Broken Promises Author(S): Arjun Appadurai Source: Foreign Policy, No

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Broken Promises Author(s): Arjun Appadurai Source: Foreign Policy, No. 132 (Sep. - Oct., 2002), pp. 42-44 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3183453 . Accessed: 17/06/2014 11:44

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This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:44:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WhatIs the InternationalCommunity?

The site of the World Social Forum in 2001 and must be to consciously subordinatethe logic of the 2002, the medium-sizedBrazilian city of Porto Ale- market and the pursuit of cost efficiencyto the val- gre has become a byword for the spirit of this bur- ues of security,equity, and solidarity.In the language geoning global community. Galvanized by the slo- of the great social democraticscholar KarlPolanyi, gan "anotherworld is possible,"some 50,000 people this effort is about reembedding the economy in flocked to this coastal city from January31 to Feb- society rather than letting the economy drive soci- ruary 5, 2002-more than three times the number ety. For this dynamic to unfold, the global context attending in 2001. The pilgrims included Indian must move from a centralized governance regime fisherfolk, Thai farmers,U.S. trade unionists, and that imposes rules in the service of one model of indigenous people from Central America. Seattle economic growth to a pluralistic system in which symbolized the first major victory of the transna- institutional power and global economic gover- tional anticorporate globalization movement, but nance are decentralized.Only in such a global con- Porto Alegre representsthe transferto the South of text-more fluid, less structured,more pluralistic, that movement'scenter of gravity. with multiplechecks and balances-will the citizens Now taking place annually, the Porto Alegre and communitiesof the South and North find ways forum performsthree functions for the real global to develop based on their own unique values, community.First, it representsa physical and tem- rhythms, and strategies. poral space for this diversemovement to meet, net- The price of failure would be high. In the early work, and affirmitself. Second,it enablesthe move- 20th century,the revolutionarytheorist Rosa Lux- ment to gather the energies needed to escalate the emburgwarned that the futuremight belong to bar- struggleagainst the processesand structuresof glob- barism.Today, corporate-driven globalization is cre- al capitalism. (Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, ating instabilityand resentmentsthat in turncan give put it well when she told the PortoAlegre participants way to fascist, fanatical, and authoritarianpopulist that the movementneeds "lesscivil society and more impulses. The forces representinghuman solidarity civildisobedience.") And third,Porto Alegre provides and true communitymust step in quicklyto convince a venue for the movementto debate the vision, val- the disenchantedmasses that a betterworld is pos- ues, and institutions of an alternativeworld order. sible. The alternativeis to see the vacuum filled by Among the shared understandings emerging terrorists,demagogues of the religious and radical from this enterprise are two approaches. At the right, and-as in the 1930s-the purveyorsof irra- national and communitylevel, the movement'sgoal tionality and nihilism.

BROKEN PROMISES

By Arjun Appadurai

heinternational community is neither inter- The moralpromise of the idea of the international national nor a community. It is not inter- community rests on a moral premise and a wish. national because, as a moral idea, it does Sometimein the period afterthe birthof the League not exist in any recognizable organizational form. of Nations, and fortifiedby the ascendanceof the idea It is not a communitybecause it has little to do with of human rights in the international order after social relations,spatial intimacy, or long-termmoral WorldWar II, a decisiveshift took place away from amity. Yet there is something compellingly real the notion that relationsbetween nations were fun- about this misnamed object. That reality lies in its damentally premised on power and interest and moral promise. towardthe idea that all nationscould form some sort of genuine moral system on a planetary scale. The Arjun Appadurai is the William K. Lanman Jr. professor of emergenceof the United Nations and its affiliated international studies at Yale University. He is the author of agencieswas the main expression of this shift. Ever Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization since, a deep battle has raged between these two (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and edi- visions of politics beyond the nation-one funda- tor of Globalization (Durham: Duke UniversityPress, 2001). mentallyrealist and instrumental,the othermoral and

