FUKUYAMA & HIS CRITICS ON IDENTITY POLITICS
MARCH/APRIL 2019 / • • The New Nationalism
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Buy Latest Books Online as Cash on Delivery All Over Pakistan Call/SMS 03336042057 - 072654011 Volume 98, Number 2 THE NEW NATIONALISM A New Americanism 10 Why a Nation Needs a National Story Jill Lepore
The Importance of Elsewhere 20 In Defense o Cosmopolitanism Kwame Anthony Appiah
Why Nationalism Works 27 And Why It Isn’t Going Away Andreas Wimmer
False Flags 35 COVER: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION The Myth o the Nationalist Resurgence Jan-Werner Müller
This Is Your Brain on Nationalism 42 The Biology o Us and Them Robert Sapolsky BY THE Building a Better Nationalism 48 VOORHES The Nation’s Place in a Globalized World Yael Tamir
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FA.indb 1 1/18/19 7:56 PM The Broken Bargain 54 How Nationalism Came Back Jack Snyder
Blood for Soil 61 The Fatal Temptations o Ethnic Politics Lars-Erik Cederman
ESSAYS The Future of the Liberal Order Is Conservative 70 A Strategy to Save the System Jennifer Lind and William C. Wohlforth
Who’s Afraid of Budget Deficits? 82 How Washington Should End Its Debt Obsession Jason Furman and Lawrence H. Summers
No Country for Strongmen 96 How India’s Democracy Constrains Modi Ruchir Sharma
The Kurdish Awakening 107 Unity, Betrayal, and the Future o the Middle East Henri J. Barkey
The New Containment 123 Handling Russia, China, and Iran Michael Mandelbaum
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Arthur Goldhammer Emily Gogolak on Peter Harrell on how on Macron and the Trump’s chaotic to ramp up pressure “yellow vest” protests. border policy. on Russia’s economy.
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FA.indb 3 1/18/19 7:56 PM Educate to Liberate 132 Open Societies Need Open Minds Carla Norrlof
Less Than Zero 142 Can Carbon-Removal Technologies Curb Climate Change? Fred Krupp, Nathaniel Keohane, and Eric Pooley REVIEWS & RESPONSES The Original Hidden Figures 154 The Women Scientists Who Won the Great War Elaine Weiss
E Pluribus Unum? 160 The Fight Over Identity Politics Stacey Y. Abrams; John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck; Jennifer A. Richeson; Francis Fukuyama
Recent Books 171
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FA.indb 5 1/18/19 7:56 PM March/April 2019 · Volume 98, Number 2 Published by the Council on Foreign Relations
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FA.indb 6 1/18/19 7:56 PM CONTRIBUTORS
JILL LEPORE’s prolic and pathbreaking work has made her one o the United States’ most prominent scholar- intellectuals. A professor o history at Harvard University, Lepore is the author o 12 books, including, most recently, These Truths, a history o the United States from the fteenth century to the present. In “A New Americanism” (page 10), she argues that historians’ failure to tell a common American national story has ceded the eld to charlatans oering their own twisted versions—and allowed a dangerous strain o American nationalism to take hold.
Born to a British mother and a Ghanaian father, KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH grew up traveling between his two homelands, an experience that shaped his wide-ranging scholarship and writing on everything from ethnicity and identity to ethics and language. He is the author o numerous books, including Cosmopolitanism and The Lies That Bind, and has won scores o prizes, among them the National Humanities Medal. Now a professor o philoso- phy and law at New York University, Appiah, in “The Importance o Elsewhere” (page 20), makes the case for cosmopolitanism.
After he graduated from Harvard, ROBERT SAPOLSKY spent over 30 years living on and o in Kenya, observing a troop o baboons for several months at a time. Now a professor o biology and neurology at Stanford, Sapolsky is best known for his work on the long-term eects o stress hormones on the brains o baboons and humans. In “This Is Your Brain on Nationalism” (page 42), he asks whether humans can overcome the neurological, hormonal, and developmental underpinnings o their tribalism.
HENRI BARKEY is one o the world’s foremost experts on the Kurds. During the Clinton administration, he worked on the Policy Planning Sta o the U.S. State Department on issues relating to the Middle East; he went on to serve as the director o the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. Now a professor at Lehigh University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in “The Kurdish Awakening” (page 107), Barkey argues that the United States’ actions in the Middle East have helped promote a new Kurdish nationalism.
02_TOC_Blues.indd 7 1/21/19 12:34 PM THE NEW NATIONALISM
he nation-state is so dominant Jan-Werner Müller argues that the today that it seems natural. But true challenge comes not from national- Tno political arrangements are ism per se but from a particular populist natural, and any concept with a hyphen variant. The best response is to avoid has a fault line running through it by getting distracted and focus on deliver- de¿nition. States are sovereign political ing practical results. structures. Nations are uni¿ed social Robert Sapolsky oers a depressing groups. What does each owe the other? take on nationalism’s cognitive enablers. The claims o the state are obvious: When it comes to group belonging, it has a host o practical responsibilities humans don’t seem too far from chim- and legions o technocrats working to panzees: people are comfortable with satisfy them. But the claims o the nation the familiar and bristle at the unfamiliar. are less clear, and they come with ugly Taming our aggressive tendencies re- echoes. The advocacy o those claims— quires swimming upstream. nationalism—drove some o the great- Yael Tamir suggests that the main est crimes in history. And so the concept problem today is a clash between became taboo in polite society, in hopes nationalism and neoliberal globalism. that it might become taboo in practice, Nationalists want states to intervene as well. Yet now it has come back with in the market to defend their citizens; a vengeance. Here, a dazzling collection their opponents favor freer trade and o writers explain what’s happening freer movement o people. Jack Snyder and why. concurs, suggesting that the proper Jill Lepore opens with a bravura survey response is to allow governments greater o two and a hal centuries o American freedom to manage capitalism. And national consciousness. Today’s challenge, Lars-Erik Cederman shows that rising she argues, is not to resist nationalism ethnic nationalism has usually been but to reappropriate it. followed by violent upheavals, so keep- Kwame Anthony Appiah tackles the ing things peaceful down the road will supposed incompatibility o nationalism be dicult. and cosmopolitanism, which he claims Nationalism’s largely unpredicted is based on a misunderstanding, since resurgence is sobering. But these essays cosmopolitans believe in the possibility left me hopeful, because they show a o multiple nested identities. way out. Underneath all the theory and Andreas Wimmer notes that distin- history and science, everything boils guishing good, civic nationalism from down to politics. Leaders and govern- bad, ethnic nationalism is largely unhelp- ments need to produce real solutions to ful, since the two share so many assump- real problems. I they don’t, their disaf- tions. For him as well, the contemporary fected publics will look for answers battle is not to ¿ght nationalism but to elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. promote inclusive versions o it. —Gideon Rose, Editor
FA.indb 8 1/18/19 7:56 PM Nationalism drove THE NEW NATIONALISM some of the greatest crimes in history. Now it’s back with a vengeance.
