109 Ferry, J. 154 Flanders (Flemish subregion) 80–1, 83, 84; federalism and nationalism in 142, 149–50 Fonds d’action sociale (FAS) (France) 159 foreign direct investment (FDI) 117 foreign investment, in cities and regions 78–9 foreign policies: of subnational governments 97–9, 121; of US postSeptember 11 53–7 Foreign Policy (magazine) 17 foreign-exchange markets 117 Forest, P.-G. 85 “fortress Europe” 133 France: ethnocultural pluralism in 158–9; ethnoregional languages and culture 153–7; impact of supranationalism, globalization and international politics on identity 160–4; national identity of 152–3; politics and ethnic minorities 159–60; Quebec–France relations 82, 84; regional enterprise in 88; religion and secular values in 157–8; tourism in 82, see also French speakers “France Plus” (ethnic lobby group) 160 Franco, F., and Francoism 146, 170 French Revolution (1789) 152, 154 French speakers: in Belgium 142, 149; in Canada 144, 150; in France 155–6
Index Fry, E.H. 79, 80, 81, 97 FTA (Canada–US Free Trade Agreement) 86 Galicia 147–8 Gans, H. 163–4 garrison, as state function 7, 8 Gates, B. 120 GATT Treaty 86 gender, and globality 32 geographical space: and social relations 21; and territorialism 24–6, see also social space; spatiality George, H. 10 Germany: economic integration and federal reform in 94–5, 96; sub-state governments and paradiplomacy in 91, 93; subnational “foreign policies” 97, 99 Giscard d’Estaing, V. 160 global governance 51–2, 69 global paradiplomacy 92 globalism 27–9 globality: concepts of 14, 33–4; growth of global links 22; and social relations 20, 131; and universality 31–2 globalization: concepts and definitions of 13–16, 33–4; effects on social welfare 108–13; interdependence and interconnectedness 116–19; limitations of existing analysis 16–20; new conceptions of 20–7; start of, in 1970s 41 Globalization Index 17 global–local binaries 30, 40–6; and decline of the state 38, 39, 111, 131–2; and international relations 40, 86–7 Goldsborough, J.O. 79 Gosselin, G. 86 governance: global governance 69; international institutions’ role in global governance 51–2; local, and impact of early globalization 42–6, 116; supra-national governance 91, 133; and supraterritoriality 25–6; theoretical models of 2–3; transnational, and meso-identities 129–30; types of 93–4, 100 governments: intervention policies for international trade 79–81, 88, see also intergovernmental relations Guibernau, M. 107
191
Harkis 158 Harmonization of the Autonomy Process Act (LOAPA) (Spain) 182 Harvey, D. 24 Haute Conseil à l’intégration (France) 163 health care services 107 Heidegger, M. 24 Helsinki Accords 41–2 Héraud, G. 154 Herri Batasuna 151, 173–4, 177–84 heterogenity, and homogenization 30–1, 164 high tech companies 80 Hirst, P. 112 Hocking, B. 81, 92 homogenization, and heterogenity 30–1, 164 Hooghe, L. 87, 93, 100 human rights 41–2 humanitarian aid see international aid identities: as aspect of nation-building 82–4; Basque 168; ethnic, in France 152, 153–64; French 152–3; local, in meso-communities 127, 133–4; multiple, and globalization 3; multiple, and meso-communities 127–30; polarizations in 167; Spanish national identity 168; and the welfare state 105, 107–8, 110–11 image: of sub-state regions 80, 83, 85; of UN 66, 67; of US 66 immigrants/immigration: high incidence of 117; to Canada 119; to Europe 135; to France 153, 157, 159, 161–4; to USA 120 imperialism: cultural 31, see also colonialism imports, impact on local governance 44 India 118 inequality, and capitalism 10–12 information technology (IT) 118–19; effect on transnational trade 82; identity and the nation-state 131 institutional design see centralization; decentralization; federalism institutions see international institutions integration–disintegration: national 1, 3; and subnational identity 94–7 inter-community relations 142 inter-regional cooperation: in Spain 147, see also transborder regional paradiplomacy
192
Index
