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Nation-State Foreign Policy Amidst Globalization

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Nation-State Foreign Policy Amidst Globalization NOTES Introduction: Nation-State Foreign Policy amidst Globalization 1. Synthesized from Clark (1997, 1) and Held et al. (1999, 16). 2. Nye Jr. first raised the concept in a review of American foreign policy in the post–Cold War era in Bound to Lead (1990a). His passing references to the political weakness of Japanese soft power and China’s susceptibility to U.S. soft power are made in “Soft Power” (1990b, 169–170). On the occa- sion of a 1999 public lecture in Singapore, he noted briefly that Canada, the Vatican, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain were candidates for exercising soft power. But he cautioned that proper mastery of soft power required proximity to American-shaped global norms of liberalism, access to communi- cation channels for framing issues, and credibility based on the conformity between national practice and ideas. The first two aspects automatically favored the United States but the third remained situation-dependent (Nye Jr. 1999a). On Singapore, he said that its aspiration toward being a regional educational hub, and a technologically advanced and innovative society, were altogether improving its soft power. However, he cautioned that social control and information restrictions needed to be factored into the future strengthening of soft power (ST 1999a). More recently, Nye Jr. has advocated American humility in consultation with friendly states in the wake of the events in Iraq and other missteps in the War on Terror: “To communicate effectively, Americans must first learn to listen” (2004b, 4). Chapter One Toward a Changing Environment for Foreign Policy: Nation-State, Globalization, and Information as Political Power 1. This is not a controversial treatment as an early work proposing the incorporation of a “political economy of information” into International Relations declares (O’Brien and Helleiner 1980). 2. This is synthesized from Blondel (1976, 40–44). 3. Adapted from Merriam (1950, 15–46) and Dahl (1994, 288, 290). It is notable that Dahl conscien- tiously resisted fixing any permanent concept of power; only generalizations would be possible in a constant search for accurate operational definitions (1994, 308). 4. This is consistent with sociologist Giddens’s more recent use of the term “reflexivity in thought” to distinguish modern from premodern societies in regard to the impact and role of knowledge (1990, 38–39). 5. Giddens also devotes some attention to the globalization of the media as part and parcel of his modernity thesis: “The point here is not that people are contingently aware of many events, from all over the world, of which previously they would have remained ignorant. It is that the global exten- sion of the institutions of modernity would be impossible were it not for the pooling of knowledge which is represented by the ‘news’ ” (1990, 77–78). 200 Notes Chapter Two Global Information Space, Discursive Community, and Soft Power 1. Innis’s ideas are relevant to the ensuing exposition not just for his treatment of parchment, paper, and stone as early mass media but also for his “ecological holist” approach to enriching the study of International Relations by explaining historically time and space biases in the evolution of empires and civilizations (Deibert 1999). 2. This organization of the history of ICTs is broadly adapted from John Thompson (1995, 152) and Ithiel de Sola Pool (1990, 71–100). 3. This term is strongly associated with Oliver Boyd-Barrett who assigns it to primarily four Western- based news agencies that evolved from their national origins to “not only collect news from most countries and territories of the world, but also distribute news to most countries and territories” (1980, 14). Subsequently Boyd-Barrett has argued that in discussing the global media organization and the globalization of news, “the connections between news agencies, national formation and globalization are more profound and have a more substantial history than has been recognized up to this point in time” (Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen 1998, 1). 4. All percentages are calculated from UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1998 (UNESCO 1998a, Tables 9.2). The Yearbook also provides two detailed colored maps for comparisons between 1980 and 1996. 5. These two phrases were coined by then president Nelson Mandela (1997, 7) of South Africa, and his assessment is widely shared by the respective contributions of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, then prime minister Narasimha Rao of India, the foreign minister Kamal Kharazzi of Iran, and then foreign minister Ali Alatas of Indonesia in the same volume by Lepor (1997). 6. A current example of geopolitical study fixated upon physical and material control is Blouet (2001). 