PHOTO PHOTO ILLUSTRATION A New Americanism This Is Your Brain on Nationalism Jill Lepore 10 Robert Sapolsky 42
The Importance o Elsewhere Building a Better Nationalism Kwame Anthony Appiah 20 Yael Tamir 48
BY Why Nationalism Works The Broken Bargain THE Andreas Wimmer 27 Jack Snyder 54 VOORHES False Flags Blood for Soil Jan-Werner Müller 35 Lars-Erik Cederman 61
FA.indb 9 1/18/19 7:57 PM Return to Table of Contents
the nineteenth century, had become, in A New the ¿rst hal o the twentieth, a monster. But in the second half, it was nearly Americanism dead—a stumbling, ghastly wraith, at least outside postcolonial states. And historians seemed to believe that i they Why a Nation Needs a stopped studying it, it would die sooner: National Story starved, neglected, and abandoned. Francis Fukuyama is a political Jill Lepore scientist, not a historian. But his 1989 essay “The End o History?” illustrated Degler’s point. Fascism and communism THE NEW NATIONALISM n 1986, the Pulitzer Prize–winning, were dead, Fukuyama announced at the bowtie-wearing Stanford historian end o the Cold War. Nationalism, the ICarl Degler delivered something greatest remaining threat to liberalism, other than the usual pipe-smoking, had been “defanged” in the West, and in scotch-on-the-rocks, after-dinner disqui- other parts o the world where it was sition that had plagued the evening still kicking, well, that wasn’t quite program o the annual meeting o the nationalism. “The vast majority o the American Historical Association for world’s nationalist movements do not nearly all o its centurylong history. have a political program beyond the Instead, Degler, a gentle and quietly negative desire o independence from heroic man, accused his colleagues o some other group or people, and do not nothing short o dereliction o duty: oer anything like a comprehensive appalled by nationalism, they had agenda for socio-economic organization,” abandoned the study o the nation. Fukuyama wrote. (Needless to say, he “We can write history that implic- has since had to walk a lot o this back, itly denies or ignores the nation-state, writing in his most recent book about but it would be a history that Êew in the “unexpected” populist nationalism the face o what people who live in a o Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Poland’s nation-state require and demand,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Hungary’s Viktor Degler said that night in Chicago. He Orban, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued a warning: “I we historians fail the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and to provide a nationally de¿ned history, the United States’ Donald Trump.) others less critical and less informed Fukuyama was hardly alone in will take over the job for us.” pronouncing nationalism all but dead. The nation-state was in decline, said A lot o other people had, too. That’s the wise men o the time. The world what worried Degler. had grown global. Why bother to study Nation-states, when they form, the nation? Nationalism, an infant in imagine a past. That, at least in part, accounts for why modern historical JILL LEPORE is David Woods Kemper ‘41 writing arose with the nation-state. For Professor of American History at Harvard, a sta writer at The New Yorker, and the author of more than a century, the nation-state These Truths: A History of the United States. was the central object oÈ historical
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Proud to be an American: at a Trump rally in Missoula, Montana, October 2018 inquiry. From George Bancroft in the profession. Most historians started 1830s through, say, Arthur Schlesinger, looking at either smaller or bigger things, Jr., or Richard Hofstadter, studying investigating the experiences and cultures American history meant studying the o social groups or taking the broad American nation. As the historian John vantage promised by global history. This Higham put it, “From the middle o the turn produced excellent scholarship. But nineteenth century until the 1960s, the meanwhile, who was doing the work o nation was the grand subject o Ameri- providing a legible past and a plausible can history.” Over that same stretch o future—a nation—to the people who time, the United States experienced a lived in the United States? Charlatans, civil war, emancipation, reconstruction, stooges, and tyrants. The endurance o FRED. segregation, two world wars, and nationalism proves that there’s never
R. unprecedented immigration—making any shortage oÈ blackguards willing to CONRAD the task even more essential. “A history prop up people’s sense o themselves in common is fundamental to sustaining and their destiny with a tissue o myths
/ GUARDIAN the aliation that constitutes national and prophecies, prejudices and hatreds, subjects,” the historian Thomas Bender or to empty out old rubbish bags full o once observed. “Nations are, among other festering resentments and calls to
EYVI / things, a collective agreement, partly violence. When historians abandon the coerced, to arm a common history as study o the nation, when scholars stop
/ REDUX the basis for a shared future.” trying to write a common history for a But in the 1970s, studying the nation people, nationalism doesn’t die. Instead, fell out o favor in the American historical it eats liberalism.
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Maybe it’s too late to restore a Constitution’s advocates called themselves common history, too late for historians “Federalists,” when they were in fact to make a dierence. But is there any nationalists, in the sense that they were option other than to try to craft a new proposing to replace a federal system, American history—one that could foster under the Articles o Confederation, with a new Americanism? a national system. When John Jay in- sisted, in The Federalist Papers, no. 2, “that THE NATION AND THE STATE Providence has been pleased to give this The United States is dierent from one connected country to one united other nations—every nation is dierent people—a people descended from the from every other—and its nationalism same ancestors, speaking the same is dierent, too. To review: a nation is a language, professing the same religion, people with common origins, and a state attached to the same principles o govern- is a political community governed by ment, very similar in their manners and laws. A nation-state is a political com- customs,” he was whistling in the dark. munity governed by laws that unites a It was the lack o these similarities people with a supposedly common that led Federalists such as Noah Webster ancestry. When nation-states arose out to attempt to manufacture a national o city-states and kingdoms and empires, character by urging Americans to adopt they explained themselves by telling distinctive spelling. “Language, as well as stories about their origins—stories government should be national,” Webster meant to suggest that everyone in, say, wrote in 1789. “America should have her “the French nation” had common ances- own distinct from all the world.” That tors, when they o course did not. As I got the United States “favor” instead o wrote in my book These Truths, “Very “favour.” It did not, however, make the often, histories o nation-states are little United States a nation. And by 1828, more than myths that hide the seams when Webster published his monumental that stitch the nation to the state.” American Dictionary of the English Language, But in the American case, the origins he did not include the word “nationalism,” o the nation can be found in those seams. which had no meaning or currency in the When the United States declared its United States in the 1820s. Not until independence, in 1776, it became a state, the 1840s, when European nations were but what made it a nation? The ¿ction swept up in what has been called “the age that its people shared a common ancestry o nationalities,” did Americans come to was absurd on its face; they came from all think o themselves as belonging to a over, and, after having waged a war nation, with a destiny. against Great Britain, just about the last This course o events is so unusual, in thing they wanted to celebrate was their the matter o nation building, that the Britishness. Long after independence, historian David Armitage has suggested most Americans saw the United States that the United States is something other not as a nation but, true to the name, as a than a nation-state. “What we mean by confederation o states. That’s what made nationalism is the desire o nations arguing for rati¿cation o the Constitu- (however de¿ned) to possess states to tion an uphill battle; it’s also why the create the peculiar hybrid we call the
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FA.indb 12 1/18/19 7:57 PM A New Americanism
nation-state,” Armitage writes, but “there’s collectivity—was raised as the banner also a beast we might call the state-nation, oÈ liberalism.” which arises when the state is formed Liberal nationalism, as an idea, is before the development o any sense o fundamentally historical. Nineteenth- national consciousness. The United States century Americans understood the might be seen as a, perhaps the only, nation-state within the context o an spectacular example o the latter”—not emerging set o ideas about human a nation-state but a state-nation. rights: namely, that the power o the One way to turn a state into a nation is state guaranteed everyone eligible for to write its history. The ¿rst substantial citizenship the same set o irrevocable history o the American nation, Bancroft’s political rights. The future Massachu- ten-volume History of the United States, setts senator Charles Sumner oered From the Discovery of the American Conti- this interpretation in 1849: nent, was published between 1834 and 1874. Bancroft wasn’t only a historian; he Here is the Great Charter o every human being drawing vital breath was also a politician who served in the upon this soil, whatever may be his administrations o three U.S. presidents, condition, and whoever may be his par- including as secretary o war in the age o ents. He may be poor, weak, humble, American continental expansion. An archi- or black,—he may be o Caucasian, tect o manifest destiny, Bancroft wrote his Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian race,— history in an attempt to make the United he may be o French, German, States’ founding appear inevitable, its English, or Irish extraction; but before growth inexorable, and its history ancient. the Constitution o Massachusetts all De-emphasizing its British inheritance, he these distinctions disappear. . . . He is celebrated the United States as a pluralistic a MAN, the equal o all his fellow-men. and cosmopolitan nation, with ancestors He is one o the children o the State, all over the world: which, like an impartial parent, regards all o its ospring with an equal care. The origin o the language we speak Or as the Prussian-born American politi- carries us to India; our religion is cal philosopher Francis Lieber, a great from Palestine; o the hymns sung in our churches, some were ¿rst heard in inÊuence on Sumner, wrote, “Without a Italy, some in the deserts o Arabia, national character, states cannot obtain some on the banks o the Euphrates; that longevity and continuity o political our arts come from Greece; our society which is necessary for our progress.” jurisprudence from Rome. Lieber’s most inÊuential essay, “Nation- alism: A Fragment o Political Science,” Nineteenth-century nationalism was appeared in 1860, on the very eve o the liberal, a product o the Enlightenment. It Civil War. rested on an analogy between the indi- vidual and the collective. As the American THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY theorist o nationalism Hans Kohn once The American Civil War was a struggle wrote, “The concept o national self- over two competing ideas o the nation- determination—transferring the ideal o state. This struggle has never ended; it liberty from the individual to the organic has just moved around.