interdependence 116–19, 176 Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee (IGPAC) 95 intergovernmental relations 113, 141; in Belgium 143; in Canada 145–6; in Spain 148, see also transnational governance intermestic policies 93, 121 international aid: international cooperation for 60–1; UN strategies 52; US participation in 58, 66, 68 International Criminal Court 56 International Herald Tribune (newspaper) 61 International Institutional Innovations Forum 69 international institutions: international security roles of 51–2; non-military global security measures 58–61; reform proposals for 69–71; reform of, and relationships with US 65–7; and US foreign policy 57 international law, and US foreign policy 56 international organizations (INGOs) 52 International Political Science Association (IPSA) World Congress, Berlin (1994) 40–1 international relations: alliances with US 61–4; and local–global relations 40, 86–7; and social relations 21–2; substate strategies for 84, 85 international security 49–50; future developments in 67–71; global security and the balance of power 61–4, 67–8; non-military global security 58–61; post-September 11 50–2, 65–7; September 11 as a watershed event 53–7; and spread of diseases 117; and US leadership versus power-sharing 57–8 international trade: agreements in North America 86; for developing countries 60–1; European agreements 87; and globalization 1; identity and the nation-state 131; in sub-governmental regions 77–82, 86–7, 88, 121; world trade and globalization 117 internationalization: globalization as 16–17; and paradiplomacy 86–7, 91–4; and subnational politics 91–4 Internet use: facilitates international trade 82; facilitates symbolic ethnicity 164; and supraterritoriality 25
INTERREG program 98 investment see foreign investment investment promotion agencies (IPAs) 80 IPSA World Congress, Berlin (1994) 40–1 Islam 157, 162, see also Muslims isolationism, of United States foreign policy 53, 55–6 IT see information technology Jacobinism 152, 157 Jefferson, T. 12 Jews, in France 158, 159–60, 163 Jospin, L. 156 justice: and peace 59; political science and economics 9–12 Kearney, A.T. (consultants) 17 Keating, M. 81, 83, 105 Kennedy, P. 50, 59 Keynes, J.M. 7 Klausen, J. 110, 111 Laïcité 157, 158 Länder 93, 94–5, 96, 97, 99 languages: Catalan 83; and cultural homogenization 31; French 155–6; French ethnoregional languages 153–7; French speakers in Belgium and Canada 142, 144, 149, 150; linguistic duality 142, 144; notions of globality 14; promotion of sub-state languages 83 Latouche, D. 112 Lecours, A. 84, 85 legislation: for Basque autonomy 177–84; US, post-September 11 53–4 Lehendakari Ibarretxe, proposal for Basque self-government 179–83, 184, 185 Levitt, T. 14 liberalization, as globalization 17–18 Lindblom, C.E. 11 linguistic duality 142, 144 Lizarra Agreement (1998–9) 174, 179 loans, for regional economic development 81 LOAPA (Harmonization of the Autonomy Process Act) (Spain) 182 the local: democracy and globalization 42–6; and identity in mesocommunities 127, 133–4; impact of globalization on 41–2, 119–20; responses to globalization 38–41
Index Longworth, R. 118 Lowi, T.J. 8 Lyon 88 M&A (mergers and acquisitions) 117 Maastricht, Treaty of 87, 94, 134 Mace, G. 86 Maghrebis 159, 160, 161 majoritarianism 148 market economy: financial globalization and national economies 109, 130–2; the international, and democracy 44–5, 46; and the IT revolution 118; post-Cold War 59; sub-governmental regions role in 77–82, 86–7, 88, 121; and trade barriers 60–1; value of: the Demscore scale 48, see also economics marketing: for investment 79–80; of national identities 83–4 Marks, G. 87, 93, 100 Marois, P. 80 Marshall, T.H. 105, 107, 108 Marxism 10 Massart-Piérard, F. 83 media, television and ethnocultural pluralism 158 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) 117 meso-communities: Europeanization, subsidiarity and multi-level governance 132–5; market values and the nation-state 130–2; meaning of 128; and multiple identities 127–30, see also sub-state regions methodological territorialism 26–7 Mexico–US border region 99 Michalet, C.