Great Powers and Responsibility – the Genealogy of China As a Responsible Great Power in Managing Africa's Development
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Great Powers and Responsibility – The Genealogy of China as a Responsible Great Power in Managing Africa's Development By Viktor Friedmann Submitted to Central European University Department of International Relations and European Studies In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Alexander Astrov Budapest, Hungary 2014 Copyright Notice Copyright © 2014 Viktor Friedmann All Rights Reserved ii Abstract The dissertation investigates the relationship between great powers and responsibility through an analysis of the direct equation of greatness with responsibility in the concepts of ʻresponsible power’ and ʻresponsible stakeholder’ in both the discourse of the practitioners of international politics, and in theoretical literature. Preponderant power is thought to come with corresponding responsibilities set by the international social order, and it is meeting these responsibilities that secures the state the status of a great power, hence transforming the fact of great power into a right. The equivalence between greatness and responsibility, however, is paradoxical if the latter stands for accountability for the fulfilment of obligations. Such an understanding of responsibility is fully internal to a pre-given structure of order with its norms, social and functional roles, and criteria of legitimacy. The assertion of greatness, on the other hand, requires an actor to reveal itself outside any pre-given standard, and to have its own standards recognised as equal – hence the historical centrality of war to claiming great powerhood. Asserting one's greatness by fulfilling the required responsibilities therefore seems paradoxical. Still, the ʻresponsible power’ discourse also provided the rationale for the European Union's invitation to a rising China to jointly take on the responsibility of managing Africa's development despite the fact that China was not perceived to be a responsible power iii according to the EU's norms pertaining to development. The dissertation undertakes a genealogical investigation in order to understand how responsibility has come to constitute a foundation for a practice resembling great power management that includes China. The dissertation argues that the paradoxical relationship between responsibility and greatness is circumvented by a sense of responsibility as an inner quality or virtue that unites greatness (as approbation) and responsibility in the actor, and thus can operate outside, or prior to, any fixed structure of order. The dissertation examines how this concept of being responsible has come to occupy a fundamental position in modern understandings of social order and how it became a crucial element in re-articulating the concepts of great powerhood and great power management detached from the European legal and spatial order – and its underlying cultural resources – in relation to which they were originally defined. The case studies offer a genealogy of the EU's treatment of China as a ʻresponsible great power’ as a contingent outcome of a) China's original insertion into a global order in the early 19th century as an irresponsible actor on the basis of liberal governmentality of commercial circulation, b) Kissinger's lasting re-description of China during the rapprochement of 1969-72 as a pragmatic great power that can be a partner in creating international order on the basis of a radically different conception of responsibility as a Kantian-Weberian autonomy or maturity and c) the synthesis of the two in the EU initiative's framework of functional multilateralism, which identifies China as a great power on the basis of a changed notion of responsible character that links autonomy to the neoliberal art of making a social domain governable. iv Declaration I hereby declare that no parts of the thesis have been accepted for any other degrees in any other institution. This thesis contains no material previously written and / or published by another person, except where appropriate acknowledgement is made in the form of bibliographical reference. …............................................ Viktor Friedmann Budapest, Hungary, 12 November 2014 v “Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.” W. G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn vi Acknowledgements I am first and foremost indebted to my supervisor, Alexander Astrov, without whose insightful comments, invaluable suggestions and – above all – example, this thesis would not exist. During the long gestation period of the project I have greatly benefited from the helpful comments and support of a number of people. I would like to particularly mention Xymena Kurowska, Thomas Fetzer, Erna Burai, Erin Jenne, Michael Merlingen, István Benczes, Sándor Csizmadia, and István Gyarmati. My supervisor during my research stay in Shanghai, Erik Ringmar, not only provided perceptive and valuable remarks on my project but also was and remains a source of inspiration. I am grateful to Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) for hosting me, and I am especially thankful to Zhang Xiaoyi for her assistance in organising this. I am grateful to the Central European University for having provided me with funding for my stay in China through the Doctoral Research Support Grant. Beyond the scholarships and grants I have received from my university, I would also like to extend my gratitude to the many people in teaching and administration who made this doctorate a pleasant experience. I am thankful to the discussants and audiences at various conferences and at Zhejiang University as well as to the members of the International Relations Research Group at CEU and of the Shanghai School of International Political Studies at SJTU for raising challenging questions and providing helpful comments. Long conversations about life, the universe, and everything with Andrea Simon honed my views and arguments. Gábor Toronyai made me conscious of the importance of making my doctoral studies part of a broader search for the good life. I want to give my most special thanks to Bénédicte for acting as my very own Thracian maid, and to my mother for all the support and understanding I have received from her. vii viii Table of Contents Copyright Notice.........................................................................................................................ii Abstract......................................................................................................................................iii Declaration..................................................................................................................................v Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................vii Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................ix Introduction.................................................................................................................................1 Part I. Great Powers and Responsibility...................................................................................13 1. Greatness and Responsibility................................................................................................15 1.1. ʻResponsible power’......................................................................................................16 1.2. Great powers and responsibility....................................................................................24 1.2.1. Power as fact and power as right...........................................................................25 1.2.2. Setting standards: hegemony and leadership.........................................................29 1.2.3. The balance of power and diplomatic norms.........................................................33 1.2.4. Functional roles.....................................................................................................35 1.2.5. Institutionalised collective hegemony...................................................................39 1.3. Responsibility beyond accountability...........................................................................41 Conclusion............................................................................................................................45 2. Maturity and Calculability: A Genealogy of Responsibility as a Virtue...............................47 2.1. Responsibility as a virtue..............................................................................................48 2.2. The virtue of phronēsis..................................................................................................51 2.3. The virtue of prudence and the law conception of ethics..............................................56 2.4. Responsibility as maturity.............................................................................................58 2.5. Responsibility as calculability.......................................................................................63 Conclusion............................................................................................................................70 3. Forms of Greatness and