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In the antebellum United States, Washington ever said so, that any Northerners, and especially northern President ever said so, that any abolitionists, drew a contrast between member o Congress ever said so, or (northern) nationalism and (southern) that any living man upon the whole sectionalism. “We must cultivate a na- earth ever said so, until the necessities o the present policy o the Demo- tional, instead o a sectional patriotism” cratic party, in regard to slavery, had urged one Michigan congressman in 1850. to invent that armation. But Southerners were nationalists, too. It’s just that their nationalism was what No matter, the founders o the Confed- would now be termed “illiberal” or eracy answered: we will craft a new “ethnic,” as opposed to the Northerners’ constitution, based on white supremacy. liberal or civic nationalism. This distinc- In 1861, the Confederacy’s newly elected tion has been subjected to much criticism, vice president, Alexander Stephens, on the grounds that it’s nothing more than delivered a speech in Savannah in which a way o calling one kind o nationalism he explained that the ideas that lay behind good and another bad. But the national- the U.S. Constitution “rested upon the ism o the North and that o the South assumption o the equality o races”— were in fact dierent, and much o U.S. here ceding Lincoln’s argument—but that history has been a battle between them. “our new government is founded upon “Ours is the government o the white exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations man,” the American statesman John C. are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the Calhoun declared in 1848, arguing against great truth that the negro is not equal to admitting Mexicans as citizens o the the white man; that slavery is his natural United States. “This Government was and moral condition.” made by our fathers on the white basis,” The North won the war. But the the American politician Stephen Douglas battle between liberal and illiberal said in 1858. “It was made by white men nationalism raged on, especially during for the bene¿t o white men and their the debates over the 14th and 15th posterity forever.” Amendments, which marked a second Abraham Lincoln, building on argu- founding o the United States on terms ments made by black abolitionists, exposed set by liberal ideas about the rights o Douglas’ history as ¿ction. “I believe the citizens and the powers o nation- entire records o the world, from the date states—namely, birthright citizenship, o the Declaration o Independence up to equal rights, universal (male) surage, within three years ago, may be searched and legal protections for noncitizens. in vain for one single armation, from These Reconstruction-era amendments one single man, that the negro was not also led to debates over immigration, included in the Declaration o Indepen- racial and gender equality, and the limits dence,” Lincoln said during a debate with o citizenship. Under the terms o the Douglas in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1858. 14th Amendment, children o Chinese He continued: immigrants born in the United States would be U.S. citizens. Few major I think I may defy Judge Douglas to political ¿gures talked about Chinese show that he ever said so, that immigrants in favorable terms. Typical
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FA.indb 14 1/18/19 7:57 PM was the virulent prejudice expressed by William Higby, a one-time miner and Republican congressman from Califor- nia. “The Chinese are nothing but a pagan race,” Higby said in 1866. “You cannot make good citizens o them.” And opponents o the 15th Amendment found both African American voting and Chinese citizenship scandalous. Fumed AT A Garrett Davis, a Democratic senator from Kentucky: “I want no negro govern- CROSSROADS ment; I want no Mongolian government; Russia in the Global Economy I want the government o the white man which our fathers incorporated.” An examination of the challenges Russia The most signicant statement in faces in the global economy given its current this debate was made by a man born foreign policies and globalization’s impact on into slavery who had sought his own its decision-making process. freedom and fought for decades for emancipation, citizenship, and equal Globalization proceeds rights. In 1869, in front o audiences apace, taking on new forms across the country, Frederick Douglass that aect global economic, nancial and social processes. delivered one o the most important Interdependence is not and least read speeches in American simply strengthening the political history, urging the ratication range of possibilities for national economies o the 14th and 15th Amendments in to participate in these the spirit o establishing a “composite developments, but expanding the opportunities that nation.” He spoke, he said, “to the are available to them. e question o whether we are the better or By Sergey Kulik, question is: how do states Nikita Maslennikov take advantage of these the worse for being composed o dier- and Igor Yurgens ent races o men.” I nations, which are global developments? essential for progress, form from Although Russia actively participates in the globalization process, it is confronting greater economic, technological, similarity, what o nations like the structural and institutional problems than other United States, which are formed out o countries. ese problems exist alongside the risk that the gap between Russia and other economies in terms of dierence, Native American, African, economic performance and technological development European, Asian, and every possible and growth will continue to widen. mixture, “the most conspicuous example e old model of Russian development has been o composite nationality in the world”? exhausted and a new one must be chosen. Russia’s choice To Republicans like Higby, who at this juncture will determine the future of its economic development for many years to come. objected to Chinese immigration and to
birthright citizenship, and to Democrats CIGI Press books are distributed by McGill-Queen’s University Press (mqup.ca) like Davis, who objected to citizenship and can be found in better bookstores and through online book retailers. and voting rights for anyone other than white men, Douglass oered an impas- sioned reply. As for the Chinese: “Do
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you ask, i I would favor such immigra- NATIONAL HISTORIES tion? I answer, I would. Would you have The American Historical Association them naturalized, and have them invested was founded in 1884—two years after with all the rights o American citizen- the French philosopher Ernest Renan ship? I would. Would you allow them to wrote his signal essay, “What Is a Na- vote? I would.” As for future generations, tion?” Nationalism was taking a turn, and future immigrants to the United away from liberalism and toward illiber- States, Douglass said, “I want a home alism, including in Germany, beginning here not only for the negro, the mulatto with the “blood and iron” o Bismarck. and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic A driver o this change was the emer- to ¿nd a home here in the United States, gence o mass politics, under whose and feel at home here, both for his sake terms nation-states “depended on the and for ours.” For Douglass, progress participation o the ordinary citizen to could only come in this new form o a an extent not previously envisaged,” as nation, the composite nation. “We shall the historian Eric Hobsbawm once spread the network o our science and wrote. That “placed the question o the civilization over all who seek their shelter, ‘nation,’ and the citizen’s feelings towards whether from Asia, Africa, or the Isles whatever he regarded as his ‘nation,’ o the sea,” he said, and “all shall here ‘nationality’ or other centre oÈ loyalty, at bow to the same law, speak the same the top o the political agenda.” language, support the same Government, This transformation began in the enjoy the same liberty, vibrate with the United States in the 1880s, with the rise same national enthusiasm, and seek the o Jim Crow laws, and with a regime o same national ends.” That was Douglass’ immigration restriction, starting with the new Americanism. It did not prevail. Chinese Exclusion Act, the ¿rst federal Emancipation and Reconstruction, law restricting immigration, which was the historian and civil rights activist passed in 1882. Both betrayed the W. E. B. Du Bois would write in promises and constitutional guarantees 1935, was “the ¿nest eort to achieve made by the 14th and 15th Amendments. democracy . . . this world had ever Fighting to realize that promise would seen.” But that eort had been be- be the work o standard-bearers who trayed by white Northerners and white included Ida B. Wells, who led a cam- Southerners who patched the United paign against lynching, and Wong Chin States back together by inventing a Foo, who founded the Chinese Equal myth that the war was not a ¿ght over Rights League in 1892, insisting, “We slavery at all but merely a struggle claim a common manhood with all between the nation and the states. other nationalities.” “We fell under the leadership o those But the white men who delivered who would compromise with truth in speeches at the annual meetings o the the past in order to make peace in the American Historical Association during present,” Du Bois wrote bitterly. those years had little interest in discuss- Douglass’ new Americanism was thus ing racial segregation, the disenfranchise- forgotten. So was Du Bois’ reckoning ment oÈ black men, or immigration with American history. restriction. Frederick Jackson Turner