-A. 79 military capabilities: of UK 57; of US 58–9, 61; of US allies 63 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 68 minority identities 85, 108, 152, 153; and linguistic duality 142, 144, 153–7; and political process 159–60; positive discrimination towards 158–9; religious 158 minority rights 48 Mishra, R. 105, 110 Mitterand, F. 159 MLG (multi-level governance) 90, 92, 93–4, 100, 132–5 modèle du Quebec inc. 81 modernity, globalization as result of 19 Monterrey Accord 68 Monzie, A. de 154
193
Moore, M. 60–1 Moreno, L. 84, 85 Mulroney, B. 145 multi-level governance (MLG) 90, 92, 93–4, 100, 132–5 multiculturalism 164, 167–8, 175 multilateralism, of United States foreign policy 56, 64, 68 multilayered diplomacy 92 multinational states, the welfare state and social solidarity 105–8, 110–11 multiple identities 3, 127–35 Muslims, in France 157, 158, 159–60, 162 NadBank (North American Development Bank) 99 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association): nationalism and paradiplomacy 84, 85; sub-state governments and paradiplomacy 91, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100 nation-building: strategies for 58, 81, 82–5; and the welfare state 105–6, 107–8 nation-state: decline of in local–global relationships 38, 39, 111, 131–2; expansion of, and state welfare 106; meso-communities and market values 130–2; multi-culturalism and plurinationalism in 167–8; role of 1–2; sovereign status of 51–2, 65, 132, 134, see also welfare state national borders see borders National Health Service (UK) 107 nationalism, sub-state 111, 141–2; in Belgium 142–4, 149–50; in Canada 144–6, 150; and paradiplomacy 82–5; in Spain 146–9, 150–1, 184; strategies of, and globalization 149–51 nationality, compound 128–30 Native peoples 85 NATO, effectiveness of 63 neo-patriotism, in United States 53 neoliberalism 17–18, 108–10, 113 Netherlands 112 neutrality, political 32–3 New Right 108–9 New York City 120 The New York Times (newspaper) 58, 69, 83 9/11 see September 11 terrorist attacks North America: communitarianism in 133–4; inter-regional transborder
194
Index
cooperation in 98–9; sub-state governments and paradiplomacy 91–2, see also United States North American Development Bank (NadBank) 99 North American Free Trade Association see NAFTA North–South transfrontier trade 81 Nuclear Posture Review (US Defense Department) 50 Nye, J. 54–5, 64 Ontario 86 orthodoxy, versus tyranny 12 Ottawa Citizen (newspaper) 63 out-sourcing 118 paradiplomacy: development of 77–82, 90; economic integration and federal reform 94–7; foreign policies of subnational governments 97–9, 121; and internationalization 86–7, 91–4; meaning of 92; and nationalism 82–5 Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) (Canada) 145 Partido Popular (PP) (Spain) 148, 176, 184; PP–PSOE pact 175, 176–7, 178 Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) (Spain) 148, 176–7, 182, 183; PP–PSOE pact 175, 176–7, 178 parties, political see political parties patronage, as state function 7, 8 Patten, C. 59–60 peace, and justice 59 peacekeeping: international strategies for 63–4; non-military global security measures 58–61; US strategies for 58 Pearson, L. 145 perception 131 Péry Commission 156 Piven, F.F. 109, 112 pluralism 48; ethnocultural 158–9 pluri-nationalism 168, 183–4 PNV–EA coalition 175 Poland 43 police, as state function 7, 8–9 policy see foreign policies political equality 48 political neutrality 32–3 political parties: Basque 171, 173, 174, 175; Canadian 145; Spanish 148, 176–7; US 55 Political Parties Act (2002) (Spain) 177–84