42 FOREIGN POLICY

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:44:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions moralistic. The international community is today nation as wealthy as the United States no longer less a social fact and more a way to remind nation- escapesthe net of the global economy,if nothingelse states of the common humanityof their citizensand because its runaway financial engine can hardly of the essential decencies that must guide relations function wholly within the confines of the U.S. between nations. It is the single strongest slogan of nationaleconomy. More generally,both on the street the liberal value of empathy at a distance, the idea and in the chambersof the technocrats,the fraught that makeseveryone feel obligedto recognizethe suf- debatesabout an institutionsuch as the WorldTrade fering and needs of all human beings. Organizationare more than indicatorsof resistance The social expression of this moral slogan is, of to reformor of anti-Americanismin many quarters. course, not completely ephemeral. It appears in a They are symptoms of the impossibility of con- web of relations and institutions defined by those structing new global organizations on an interna- nations springingdirectly from the democraticrev- tional conceptual foundation. olutions of the 18th century-along with their direct A certain vision of internationalismis therefore supportersoutside this originalset-and those inter- coming to an end. The world needs global organi- national organizations zations and transnation- that either came out of al arenas for citizenship the Leagueof Nations or "The internationalcommunity... and sovereignty. The the Bretton Woods con- exclusivity of the inter- sensus. But for most of is the single strongestslogan of national community is the world, the interna- not just one more chap- tional community is less the liberalvalue of empathy ter in the story of how a communitythan a club wealthy nations have for the world'swealthiest at a distance." always behaved-carv- nations, notably those in ing up the world in the North America and names of their own civ- Western Europe, which have combined relatively ilizing missions. Rather,the challenge for the inter- strong democraticpolities with high standardsof liv- national community is to transform itself into an ing for the bulk of their citizens. instrumentof global governance.This objectivecan- Thus, as a social and political reality,the inter- not be achieved by stretching the current liberal national community does not inspire any real sense vision of internationallaw and a common human- of ownership among the poorer 80 percent of the ity to accommodate more countries and points of world's population. And even among the upper 20 view. Rather,new ideas about global governanceare percent, it remains a network for a relativelysmall a prerequisitefor tackling the problem of inclusion. group of politicians, bureaucrats,and intervention- So, what of the premiseand promiseof the inter- ist opinion makers. Yet its political exclusiveness is national community, as primarily a landscape of not its most difficult challenge. consciencemore than a political or legal formation? The central problem is that the international Those who today speak on behalf of the interna- community today is a Westphalianform struggling tional community must tackle the following chal- to remain the ruling authority in an era of increas- lenges: Can notions of global equity, peace, and ingly transnational loyalties, regional polities, and freedom remain regulatedby the relations between global economic regimes. Each of these trends is nations, when markets, migrants, and money have bad news for polities, economies, and societies con- all slipped substantially beyond the control of the ceived in national terms. Diasporic affiliations and nation-state? Can the world continue to behave as mobile, media-linkedcommunities of migrants are if covenants between nations exhaust the limits of redrawingthe relationshipsof location and affilia- what happenswith air,water, land, and all other bio- tion. Sri LankanTamils, Kurds, Chinese emigrants, logical resources,when the fate of the environment Indian techno-coolies, each in their own way, owe is clearly affected by transnationalprocesses, inter- their allegiance to multiple forms of citizenship. ests, and profit-making strategies?Can the world Their mental geography is surely no longer West- continue to behave as if nations are the most sig- phalian. In this sense, these communitiesmimic the nificant receptaclesof large-scaleloyalty in a world global market, which is now strikinglybeyond the where various forms of religious, moral, and polit- regulativecapabilities of most nation-states.Even a ical affiliations are plainly transnational in scope?

SEPTEMBER IOCTOBER 2002 43

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And finally,can the world rely on any sort of inter- a new culturalarchitecture that recognizesthat glob- national force to bring peace when it is increasing- al politicsare not just internationalpolitics by anoth- ly clear that wars have become an affairof everyday er name,the internationalcommunity-with its moral life and of civil society itself in many countries? promise-may well be reducedto an exclusiveclub or If the answersto these questionsare not built on a museumdevoted to memoriesof Westphalia.

GALLANT DELUSIONS

By Ruth Wedgwood

nternationalcommunity" is a dangerousrefer- deaths or shorten the war. Even after the fighting ence point for the naive. Its connotation of began, Izetbegovic rejected more than one peace sociability and commitment invites unwise plan, still betting that the West would enter with relianceby those who must ultimatelyfend for them- guns blazing. The United Nations issued dozens of selves. Its diffusion of responsibilityexcuses coun- resolutions, but Security Council rhetoric did not tries that have no intention of lending a hand. The intimidate armed militias. NATO's belated involve- conceptamounts to a moralhazard, inspiring impru- ment finally separatedthe parties, but today Bosnia dent behavior by leaders who expect that someone remains in tatters. else will pull their fat out of the fire. Or consider Cambodia in 1992-93, scene of a Some illustrations:Start with Bosnia in the years massive U.N. peacekeeping operation designed to of Yugoslavia's collapse. Sarajevo was urged to organize democratic elections. The Khmer Rouge refrain from any precipitous move toward inde- leadership wouldn't play, opting to exclude thou- pendence. Negotiations for a looser form of sands of lightly armed blue berets and election Yugoslav federation organizers from the remained possible, and Khmer territorial the Bosnian Serbs made "The lawless scoff at an redoubt. Vietnam'spro- clear that, push come to tege and former Khmer shove, they would cast internationalcommunity whose Rouge leader Hun Sen their lot with Serbia, was defeatedat the polls, even boycotting Saraje- words have no supporting but he ignoredthe ballot vo's nationalreferendum box and successfully on independence. A cannon fire." demanded a joint prime close advisor asked ministership.An election Bosnian President Alija notch on its belt, the Izetbegovic how he would control the thousands UnitedNations promptlywithdrew from Cambodia, of Yugoslav troops stationed within Bosnia, still leaving behind only a few human rights workers. loyal to Belgrade.Izetbegovic replied, "I will order Hun Sen later forced out coruler Prince Norodom them out"-wistfully supposing that the interna- Ranariddh and rebuffed a prolonged attempt to tional communitywould back him up with military organize a joint war crimes tribunal. Hun Sen is might.The 42-month Serbbombardment of Sarajevo now opening luxury hotels near Angkor Wat and began soon after.International peacekeepers deliv- running a corrupt economy. ered food to civilians and (de facto) to combatants, Next is East Timor in 1999. This extraordinary but this thin gruel did not prevent 200,000 civilian periodfeatured the U.N.-brokeredplan for a national referendumon independence-a plan pushed by Ruth Wedgwood is professor of law at Yale University and Portugal and accepted by Indonesia's remarkable the Edward B. Burling professor of international law and PresidentB.J. Habibie. Aware that Jakarta-backed diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University. She is a senior fel- militiasin East Timorwere planningretaliatory vio- low at the Council on Foreign Relations and editor of After lence, the U.N. secretariatstill felt unable to make Dayton: Lessons of the Bosnian Peace Process (New York: any plans to summon deterrent military commit- Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999). ments, fearful of deriding the word of a sovereign

44 FOREIGN POLICY

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