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drew historians’ attention to the frontier. Madison Square Garden, decorated with Others contemplated the challenges o swastikas and American Êags, with populism and socialism. Progressive-era posters declaring a “Mass Demonstration historians explained the American nation for True Americanism,” where they as a product o conÊict “between democ- denounced the New Deal as the “Jew racy and privilege, the poor versus the Deal.” Hitler, for his part, expressed rich, the farmers against the monopolists, admiration for the Confederacy and the workers against the corporations, regret that “the beginnings o a great and, at times, the Free-Soilers against new social order based on the principle the slaveholders,” as Degler observed. o slavery and inequality were destroyed And a great many association presidents, by the war.” As one arm o a campaign notably Woodrow Wilson, mourned what to widen divisions in the United States had come to be called “the Lost Cause o and weaken American resolve, Nazi the Confederacy.” All oered national propaganda distributed in the Jim Crow histories that left out the origins and South called for the repeal o the 14th endurance o racial inequality. and 15th Amendments. Meanwhile, nationalism changed, The “America ¿rst” supporter Charles beginning in the 1910s and especially Lindbergh, who, not irrelevantly, had in the 1930s. And the uglier and more become famous by Êying across the illiberal nationalism got, the more Atlantic alone, based his nationalism on liberals became convinced o the impos- geography. “One need only glance at a sibility oÈ liberal nationalism. In the map to see where our true frontiers lie,” United States, nationalism largely took he said in 1939. “What more could we ask the form o economic protectionism and than the Atlantic Ocean on the east and isolationism. In 1917, the publishing the Paci¿c on the west?” (This President magnate William Randolph Hearst, Franklin Roosevelt answered in 1940, opposing U.S. involvement in World declaring the dream that the United War I, began calling for “America ¿rst,” States was “a lone island,” to be, in fact, a and he took the same position in 1938, nightmare, “the nightmare o a people insisting that “Americans should main- lodged in prison, handcued, hungry, tain the traditional policy o our great and fed through the bars from day to day and independent nation—great largely by the contemptuous, unpitying masters because it is independent.” o other continents.”) In the years before the United States In the wake oÈ World War II, Ameri- entered World War II, a fringe even can historians wrote the history o the supported Hitler; Charles Coughlin—a United States as a story o consensus, an priest, near presidential candidate, and unvarying “liberal tradition in America,” wildly popular broadcaster—took to the according to the political scientist Louis radio to preach anti-Semitism and Hartz, that appeared to stretch forward admiration for Hitler and the Nazi Party in time into an unvarying liberal future. and called on his audience to form a new Schlesinger, writing in 1949, argued that political party, the Christian Front. In liberals occupied “the vital center” o 1939, about 20,000 Americans, some American politics. These historians dressed in Nazi uniforms, gathered in had plenty oÈ blind spots—they were
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especially blind to the forces o conser- Êourished as the handmaiden o nation- vatism and fundamentalism—but they making; the nation provided both nevertheless oered an expansive, liberal support and an appreciative audience,” account o the history o the American Bender observed in Rethinking American nation and the American people. History in a Global Age in 2002. “Only The last, best single-volume popular recently,” he continued, “and because o history o the United States written in the uncertain status o the nation-state the twentieth century was Degler’s 1959 has it been recognized that history as a book, Out of Our Past: The Forces That professional discipline is part o its Shaped Modern America: a stunning, own substantive narrative and not at sweeping account that, greatly inÊu- all suciently self-conscious about the enced by Du Bois, placed race, slavery, implications o that circularity.” Since segregation, and civil rights at the center then, historians have only become more o the story, alongside liberty, rights, self-conscious, to the point o paralysis. revolution, freedom, and equality. I nationalism was a pathology, the Astonishingly, it was Degler’s ¿rst thinking went, the writing o national book. It was also the last o its kind. histories was one o its symptoms, just another form o mythmaking. THE DECLINE OF NATIONAL HISTORY Something else was going on, too. IÈ love o the nation is what drove Beginning in the 1960s, women and American historians to the study o the people o color entered the historical past in the nineteenth century, hatred profession and wrote new, rich, revolu- for nationalism drove American histori- tionary histories, asking dierent ans away from it in the second hal o questions and drawing dierent conclu- the twentieth century. sions. Historical scholarship exploded, It had long been clear that nationalism and got immeasurably richer and more was a contrivance, an arti¿ce, a ¿ction. sophisticated. In a there-goes-the- After World War II, while Roosevelt neighborhood moment, many older was helping establish what came to be historians questioned the value o this called “the liberal international order,” scholarship. Degler did not; instead, he internationalists began predicting the contributed to it. Most historians who end o the nation-state, with the Har- wrote about race were not white and vard political scientist Rupert Emerson most historians who wrote about women declaring that “the nation and the nation- were not men, but Degler, a white man, state are anachronisms in the atomic was one o two male co-founders o the age.” By the 1960s, nationalism looked National Organization for Women and rather worse than an anachronism. Mean- won a Pulitzer in 1972 for a book called while, with the coming o the Vietnam Neither Black nor White. Still, he shared War, American historians stopped study- the concern expressed by Higham that ing the nation-state in part out o a fear most new American historical scholarship o complicity with atrocities o U.S. was “not about the United States but foreign policy and regimes o political merely in the United States.” oppression at home. “The professional By 1986, when Degler rose from his practice oÈ history writing and teaching chair to deliver his address before the
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American Historical Association, a lot triumph, that the United States had oÈ historians in the United States had become all the world. But the Ameri- begun advocating a kind oÈ historical can experiment had not in fact ended. cosmopolitanism, writing global rather A nation founded on revolution and than national history. Degler didn’t universal rights will forever struggle have much patience for this. A few against chaos and the forces o particu- years later, after the onset o civil war in larism. A nation born in contradiction Bosnia, the political philosopher Michael will forever ¿ght over the meaning o Walzer grimly announced that “the tribes its history. But that doesn’t mean have returned.” They had never left. history is meaningless, or that anyone They’d only become harder for histori- can aord to sit out the ¿ght. ans to see, because they weren’t really “The history o the United States at looking anymore. the present time does not seek to answer any signi¿cant questions,” Degler told A NEW AMERICAN HISTORY his audience some three decades ago. I Writing national history creates plenty American historians don’t start asking o problems. But not writing national and answering those sorts o questions, history creates more problems, and other people will, he warned. They’ll these problems are worse. echo Calhoun and Douglas and Father What would a new Americanism and Coughlin. They’ll lament “American a new American history look like? They carnage.” They’ll call immigrants “ani- might look rather a lot like the compos- mals” and other states “shithole coun- ite nationalism imagined by Douglass tries.” They’ll adopt the slogan “America and the clear-eyed histories written by ¿rst.” They’ll say they can “make Amer- Du Bois. They might take as their ica great again.” They’ll call themselves starting point the description o the “nationalists.” Their history will be a American experiment and its challenges ¿ction. They will say that they alone oered by Douglass in 1869: love this country. They will be wrong.∂ A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights o all men; claiming no higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, than nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will o the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service o any religious creed or family, is a standing oense to most o the Governments o the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
At the close o the Cold War, some commentators concluded that the American experiment had ended in
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Although May never used the term, The Importance her target was clear: the so-called cosmopolitan elite. of Elsewhere Days after this speech, I was giving a lecture on nationalism for the . The prime minister had been talking in In Defense of Birmingham, the only one o the ¿ve Cosmopolitanism largest British cities that had voted—by the barest o margins, 50.4 percent to Kwame Anthony Appiah 49.6 percent—for Brexit. I was speaking in the largest Scottish city, Glasgow, where two-thirds o the population had THE NEW NATIONALISM n October 2016, British Prime voted to stay in the §, just as every Minister Theresa May made her other Scottish district did. Naturally, I¿rst speech to a Conservative somebody asked me what I thought about conference as party leader. Evidently May’s “citizen o nowhere” comment. seeking to capture the populist spirit o It wasn’t the ¿rst time I’d heard such the Brexit vote that brought down her a charge, and it won’t be the last. In the predecessor, she spoke o “a sense— character o Mrs. Jellyby, the “telescopic deep, profound, and, let’s face it, often philanthropist” o Bleak House, Charles justi¿ed—that many people have today Dickens memorably invoked someone that the world works well for a privi- who neglects her own children as she leged few, but not for them.” What was makes improving plans for the inhabi- needed to challenge this, May argued, tants o a far-o land and whose eyes was a “spirit o citizenship” lacking among “had a curious habit o seeming to look the business elites that made up one a long way o,” as i “they could see strand oÈ her party’s base. Citizenship, nothing nearer than Africa!” The atti- she said, “means a commitment to the tude that May evoked has a similar men and women who live around you, aÎiction: it’s that o the frequent Êyer who work for you, who buy the goods who can scarcely glimpse his earth- and services you sell.” She continued: bound compatriots through the clouds. But this is nearly the opposite o Today, too many people in positions o cosmopolitanism. The cosmopolitan task, power behave as though they have more in fact, is to be able to focus on both far in common with international elites than with the people down the road, and near. Cosmopolitanism is an expan- the people they employ, the people they sive act o the moral imagination. It sees pass on the street. But i you believe human beings as shaping their lives you are a citizen o the world, you within nesting memberships: a family, a are a citizen o nowhere. You don’t neighborhood, a plurality o overlapping understand what citizenship means. identity groups, spiraling out to encom- pass all humanity. It asks us to be many KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH is Professor things, because we are many things. And i of Philosophy and Law at New York University and the author of The Lies That Bind: Rethinking its critics have seldom been more clamor- Identity. ous, the creed has never been so necessary.