political process: in the Basque Country 171–2, 174–5; and minority identities 159–60, see also paradiplomacy political science, economics and justice 9–12 politicians, as entrepreneurs 88 Politics of Local–Global Relations, Committee on (IPSA) 40–1 politics, subnational see paradiplomacy populations: movements of 117, 119; urbanization of 120 Porter, M. 78 positive discrimination 158 poverty: and capitalism 10; the poverty gap 59, 60 power relations 32–3, 61–4, 67–8; between sub-states and nation states 84–5 PP see Partido Popular PP–PSOE pact 175, 176–7 178 private police forces 8 PSE–EE coalition 175 PSOE see Partido Socialista Obrero Español public opinion, on US foreign policies 54, 55, 56, 68 Pujol, J. 147, 150 punishment, and crime 59 Quebec: French-Canadian nationalism and federalism in 144–5, 146, 150; paradiplomacy in 77, 78, 80–1, 84, 86; Quebec–France relations 82, 84; selfgovernment as model for Basque Country 179, 180 racism, in France 153 Raffarin, J.-P. 164 reconciliation 185 regional–federal relations 143, see also sub-state regions reification 29–30 relationships see power relations; social relations; transplanetary relations religion, and French identity 157–8 Renan, E. 108, 154 representation, subnational representation on NAFTA committees 95 Republican government (US): on US leadership and power-sharing 58, 64; view of defence and security policies 50, 68; view of post-September 11 foreign policies 53–7
Index Republican Party (US) 55 republicanism: French 152–3; Spanish 176–7 rights see human rights; minority rights; social rights Robertson, G. (Lord Robertson) 63 Robertson, R. 14 Rodon, T. 85 Rodrik, D. 17 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, revoked by US 56 Ruggie, M. 24 Schumpeter, J. 7, 9, 118 Scotland 84 Second Democratic Revolution 39, 44, 45–6, see also Demscore correlations secularism, and French identity 157–8 security see international security; welfare state Security Council Resolutions, postSeptember 11 52 security legislation, US, post-September 11 53–4 self-determination, Basque right to 175 self-government: and identity conflicts 129; proposals for Basque Country 179–84 September 11 terrorist attacks: consequences of, for Basque identity 175–6; global institutions’ reform, post-September 11 65–7; presents new international security issues 50–2; as a watershed event 53–7 Silicon Valley 118–19 Sitruk, J. 161 small and medium-sized businesses 79 Smith, A. 7, 154 social citizenship see citizenship social position, and globality 32 social relations: and geographical space 21; and globality 20, 131 social rights 105, 106–7, 108–9 social solidarity: in sub-state welfare regimes 112, 113; and the welfare state in a multinational state 105–8, 110–11 social space: and cultural homogenization 30–1; and global/local binaries 30; globalism and territorialism 28–9; and reification 29, see also geographical space; spatiality social welfare see welfare state “soft power” 61, 63
195
Soldatos, P. 78 solidarity see social solidarity sovereign state status 51–2; in Canada 146; and financial globalization 132; and international institutions 65; proposals for Basque Country 179–82; shared, and globalization 183; and subsidiarity 134 space: and the IT revolution 118; transborder trade redefines 81, see also geographical space; social space; spatiality Spain: federalism in 146–9, 150–1, 183; history of 169; national identity 168, see also Basque Country spatiality: as aspect of globalization 20–1; as aspect of supraterritoriality 24, see also geographical space; social space stakeholders 59, 61 state see nation-state; sub-state regions; welfare state State Department (US), policy-making issues 55 statism, and supraterritoriality 25 Stopford, J. 79 Strange, S. 79 strategic capabilities see military capabilities strategies see paradiplomacy sub-state nationalism see nationalism sub-state regions: global economic strategies of 120–1; globalization and the IT revolution 116–22; globalization and paradiplomacy 77–82; internationalization and paradiplomacy 86–7; meso-level identities in 129–30, 134; nationalism and paradiplomacy 82–5; nationalism and the welfare state 110–11; role of 90–1; types of governance in 93; welfare regimes in 111–13, see also meso-communities; nation-state; nationalism subnational politics see paradiplomacy; sub-state regions subsidiarity, identity and multi-level governance 132–5 supra-national governance 91, 133 supraterritoriality 20, 22–6, 28–9 sustainable reconciliation 185 symbolics ethnicity 163–4 symbols, welfare state as symbol of nationhood 107–8, 110–11