7. See the extracted views of Locke, Barker, Lippmann, and Mill on the advantages and pitfalls of liberal representative democracy in Utley and Maclure (1957); and in particular Mill (1904), espe- cially Chapter 6 “Of the Infirmities and Dangers to which Representative Government is Liable” (103–124); De Tocqueville (1982, 55–77); and Held (1995). 8. John Rawls initially regarded “justice as fairness” within a liberal democracy as prior to and more important than that between states. Interstate matters can be sorted only according to a modified “Original Position” of equality, allowing state representatives sufficient knowledge to make rational choices. Domestically just states would coexist without conflict abroad (Rawls 1973, 377–379). 9. In the Hobbesian lexicon, it is a synonym for “states,” and possibly “nations,” according to the argument of Canovan (1996). 10. This is a common assumption from Rousseau through Rawls. 11. Sun Tzu’s (1971) chapter 1 (“Estimates”) of The Art of War deals with the importance of moral synergy of a sovereign state in meeting conflict from outside. Chapter 3 (“Offensive Strategy”) calls for taking a target state “intact” by deploying nonwar strategies to fracture its plans and alliances. 12. Linebarger’s definition (1948) cited in Whitaker Jr. (1960, 5). 13. Refer to contributions by Benton, Ratcliff, Berding, Truman, and Eisenhower in Whitaker Jr. (1960). See also Tuch (1990, 15–34). 14. Definition from Morgenthau (1950, 40). Similar understandings of cultural imperialism are shared by Tomlinson (1991). Chapter Three Soft Power in Foreign Policy 1. On the privileging of the leader as issuer of signals and indices, see Jervis’s Chapter 4 titled “Signals and Lies.” 2. See references to Lagos in chapter five of this book. 3. Although my usage of this term is not meant to recommend dictatorial modes of governance in pursuit of forging a cohesive base for foreign policy, theorists of the bureaucratic-authoritarian form of corporatism describe such a reality from Latin American cases (e.g., Argentina and Brazil) Notes 201 from the 1960s. Political regimes, captured by elites dependent upon foreign trade and investment, restructure domestic politics in such a way that democratic competition is “disciplined” into regime-approved hierarchical channels of political communication. Potentially destabilizing groups such as trade unions are all incorporated as part of the bureaucratic apparatus (O’Donnell 1979, 85–105). 4. The precedent for this has been that groups within a government have been mobilizing and exchanging support with those outside government within a national territory (Newsom 1996). Rosenau (1997) takes this explanation of group politicking in policy formation across borders and into global spaces. 5. Keohane’s proposition of “international multiple advocacy” for the conscientious interdependence- sensitive formulation of U.S. foreign policy through consulting “foreign-interested parties” is a useful starting point for the foregoing analysis (1993). 6. This is adapted from the de facto NGO directory, the Yearbook of International Organizations (UIA 2005–2006, 392–393, App. 7); Fisher (1997); and Aall et al. (2000, 95–103). 7. See chapter five of this book. 8. The clearest confirmation of NGO influence on UN decision making over East Timor comes from a member of the Singaporean delegation to the UN Security Council. He supported the “distin- guished” input of Human Rights Watch and the International Peace Academy representatives who argued for an extension of the UN presence to ensure that legal justice is done (Singapore-UNSC 2001). The UN mandate was extended to cover postindependence Timor Leste in early 2002. Chapter Four Leadership in Foreign Policy, From Inside-Out and Outside-In: Singaporean Foreign Policy and the Asian Values Debate, 1992–2000 1. Hereafter, the Asian Values Debate will be referred to as “the Debate.” 2. It is notable that within Asia, personalities from Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea were distinct dissenters against Asian Values. For a sample, see Ng (1997); Patten (1998a, 146–172); Hernandez (1998); T.H. Lee (1996); and Kim (1994). 3. According to the editorial of the first issue of the Straits Times (ST), July 15, 1845, quoted in Turnbull (1995, 17–18). 4. Summarized in Birch (1993, 17–24). 5. It is noteworthy that most of the 26 foreign television (satellite and cable) broadcasters set up shop in Singapore at the height of the Asian Values Debate between 1992 and 1998 (R. Lim 1998). 6. The world median for daily newspapers, as well as the regional ranking of 25 Asian countries, were calculated by me from Table IV.8 of UNESCO (1999, IV-106–IV-133). 7. Ownership had since increased to 13 newspapers and 4 magazines in 2000. 8. Table of “Foreign Media,” in Country Profile Singapore 2000: Mass Media. 9. Regional ranking also derived from Table IV.14, pp. IV-221–IV-229. 10. Regional ranking derived from Table IV.14, pp.IV221–IV-229. 11. Obtained by comparing the 1987–1994 range found in Ministry of Information and the Arts (1995, 19), with the 1995–1997 range in Ministry of Information and the Arts (1998, 349–352, Apps. 13, 17), and the Web site, Singapore Statistics: Top-Line Indicators (2000). 12.
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