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Containing multitudes: pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge, December 2018
NOWHERE MEN Village equals small; globe equals enor- Cosmopolitanism was born in the fourth mous. Cosmopolitanism takes something century as an act o deance, when small and familiar and projects it onto a Diogenes the Cynic—who came from whole world o strangers. Sinope, a Greek-speaking city on the Nonetheless, this paradoxical formu- Black Sea—rst claimed he was a kosmo- lation has come to enjoy extraordinary politês. The word, which seems to be a appeal around the planet. Conservative neologism o his own, translates more or populism may be on the rise in Europe, less as “citizen o the world.” Diogenes but in a 2016 study conducted by the , was fond o challenging the common nearly three-quarters o the Chinese sense o his day, and this word was meant and Nigerians polled—along with more to have a paradox built into it: a politês than hal o the Brazilians, Canadians, was a free adult male citizen o a polis, and Ghanaians polled—said that they one o the self-governing Greek towns in saw themselves “more as a global citizen” southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, than a citizen o their own country. Even and the kosmos was, well, the whole o the two in ve Americans felt the same way. KARSTEN MORAN universe. It would have been obvious to Yet there is something misleading any o Diogenes’ contemporaries that about this conception o identity. The you couldn’t belong to the universe in the poll presupposes that one must same way as you belonged to a town such weigh the relative importance o global
/ THE as Athens, which had some 30,000 free and local allegiances against each other, male adult citizens in his day (and a total as i they were bound to be in competi- NEW population o perhaps 100,000). It was a tion. That seems to be the wrong way
YORK contradiction in terms as obvious as the to think about things. After all, I am, one in “global village,” a phrase coined by like millions o people, a voting mem- TIMES the media theorist Marshall McLuhan a ber o at least three political entities: little more than hal a century ago. New York City, New York State, and
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the United States. I asked which I was century Roman emperor whose Medita- more committed to, I’d have a hard time tions lived alongside the Bible on his knowing how to answer. I’d feel the bedside table. Marcus wrote that for same puzzlement i my metaphorical him, as a human being, his city and citizenship o the world were added to fatherland was the universe. It’s easy to the list. Because citizenship is a kind o dismiss this as so much imperial gran- identity, its pull, like that o all identities, deur, and yet the point o the metaphor varies with the context and the issue. for Stoics such as Marcus was that During mayoral elections, it matters most people were obliged to take care o the that I’m a New Yorker; in senatorial whole community, to act responsibly elections, the city, the state, and the with regard to the well-being o all their country all matter to me. In presiden- fellow world citizens. That has been the tial elections, I also ¿nd mysel think- central thought o the cosmopolitan ing as both a citizen o the United States tradition for more than two millennia. and a citizen o the world. So many o But there is something else impor- the gravest problems that face us— tant in that tradition, which developed from climate change to pandemics— more clearly in European cosmopoli- simply don’t respect political borders. tanism in the eighteenth century: a In her speech to her fellow Conserva- recognition and celebration o the fact tives, May was asking not just for a sense that our fellow world citizens, in their o citizenship but also for patriotism, an dierent places, with their dierent attachment that is emotional, not merely languages, cultures, and traditions, procedural. Yet there’s no reason a merit not just our moral concern but patriot cannot feel strongly in some also our interest and curiosity. Interac- moments about the fate o the earth, just tions with foreigners, precisely because as a patriot can feel strongly about the they are dierent, can open us up to prospects o a city. Managing multiple new possibilities, as we can open up citizenships is something everyone has new possibilities to them. In under- to do: i people can harbor allegiances to standing the metaphor o global citizen- a city and a country, whose interests can ship, both the concern for strangers diverge, why should it be baÎing to and the curiosity about them matter. speak o an allegiance to the wider The German intellectual historian world? My father, Joe Appiah, was an Friedrich Meinecke explored the independence leader o Ghana and titled modern philosophical origins o this his autobiography The Autobiography of idea in his 1907 book, Cosmopolitanism an African Patriot; he saw no inconsis- and the National State. Through a careful tency in telling his children, in the letter reading o German intellectuals from he left for us when he died, that we the Enlightenment until the late nine- should remember always that we were teenth century, he showed how the rise citizens o the world. o German nationalism was intimately intertwined with a form o cosmopoli- PATRIOTIC COSMOPOLITANS tanism. In the late eighteenth century, That thought is one my father probably Johann Gottfried Herder and other got from Marcus Aurelius, the second- cosmopolitan thinkers began imagining
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a German nation that brought together Cosmopolitans worthy o the label have the German-speaking peoples o dozens rhizomes, spreading horizontally, as o independent states into a union well as taproots, delving deep; they founded on a shared culture and are anything but rootless. language, a shared national spirit. Another corollary o cosmopolitan- It took a century for modern Ger- ism is worth stressing: in respecting the many to achieve that vision (although rights o others to be dierent from without the German-speaking parts o themselves, cosmopolitans extend that the Austro-Hungarian Empire). In 1871, right to the uncosmopolitan. The thought a Prussian monarch presided over the that every human being matters—the uni¿cation o more than two dozen universalism at the heart o cosmopoli- federated kingdoms, duchies, princi- tanism—is not optional. Cosmopolitan- palities, and independent cities. But as ism is thus also committed to the idea Meinecke showed, the thinkers behind that individuals and societies have the this accomplishment were deeply right to settle for themselves many respectful o the national spirits and questions about what is worthwhile and peoples o other nations, as well. In true many features o their social arrange- cosmopolitan spirit, Herder revered the ments. In particular, many people value literature and arts o foreigners. His a sense o place and wish to be surrounded ideas about national culture inspired a by others who speak a familiar language generation o folklorists, including the and who follow customs they think o as Brothers Grimm, but he also wrote their own. Those people—the British essays on Shakespeare and Homer. One journalist David Goodhart has dubbed could be both cosmopolitan and patriotic; them “Somewheres,” in contrast to indeed, for the great liberal nationalists “Anywheres”—are entitled to shape a o the nineteenth century, patriotism was social world that allows them these ultimately a vehicle for cosmopolitanism. things, that grants them the proverbial It’s why Giuseppe Mazzini, a champion comforts oÈ home. And i they want to o Italian uni¿cation, urged his fellow sustain those comforts by keeping away citizens to “embrace the whole human people unlike themselves or cultural family in your aections.” imports from elsewhere, then (assuming The stock modern slander against certain moral basics o nondiscrimination the cosmopolitans—which played a are observed) that is their right. central role in anti-Semitic Soviet The problem, o course, is that propaganda under Stalin in the period these uncosmopolitan localists live in after World War II—is that they are societies with others who think dier- “rootless.” This accusation reÊects not ently. They must cohabit with the just moral blindness but also intellec- cosmopolitans, just as the cosmopoli- tual confusion. What’s distinctive about tans must cohabit with them. Further- modern cosmopolitanism is its celebra- more, societies have moral and legal tion o the contribution o every nation duties to admit at least some foreign- to the chorus oÈ humanity. It is about ers—namely, those escaping persecu- sharing. And you cannot share i you tion and death. Those obligations are have nothing to bring to the table. shared by the community o nations,
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so the burden must be distributed universal morality does not mean that fairly. But each society must contrib- each o us has the same obligations to ute to meeting the need. everyone. I have a particular fondness The fact that the localists share for my nephews and nieces, one that societies with cosmopolitans in coun- does not extend to your nephews and tries that have duties to asylum seekers nieces. Indeed, I believe it would be constrains the ways in which the localist morally wrong not to favor my rela- camp can achieve the comforts oÈ home. tives when it comes to distributing my But the existence o the localists con- limited attention and treasure. Does it strains what the cosmopolitans can do, follow that I must hate your nephews as well. Democracy is about respecting and nieces or try to shape the world to the legitimate desires o fellow citizens their disadvantage? Surely not. I can and seeking to accommodate them recognize the legitimate moral inter- when you reasonably can. ests o your family, while still paying special attention to mine. It’s not that PLAYING FAVORITES my family matters more than yours; I nationalism and cosmopolitanism are, it’s that it matters more to me. And far from being incompatible, actually requiring people to pay special atten- intertwined, how has cosmopolitanism tion to their own is, as the great become such a handy bugbear for those cosmopolitan philosopher Martha who, like the political strategist Steve Nussbaum once put it, “the only Bannon, seek to ally themselves with sensible way to do good.” the spirit o nationalism? One reason is We generally have a stronger attach- that some people have made excessive ment to those with whom we grew up claims on behal o cosmopolitanism. and with whom we make our lives than They have often been seduced by this we do to those outside the family. But tempting line o thought: i everybody we can still favor those with whom we matters, then they must matter equally, share projects or identities, and it is a and i that is true, then each o us has distinct feature oÈ human psychology the same moral obligations to everyone. that we are capable o intense feelings Partiality—favoring those to whom one around identities that are shared with is connected by blood or culture or millions or billions o strangers. In- territory—can look morally arbitrary. deed, this characteristic is evident in The real enemy o those who worry the forms o nationalism that do not about “citizens o nowhere” is not a give rise to respect for other nations— reasonable cosmopolitanism but the as Herder’s did—but explode instead in dierent idea, occasionally espoused by hostility and xenophobia. That side o people calling themselves “citizens o nationalism needs taming, and cosmo- the world,” that it is wrong to be partial politanism is one means o mastering to your own place or people. it. But it is absurd to miss the other What the impartial version o side o nationalism: its capacity to cosmopolitanism fails to understand bring people together in projects such is that the fact o everybody’s matter- as creating a social welfare state or ing equally from the perspective o building a society o equals.