196
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symmetrical federalism 145–6 Tasca, C. 158 technology: as contributor to globalization 59; effect on transnational trade 80, 82, see also information technology television, and ethnocultural pluralism 158 territorial identities 127, 128, 134–5 territorial space, and supraterritoriality 22–3, 24 territorial state era 1–2 territorialism 24–7 territoriality 28 terrorism: consequences of September 11 for Basque identity 175–6; of ETA 172–3, 177, 184; international cooperation to prevent 66; and US foreign policy 54, 57, 58, 175, see also September 11 terrorist attacks Thompson, G. 112 TNCs (transnational corporations) 78, 117 Toubon law (1993) (France) 155–6 tourism 81–2, 117 trade barriers: and market economy 60–1; removal of 96, 111 trade corridors 81, see also international trade trade unions, Basque 171–2 transborder allegiances 162, 163 transborder languages 157 transborder regional paradiplomacy 92, 96, 97, 98 transboundary policies 81 transnational corporations (TNCs) 78, 117 transnational governance: and mesoidentities 129–30, see also intergovernmental relations transplanetary connections and relations 20, 21–2, 25, 32 transportation: costs of, and tourism 81–2; and globalism 28, 117; and supraterritoriality 23–4 transregional paradiplomacy 92 travel see transportation Trudeau, P. 144, 145 tyranny, versus orthodoxy 12 UN see United nations unemployment, and the IT revolution 118–19
unilateralism, of United States foreign policy 53, 55–6, 57, 61, 62 United Kingdom: and European integration policies 84; foreign policies of 57; health care services in 107, 112; subsidiarity in 132 United Nations: cooperation with US 62–3; international security role 49–50, 62; limitations of 51, 69–70; reform proposals for 70–1; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court revoked by US 56; Security Council Resolutions post-September 11 52; and US global domination 65–7; World Investment Report 78 United States: capitalism and state function 7–8; economic integration and federal reform in 94, 95–6, 96–7; foreign investment in 80; foreign policy post-September 11 53–7; global security and the balance of power 61–4, 67–8; international security role 49–50; leadership versus powersharing 57–8; and non-military global security measures 58–9; postSeptember 11 perspectives 50–2, 53; relations with international institutions 65–7; subnational “foreign policies” 97–9, 121; tourism in 81–2; urbanization in 120, see also North America universality 31–2 universalization, of globalization 18–19 urban–rural globality 32 urbanization, impact of globalization on 119–20 Uruguy Round trade agreements 86 USTR (United States Trade Representative) 95, 96 Valaskakis, K. 60 values: capitalist destabilization of 10, 11; market values and the nation-state 130–2; need for international community 68; of United States 54 Van den Brande, L. 83 victims, of Basque terrorism 172–3, 177 violence 142, 148, 168–9, 172–7, 184 voting systems: in France 160; in UN 65, see also elections Walloon Movement 142 War on Terrorism, as US foreign policy 54, 176
Index Washington Post (newspaper) 61 wealth, world distribution of 51 welfare regimes, in sub-state regions 111–13 welfare state 1, 104–5; effects of globalization on 108–11; and social solidarity in multinational states 105–8, 110–11
197
westernization 19–20 Wolfe, A. 110, 111 Wolfensohn, J. 60 working class, and the welfare state 105, 106 World Investment Report (UN) 78 World Social Forum 84 world trade see international trade