MWG 2010-03-10 Taras

1 «La politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans: can foreign policy be dictated by anti-immigrant attitudes?» Raymond Taras Domestic explanations Theories assigning primacy to external factors in the making of foreign policy hold that states are unitary actors behaving rationally and pursuing national interests. Internal theories point both to the existence of many different voices in the state and to deviations from rationality as leaders seek to satisfy domestic political goals by taking decisions that do not necessarily optimize state interests in international politics. “In contrast to the externally based theories, those who point to sources internal to the state expect differences across states’ foreign policies, despite the similar international circumstances. For these analysts, the great diversity of political systems, cultures, and leaders point states in different directions, even though they are facing the same external forces.”1 How attentive are leaders to public opinion, especially on issues related to international politics? On the one hand, “the conventional wisdom is that the public simply does not influence foreign policy…. It is not clear that leaders would follow the public’s opinion.” On the other is evidence that “there is some congruence between changes in public opinion and changes in foreign policy.”2 Ironically, the pathology of xenophobia can exert greater influence in a democratic system. “Demagoguery works best where the demos has some influence.”3 The types of demagoguery that are likely to be most appealing are 2 those targeting an unpopular foreign nation, or a disliked minority or migrant community at home. Projected to foreign policy, xenophobic demagoguery can heighten irrational security fears and a correspondingly hostile policy towards antipathetical nations. The primacy of rationally defined national interests has always been suspect. Anthropologist F.G. Bailey, author of the seminal book Strategems and Spoils, quoted a letter written in 1648 by Count Oxiensterna, a Swedish statesman, to his son: “You do not understand, my son, how small a part reason plays in governing the world.”4 Bailey highlighted the lure of demagoguery and xenophobia for average citizens: “Ordinary Jane and Ordinary Joe are quicker to feel than they are to think; they respond more readily to a message that touches their emotions than to one that requires them to attend to a carefully reasoned argument. Reason does not mobilize support; slogans do. Reasoning is demanding; slogans are comfortably compelling.”5 Culture and foreign policy The study of culture and its linkage to international relations has been receiving greater attention in recent years.6 Valerie Hudson succinctly captured one aspect in this linkage—between national identity and foreign policy--this way: “When we speak of culture and national identity as they relate to foreign policy, we are seeking the answers that the people of a nation-state would give to the following three questions: ‘Who are we?’, ‘What do ‘we’ do?’, and ‘Who are 3 they?’”7 Culture organizes meaning for a society: “culture tells us what to want, to prefer, to desire, and thus to value.” It also “provides scripts and personae that are reenacted and subtly modified over time within a society.”8 Culture shapes foreign policy, at least indirectly.9 Shared systems of meaning become transferred to the foreign policy making process. For Hudson, “culture in and of itself is not a cause of anything in international relations…. It is in the ‘who draws what ideas’ and the ‘how the ideas are employed’ aspects that causes of events can be found.”10 Differences in the internal values found in states can become refracted onto foreign policy behavior. A good example is in the self-selected national role conception. Thus the Third Reich saw itself as preserver of the Caucasian race, the U.S. as champion of individual enterprise, Sweden as mediator, and Canada as multicultural pioneer.11 For Hudson, it may even be the case that “A nation’s leaders rise in part because they articulate a vision of the nation’s role in world affairs that corresponds to deep cultural beliefs about the nation.”12 Accordingly national action scripts may profound shape a state’s international politics. Culture is regarded as a guarantor of continuity in a state’s foreign policy and it follows that cultural analysis can indicate which “Well-known and well- practiced options, preferably tied in to the nation’s heroic history, will be preferred over less well-known and less familiar options or options with traumatic track records—even if an objective cost-benefit analysis of the two 4 options would suggest otherwise.”13 How power and national interests are understood and defined are often cultural constructs. Policy makers face a challenge: “to what myths, stories, heroic historical elements, contemporary cultural memes, or other elements do they refer?”14 A culture that embodies a nation’s historical and normative pathways may become privileged in the formulation of foreign policy. Culturally-embedded values encompassing national biases, fears, and antipathies are regularly projected externally. Let us take one example. In his study of the Arab community in Canada and that country’s participation in the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf war, a Canadian Arabist contended that race had been involved in judging who was an enemy and who a friend. “Canadians will never think of America as an enemy, and neither can they think of British or the French as enemies…. But it is so easy to think of Arabs as the enemy.” Pointing to Canada’s assertive multicultural, multiracial mosaic, the author inferred that “Since multiculturalism advocates celebrating the differences, allowing the traditions and cultures to coexist, the extension of that policy in foreign policy is a stance of neutrality.”15 Diaspora lobbies Especially in multicultural societies, diaspora groups may seek influence in the making of their adopted country’s foreign policy.16 But this does not apply to all ethnic communities. After 9/11, Arab and Muslim community leaders in Western countries have had a difficult time exerting influence. There 5 are a number of reasons for this. These community heads are up against the leading role played by the U.S.—whether led by Bush or Obama—in the global arena. Arab and Muslim groups are often poorly organized and, in contrast to many other diasporas, receive little support from their countries of origin. Finally, “The community has a hard time defending the interests of an Arab- Muslim world ruled by despotic, non-democratic, corrupt, and politically disabled regimes.”17 In the Canadian case, “An internalization of democratic Canadian values would be a necessary step to transcend any cultural cleavages and overcome contradictions between the original values of these diasporas and their newly acquired Canadian values.”18 Even then, such normatively-assimilated groups are competing—in Europe and elsewhere—with the anti-immigrant backlash that has helped securitize the Muslim threat. Radical right-wing parties have articulated and aggregated this backlash. Accordingly, “the populist radical right portrays Islam as one of the greatest threats to Europe in the twenty-first century, replacing the old specter of communism across Europe.”19 Diasporas exhibit the national likes and antipathies of their places of origin; often, they amplify them. They attempt to influence the receiving country’s foreign policy in so far as it involves that country of origin. Yet historian Jack Granatstein stated bluntly that “No nation like Canada can do what its citizens of Sri Lankan or Pakistani or Somalian or Jewish or Muslim or Ukrainian origin want—all the time.” Instead, “A nation must do what its national interests determine it must.”20 It was therefore desirable “if our 6 leaders can focus on the aspects of foreign policy that are important to the nation as a whole and stop playing to the ethnicities that make up our population.”21 Migrants and security Identities, not ideologies, are the criterion by which most migrants are judged. The notion of the other has expanded as threats to security have become more palpable. Identities perceived as threatening are held suspect. Understanding how to protect a country’s security has shifted from “the absence of threats to acquired values” to “a low probability of damage to acquired values.”22 Identities threatening not just the internal cohesion of a state but its national security and national interests are identified as especially treacherous. Security has come to be redefined: “There has been a clear shift in emphasis in the perception of security away from what many would now see as the redundant nation-state to individuals and groups. Herein lies the paradox. How to reconcile the human right to move freely with the need to protect local cultures, economies, environments, health, and, in some cases, peace.”23 The traditional meaning of security has been weakened: “The term [security] as it has been traditionally used in international relations literature is based on two major assumptions: one, that threat to a state’s security principally arises from outside its borders, and two, that these threats are primarily, if not exclusively, military in nature.”24 Today, in an era of 7 unprecedented human migration, phobias—the natural and sometimes constructed fear of “foreigners”—have become more profoundly intertwined with security and foreign policy. The securitization of migration represents

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