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GLOBAL IDENTITY POLITICS he sang along to the work o the English Beyond the charge that cosmopolitan- musical-theater duo Gilbert and Sullivan. ism is inconsistent with nationalism, None o that stopped him from joining another objection to it holds that the Ghanaian independence movement, humanity as a whole is too abstract to serving in Ghana’s national parliament, or generate a powerful sense o identity. laying the foundations o pro bono legal But scale simply cannot be the problem. work in the country. He recognized that There are nearly 1.4 billion Chinese, what May called the “bonds and obliga- and yet their Chinese identi¿cation is a tions that make our society work” are real force in their lives and politics. The global as well as local. He saw that those modern nation-state has always been a obligations existed not only in his home community too large for everyone to country and his hometown but also in the meet face-to-face; it has always been international arena. He recognized what held together not by literal companion- that very English poet Philip Larkin once ship but by imaginative identi¿cation. called “the importance o elsewhere.” Cosmopolitans extend their imagina- Those who deny the importance o tions only a small step further, and in elsewhere have withdrawn from the doing so, they do not have to imagine world, where the greatest challenges away their roots. Gertrude Stein, the and threats must be confronted by a Pittsburgh-born, Oakland-raised writer community o nations, with a genuine who lived in Paris for four decades, was sense o obligation that transcends right: “What good are roots,” she asked, borders. Today, atmospheric carbon “i you can’t take them with you?” dioxide levels are at their highest point To speak for global citizenship is not in 800,000 years. Oceanic acidi¿cation to oppose local citizenship, then. My worsens each year. And according to father, a self-described citizen o the the ¦, there were almost 260 million world, was deeply involved in the politi- international migrants in 2017, many cal life oÈ his hometown, Kumasi, the Êeeing war and oppression in Africa, capital o the old empire o Ashanti, to the Middle East, and Asia. which he was proud to belong. He was As populist demagogues around the active, too, in the Organization o African world exploit the churn o economic Unity (which became the African Union). discontent, the danger is that the He served his country, Ghana, at the ¦, politics o engagement could give way in which he also believed passionately. to the politics o withdrawal. A success- He loved Ashanti traditions, proverbs, ful cosmopolitanism must keep its eyes and folktales, as well as Shakespeare; as a on matters near and far, promoting lawyer, he admired Cicero, whom he political systems that also work for would quote at the drop o a hat, but also localists. The Anywheres must extend Thurgood Marshall and Mahatma their concern to the Somewheres. But Gandhi. He listened to the music o forgetting that we are all citizens o the Bessie Smith (the African American world—a small, warming, intensely “Empress o the Blues”), Sophie Tucker vulnerable world—would be a reckless (a Ukrainian-born vaudeville star), and relaxation o vigilance. Elsewhere has Umm Kulthum (an Egyptian singer), and never been more important.∂
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President Emmanuel Macron declared THE NEW NATIONALISM Why Nationalism last November that “nationalism is a betrayal o patriotism.” Works The popular distinction between patriotism and nationalism echoes the one made by scholars who contrast And Why It Isn’t Going “civic” nationalism, according to which Away all citizens, regardless o their cultural background, count as members o the Andreas Wimmer nation, with “ethnic” nationalism, in which ancestry and language determine national identity. Yet eorts to draw a ationalism has a bad reputation hard line between good, civic patriotism today. It is, in the minds o and bad, ethnic nationalism overlook Nmany educated Westerners, a the common roots oÈ both. Patriotism is dangerous ideology. Some acknowledge a form o nationalism. They are ideo- the virtues o patriotism, understood as logical brothers, not distant cousins. the benign aection for one’s homeland; At their core, all forms o national- at the same time, they see nationalism as ism share the same two tenets: ¿rst, narrow-minded and immoral, promoting that members o the nation, under- blind loyalty to a country over deeper stood as a group o equal citizens with commitments to justice and humanity. a shared history and future political In a January 2019 speech to his country’s destiny, should rule the state, and diplomatic corps, German President second, that they should do so in the Frank-Walter Steinmeier put this view interests o the nation. Nationalism is in stark terms: “Nationalism,” he said, thus opposed to foreign rule by mem- “is an ideological poison.” bers o other nations, as in colonial In recent years, populists across the empires and many dynastic kingdoms, West have sought to invert this moral as well as to rulers who disregard the hierarchy. They have proudly claimed perspectives and needs o the majority. the mantle o nationalism, promising Over the past two centuries, national- to defend the interests o the majority ism has been combined with all manner against immigrant minorities and o other political ideologies. Liberal out-of-touch elites. Their critics, mean- nationalism Êourished in nineteenth- while, cling to the established distinc- century Europe and Latin America, tion between malign nationalism and fascist nationalism triumphed in Italy worthy patriotism. In a thinly veiled and Germany during the interwar period, shot at U.S. President Donald Trump, and Marxist nationalism motivated the a self-described nationalist, French anticolonial movements that spread across the “global South” after the end ANDREAS WIMMER is Lieber Professor of oÈ World War II. Today, nearly every- Sociology and Political Philosophy at Columbia one, left and right, accepts the legiti- University and the author of Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While macy o nationalism’s two basic tenets. Others Fall Apart. This becomes clearer when contrasting
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nationalism with other doctrines o THE NATION IS BORN state legitimacy. In theocracies, the Nationalism is a relatively recent state should be ruled in the name o invention. In 1750, vast multinational God, as in the Vatican or the caliphate empires—Austrian, British, Chinese, o the Islamic State (or ). In French, Ottoman, Russian, and Span- dynastic kingdoms, the state is owned ish—governed most o the world. But and ruled by a family, as in Saudi then came the American Revolution, in Arabia. In the Soviet Union, the state 1775, and the French Revolution, in was ruled in the name o a class: the 1789. The doctrine o nationalism—rule international proletariat. in the name o a nationally dened Since the fall o the Soviet Union, people—spread gradually across the the world has become a world o nation- globe. Over the next two centuries, states governed according to nationalist empire after empire dissolved into a principles. Identifying nationalism series o nation-states. In 1900, roughly exclusively with the political right means 35 percent o the globe’s surface was misunderstanding the nature o nation- governed by nation-states; by 1950, it alism and ignoring how deeply it has was already 70 percent. Today, only shaped almost all modern political hal a dozen dynastic kingdoms and ideologies, including liberal and pro- theocracies remain. gressive ones. It has provided the ideo- Where did nationalism come from, logical foundation for institutions such and why did it prove so popular? Its roots as democracy, the welfare state, and reach back to early modern Europe. public education, all o which were European politics in this period— justied in the name o a unied people roughly, the sixteenth through the with a shared sense o purpose and eighteenth centuries—was characterized mutual obligation. Nationalism was by intense warfare between increasingly one o the great motivating forces that centralized, bureaucratic states. By the helped beat back Nazi Germany and end o the eighteenth century, these imperial Japan. And nationalists liber- states had largely displaced other institu- ated the large majority o humanity tions (such as churches) as the main from European colonial domination. providers o public goods within their Nationalism is not an irrational territory, and they had eliminated or sentiment that can be banished from co-opted competing centers o power, contemporary politics through enlight- such as the independent nobility. The ening education; it is one o the mod- centralization o power, moreover, ern world’s foundational principles and promoted the spread o a common is more widely accepted than its critics language within each state, at least acknowledge. Who in the United among the literate, and provided a shared States would agree to be ruled by focus for the emerging civil society French noblemen? Who in Nigeria organizations that were then becoming would publicly call for the British to preoccupied with matters o state. come back? Europe’s competitive and war-prone With few exceptions, we are all multistate system drove rulers to extract nationalists today. ever more taxes from their populations
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Party in the U.S.A.: at a Fourth of July cookout in Brooklyn, New York, July 2018 and to expand the role o commoners in quickly became more powerful than the military. This, in turn, gave com- the old dynastic kingdoms and empires. moners leverage to demand from their Nationalism allowed rulers to raise more rulers increased political participation, taxes from the ruled and to count on their equality before the law, and better political loyalty. Perhaps most impor- provision o public goods. In the end, a tant, nation-states proved able to defeat new compact emerged: that rulers should empires on the battleeld. Universal govern in the population’s interests, and military conscription—invented by the that as long as they did so, the ruled revolutionary government o France— owed them political loyalty, soldiers, and enabled nation-states to recruit massive
CHRISTOPHER taxes. Nationalism at once reected and armies whose soldiers were motivated to justied this new compact. It held that ght for their fatherland. From 1816 to the rulers and the ruled both belonged to 2001, nation-states won somewhere the same nation and thus shared a between 70 and 90 percent o their wars / THE LEE common historical origin and future with empires or dynastic states. political destiny. Political elites would As the nation-states o western look after the interests o the common Europe and the United States came to NEW people rather than those o their dynasty. dominate the international system,
YORK Why was this new model o state- ambitious elites around the world hood so attractive? Early nation-states— sought to match the West’s economic TIMES France, the Netherlands, the United and military power by emulating its Kingdom, and the United States— nationalist political model. Perhaps the
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most famous example is Japan, where in bargain, that is, citizens embraced a 1868, a group o young Japanese noble- nationalist vision o the world. This men overthrew the feudal aristocracy, laid the foundation for a host o other centralized power under the emperor, positive developments. and embarked on an ambitious program One o these was democracy, which to transform Japan into a modern, Êourished where national identity was industrialized nation-state—a develop- able to supersede other identities, such ment known as the Meiji Restoration. as those centered on religious, ethnic, Only one generation later, Japan was or tribal communities. Nationalism able to challenge Western military provided the answer to the classic power in East Asia. boundary question o democracy: Who Nationalism did not spread only are the people in whose name the because o its appeal to ambitious politi- government should rule? By limiting cal elites, however. It was also attractive the franchise to members o the nation for the common people, because the and excluding foreigners from voting, nation-state oered a better exchange democracy and nationalism entered an relationship with the government than enduring marriage. any previous model o statehood had. At the same time as nationalism Instead o graduated rights based on established a new hierarchy o rights social status, nationalism promised the between members (citizens) and non- equality o all citizens before the law. members (foreigners), it tended to Instead o restricting political leadership promote equality within the nation to the nobility, it opened up political itself. Because nationalist ideology careers to talented commoners. Instead holds that the people represent a united oÈ leaving the provision o public goods body without dierences o status, it to guilds, villages, and religious institu- reinforced the Enlightenment ideal that tions, nationalism brought the power o all citizens should be equal in the eyes the modern state to bear in promoting o the law. Nationalism, in other words, the common good. And instead o entered into a symbiotic relationship perpetuating elite contempt for the with the principle o equality. In uncultured plebs, nationalism elevated Europe, in particular, the shift from the status o the common people by dynastic rule to the nation-state often making them the new source o sover- went hand in hand with a transition to a eignty and by moving popular culture to representative form o government and the center o the symbolic universe. the rule oÈ law. These early democracies initially restricted full legal and voting THE BENEFITS OF NATIONALISM rights to male property owners, but In countries where the nationalist over time, those rights were extended to compact between the rulers and the all citizens o the nation—in the United ruled was realized, the population came States, ¿rst to poor white men, then to to identify with the idea o the nation white women and people o color. as an extended family whose members Nationalism also helped establish owed one another loyalty and support. modern welfare states. A sense o Where rulers held up their end o the mutual obligation and shared political
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destiny popularized the idea that European parts o the Ottoman Empire members o the nation—even perfect among themselves, expelling millions o strangers—should support one another Muslims across the new border into the in times oÈ hardship. The ¿rst modern rest o the empire. Then, during World welfare state was created in Germany War I, the Ottoman government engaged during the late nineteenth century at the in massive killings o Armenian civilians. behest o the conservative chancellor During World War II, Hitler’s vili¿cation Otto von Bismarck, who saw it as a way o the Jews—whom he blamed for the to ensure the working class’ loyalty to the rise o Bolshevism, which he saw as a German nation rather than the interna- threat to his plans for a German empire tional proletariat. The majority o Europe’s in eastern Europe—eventually led to welfare states, however, were established the Holocaust. After the end o that after periods o nationalist fervor, mostly war, millions o German civilians were after World War II in response to calls expelled from the newly re-created for national solidarity in the wake o Czechoslovakian and Polish states. And shared suering and sacri¿ce. in 1947, massive numbers o Hindus and Muslims were killed in communal BLOODY BANNERS violence when India and Pakistan Yet as any student oÈ history knows, became independent states. nationalism also has a dark side. Loyalty Ethnic cleansing is perhaps the most to the nation can lead to the demoniza- egregious form o nationalist violence, tion o others, whether foreigners or but it is relatively rare. More frequent are allegedly disloyal domestic minorities. civil wars, fought either by nationalist Globally, the rise o nationalism has minorities who wish to break away from increased the frequency o war: over an existing state or between ethnic groups the last two centuries, the foundation competing to dominate a newly indepen- o the ¿rst nationalist organization in a dent state. Since 1945, 31 countries have country has been associated with an experienced secessionist violence and 28 increase in the yearly probability o have seen armed struggles over the ethnic that country experiencing a full-scale composition o the national government. war, from an average o 1.1 percent to an average o 2.5 percent. INCLUSIVE AND EXCLUSIVE About one-third o all contemporary Although nationalism has a propensity states were born in a nationalist war o for violence, that violence is unevenly independence against imperial armies. distributed. Many countries have The birth o new nation-states has also remained peaceful after their transition been accompanied by some oÈ history’s to a nation-state. Understanding why most violent episodes o ethnic cleansing, requires focusing on how governing generally o minorities that were consid- coalitions emerge and how the bound a- ered disloyal to the nation or suspected ries o the nation are drawn. In some o collaborating with its enemies. During countries, majorities and minorities are the two Balkan wars preceding World represented in the highest levels o the War I, newly independent Bulgaria, national government from the outset. Greece, and Serbia divided up the Switzerland, for instance, integrated
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French-, German-, and Italian-speaking goods. This makes them more attractive groups into an enduring power-sharing as alliance partners for ordinary citizens, arrangement that no one has ever ques- who shift their political loyalty away tioned since the modern state was founded, from ethnic, religious, and tribal leaders in 1848. Correspondingly, Swiss nation- and toward the state, allowing for the alist discourse portrays all three linguistic emergence o more diverse political groups as equally worthy members o the alliances. A long history o centralized national family. There has never been a statehood also fosters the adoption o a movement by the French- or the Italian- common language, which again makes it speaking Swiss minority to secede from easier to build political alliances across the state. ethnic divides. Finally, in countries In other countries, however, the state where civil society developed relatively was captured by the elites o a particu- early (as it did in Switzerland), multi- lar ethnic group, who then proceeded to ethnic alliances for promoting shared shut other groups out o political power. interests have been more likely to This raises the specter not just o ethnic emerge, eventually leading to multiethnic cleansing pursued by paranoid state elites ruling elites and more encompassing but also o secessionism or civil war national identities. launched by the excluded groups them- selves, who feel that the state lacks BUILDING A BETTER NATIONALISM legitimacy because it violates the nation- Unfortunately, these deep historical alist principle o self-rule. Contemporary roots mean that it is dicult, especially Syria oers an extreme example o this for outsiders, to promote inclusive scenario: the presidency, the cabinet, the ruling coalitions in countries that lack army, the secret service, and the higher the conditions for their emergence, as levels o the bureaucracy are all domi- is the case in many parts o the devel- nated by Alawites, who make up just oping world. Western governments and 12 percent o the country’s population. international institutions, such as the It should come as no surprise that many World Bank, can help establish these members o Syria’s Sunni Arab majority conditions by pursuing long-term have been willing to ¿ght a long and policies that increase governments’ bloody civil war against what they regard capacity to provide public goods, as alien rule. encourage the Êourishing o civil Whether the con¿guration o power society organizations, and promote in a speci¿c country developed in a linguistic integration. But such policies more inclusive or exclusive direction is a should strengthen states, not under- matter oÈ history, stretching back before mine them or seek to perform their the rise o the modern nation-state. functions. Direct foreign help can Inclusive ruling coalitions—and a corre- reduce, rather than foster, the legiti- spondingly encompassing nationalism— macy o national governments. Analy- have tended to arise in countries with a sis o surveys conducted by the Asia long history o centralized, bureaucratic Foundation in Afghanistan from 2006 statehood. Today, such states are better to 2015 shows that Afghans had a more able to provide their citizens with public positive view oÈ Taliban violence after
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foreigners sponsored public goods should go hand in hand with a new projects in their districts. form o inclusive nationalism. In the In the United States and many United States, liberals such as the other old democracies, the problem o intellectual historian Mark Lilla and fostering inclusive ruling coalitions and moderate conservatives such as the national identities is dierent. Sections political scientist Francis Fukuyama o the white working classes in these have recently suggested how such a countries abandoned center-left parties national narrative might be constructed: after those parties began to embrace by embracing both majorities and immigration and free trade. The white minorities, emphasizing their shared working classes also resent their interests rather than pitting white men cultural marginalization by liberal against a coalition o minorities, as is elites, who champion diversity while done today by progressives and populist presenting whites, heterosexuals, and nationalists alike. men as the enemies o progress. The In both the developed and the white working classes ¿nd populist developing world, nationalism is here to nationalism attractive because it prom- stay. There is currently no other prin- ises to prioritize their interests, shield ciple on which to base the international them from competition from immi- state system. (Universalistic cosmopoli- grants or lower-paid workers abroad, tanism, for instance, has little purchase and restore their central and digni¿ed outside the philosophy departments o place in the national culture. Populists Western universities.) And it is unclear didn’t have to invent the idea that the i transnational institutions such as the state should care primarily for core European Union will ever be able to members o the nation; it has always assume the core functions o national been deeply embedded in the institu- governments, including welfare and tional fabric o the nation-state, ready defense, which would allow them to to be activated once its potential audi- gain popular legitimacy. ence grew large enough. The challenge for both old and new Overcoming these citizens’ alien- nation-states is to renew the national ation and resentment will require both contract between the rulers and the cultural and economic solutions. West- ruled by building—or rebuilding—in- ern governments should develop public clusive coalitions that tie the two goods projects that bene¿t people o all together. Benign forms o popular colors, regions, and class backgrounds, nationalism follow from political thereby avoiding the toxic perception inclusion. They cannot be imposed by o ethnic or political favoritism. Reas- ideological policing from above, nor by suring working-class, economically attempting to educate citizens about marginalized populations that they, too, what they should regard as their true can count on the solidarity o their interests. In order to promote better more aÎuent and competitive fellow forms o nationalism, leaders will have citizens might go a long way toward to become better nationalists, and learn reducing the appeal o resentment- to look out for the interests o all their driven, anti-immigrant populism. This people.∂
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have managed to convince not only their THE NEW NATIONALISM False Flags supporters but also their opponents that they are responding to deep nationalist yearnings among ordinary people. The The Myth of the Nationalist more that defenders oÈ liberalism and Resurgence the liberal order buy the stories these leaders (and associated movements) are Jan-Werner Müller selling and adopt the framing and rhetoric o populism, the more they allow here appears to be one indisput- their opponents’ ideas to shape political able global trend today: the rise debates. In doing so, parties and institu- To nationalism. Self-described tions o the center-left and the center- nationalists now lead not only the world’s right are helping bring about the very largest autocracies but also some o its thing they hope to avoid: more closed most populous democracies, including societies and less global cooperation to Brazil, India, and the United States. address common problems. A deepening fault line seems to divide cosmopolitans and nationalists, advo- THE PEOPLE AND THE NATION cates o “drawbridge down” and “draw- What the past few years have witnessed bridge up.” And it seems that more and is not the rise o nationalism per se more people are opting for the latter— but the rise o one variant o it: nationalist for “closed” over “open.” populism. “Nationalism” and “popu- They do so, many commentators lism” are often conÊated, but they refer claim, because they feel threatened by to dierent phenomena. The most something called “globalism” and charitable de¿nition o “nationalism” is crave to have their particular national the idea that cultural communities identities recognized and armed. should ideally possess their own states According to this now conventional and that loyalty to fellow nationals narrative, today’s surge o nationalist ought to trump other obligations. passions represents a return to normal: “Populism,” meanwhile, is sometimes the attempts to create a more integrated taken to be a shorthand for “criticism o world after the Cold War were a mere elites,” and it is true that populists, when historical blip, and humanity’s tribal in opposition, criticize sitting govern- passions have now been reawakened. ments and other parties. More impor- This, however, is a deeply Êawed tant, however, is their claim that they interpretation o the current moment. and they alone represent what they In reality, the leaders described as usually call “the real people” or “the “nationalists” are better understood as silent majority.” Populists thus declare populist poseurs who have won support all other contenders for power to be by drawing on the rhetoric and imagery illegitimate. In this way, populists’ o nationalism. Unfortunately, they complaints are always fundamentally personal and moral: the problem, JAN WERNER MÜLLER is Professor of invariably, is that their adversaries are Politics at Princeton University. corrupt. In this sense, populists are
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indeed antiestablishment. But populists countries. These beliefs often cross over also deem citizens who do not take their into nativism or racism, as when nation- side to be inauthentic, not part o “the alist populists promote the idea that real people”: they are un-American, un- only native-born citizens are entitled to Polish, un-Turkish, and so on. Populism jobs and bene¿ts or insinuate that some attacks not merely elites and establish- immigrants can never be loyal citizens. ments but also the very idea o political To be sure, one can be a nationalist pluralism—with vulnerable minorities without being a populist; a leader can usually becoming the ¿rst victims. maintain that national loyalties come This antipluralism explains why popu- ¿rst without saying that he or she alone list leaders tend to take their countries in can represent the nation. But today, all an authoritarian direction i they have right-wing populists are nationalists. sucient power and i countervailing They promise to take back control on forces, such as an independent judiciary behal o “the real people,” which in or free media, are not strong enough to their de¿nition is never the population resist them. Such leaders reject all as a whole. Nigel Farage, the leader o criticisms with the claim that they are the far-right · Independence Party at merely executing the people’s will. They the time o the Brexit vote, celebrated seek out and thrive on conÊict; their the outcome as a “victory for real political business model is permanent people,” implying that the 48 percent o culture war. In a way, they reduce all British voters who preferred that their political questions to questions o country stay in the § were not prop- belonging: whoever disagrees with them erly part o the nation. is labeled an “enemy o the people.” Populism is not a doctrine; it is more DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE like a frame. And all populists have The potent combination o nationalism to ¿ll the frame with content that will and populism has spread in recent years. explain who “the real people” are A populist playbook—perhaps even a and what they want. That content can populist art o governance—has emerged take many dierent forms and can draw as politicians in disparate countries have on ideas from the left or the right. studied and learned from one another’s From the late 1990s until his death in experiences. In 2011, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 2013, the Venezuelan populist leader who leads Poland’s populist ruling Law Hugo Chávez created a disastrous and Justice party, announced that he “socialism for the twenty-¿rst century” wanted to create “Budapest in Warsaw,” in his country, wrecking its economy and he has systematically copied the and demonizing all oÈ his opponents in strategies pioneered by Prime Minister the process. Today’s right-wing popu- Viktor Orban in Hungary. On the other lists mostly draw on nationalist ideas, side o the world, Jair Bolsonaro got such as distrust o international institu- elected president by following the tions (even i a nation joined such playbook, railing against immigration organizations voluntarily), economic (even though more people leave Brazil protectionism, and hostility to the idea than enter) and declaring, “Brazil above o providing development aid to other all, God above everyone.”
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Full of hot air: at the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro, Brasília, Brazil, January 2019 To some observers, it appears that Hungary constituted a “revolution at the nationalist populists have proted from voting booths” and that Hungarians had a bitter backlash against globalization endorsed what he has described as his and increasing cultural diversity. This “Christian and national” vision o an has, in fact, become the conventional “illiberal democracy.” In reality, all that wisdom not only among populists them- happened was that a majority o Hungar- selves but also among academics and ians were deeply disappointed by the liberal opponents o populism. The country’s left-wing government and did irony, however, is that although critics what standard democratic theory recom- often charge populists with peddling mended they do: they voted for the main reductive messages, it is these same opposition party, Orban’s Fidesz. By the critics who now grasp at simple expla- next time Hungarians went to the polls, nations for populism’s rise. In doing in 2014, Orban had gerrymandered the SIPAPRE so, many liberal observers play right electoral map in Fidesz’s favor; erected into their opponents’ hands by taking the Orwellian-sounding System o SIPA / at face value and even amplifying the National Cooperation, which included
USA dubious stories that nationalist populists drastic restrictions on media pluralism
VIA tell about their own success. and civil society; and weakened the For example, Orban has claimed that independence o the judiciary and other AP the 2010 parliamentary elections in sources o checks and balances.
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Similarly, in the 2016 U.S. presiden- right’s willingness to collaborate with tial election, “the people” did not them—as was the case for Trump, comprehensively endorse a nationalist Bolsonaro, and the pro-Brexit cam- “America ¿rst” agenda. Rather, in more paigners—or they win by at least partly mundane fashion, citizens who identi- hiding their intentions, as was the case ¿ed as Republicans came out to vote for with Orban. their party’s candidate, who was not a Once in power, most nationalist typical politician but also hardly the populists don’t actually work to take leader o a spontaneous grass-roots back control on the people’s behalf, as antiglobalization movement. Donald they promised to do. Instead, they Trump ultimately won the backing perform a sort o nationalist pantomime o the party machinery; the enthusiastic oÈ largely symbolic gestures: for ex- support o establishment Republican ample, promising to build walls (which ¿gures such as Chris Christie, Newt achieve nothing concrete other than Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani; and inciting hatred against minorities) or near-constant cheerleading on Fox News. occasionally having the state seize a As the political scientists Christopher multinational company. Behind the Achen and Larry Bartels have argued, scenes, such leaders are generally quite it turned out to be a fairly normal elec- accommodating o international institu- tion, albeit with an abnormal Republican tions and multinational corporations. candidate who faced a deeply unpopular They are concerned less with genuinely Democratic contender. reasserting their countries’ autonomy Likewise, Bolsonaro did not win last than with appearing to do so. year’s presidential election in Brazil Take Trump, for instance. He has because a majority o Brazilians wanted threatened individual companies that a nationalist military dictatorship. The planned to close facilities in the United bulk o Bolsonaro’s support came from States. But he has also stripped away citizens fed up with the corruption o labor regulations at a breakneck pace, traditional political elites from across making it hard to claim that he cares the political spectrum and unwilling to about protecting workers. Likewise, return the left-wing Workers’ Party to after deriding the North American Free power. It also helped that the country’s Trade Agreement during his campaign, powerful agricultural sector and, even- Trump wound up negotiating a tually, its ¿nancial and industrial elites new trade deal with Canada and Mexico threw their weight behind the far-right whose terms are substantially similar candidate—as did inÊuential evangelical to those o ¦¯¶¤¯. In Hungary, Orban Christian leaders. has nationalized some industries and As the political scientist Cas Mudde railed against foreign corporations that has pointed out, nationalist populists he claimed exploited the Hungarian often represent not a silent majority but people. Yet his government recently a very loud minority. They do not come passed a law that allows employers to to power because their ideology is an demand that workers put in 400 hours unstoppable world-historical force. o overtime each year, up from the prior Rather, they depend on the center- limit o 250 hours—and to withhold
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FA.indb 38 1/18/19 7:57 PM payment for that extra labor for up to three years. The main bene ciaries o this measure (dubbed “the slave law” by its critics) are the German car companies that employ thousands o Hungarian Advancing factory workers. Human NOT EVERY FIGHT IS CULTURAL Many politicians, especially those from Progress mainstream center-right parties, have been at a loss when it comes to counter- ing nationalist populism. Increasingly,
though, they are betting on a seemingly
B
A
paradoxical strategy o what one might N
K
I -
call “destruction through imitation.” M
O
O
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and N
( 8
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, for T
H
S example, have tried to outank their E C
R
E far-right competitors with tough talk on T A R Y - refugees, Islam, and immigration. G E N E This strategy is unlikely to succeed R A L O in the long run, but it is bound to do F U N ) W serious damage to European democracy. IT H P RO No matter how fast one chases populists FESS ER. OR KE LLAGH to the fringes, it’s almost impossible VIN GA to catch them. Extremist out ts such as MA in GLOBAL the Danish People’s Party or the Party for Freedom o the far-right Dutch POLICY with a provocateur Geert Wilders will never specialization be satis ed with the immigration in Environment, proposals o more established parties, no matter how restrictive they are. And Development, their supporters are unlikely to switch or Public Health. their allegiances: they’ll continue to prefer the originals over the imitators. A deeper concern is the eect that established parties making opportunistic
shifts in response to the populist SCHOOL PARDEE threat will have. First, they denounce bu.edu/PardeeSchool @BUPardeeSchool populists as demagogues peddling lies. Then, when support for populists grows, mainstream politicians begin to suggest Frederick S. Pardee that the populists have intuited, or even School of Global Studies rmly know, something about people’s
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concerns and anxieties that others the population. The government failed haven’t, or don’t. This reÊects an under- at distributive justice, not at cultural standing o democratic representation as recognition. an almost mechanical system for repro- Across Europe and the United States, ducing existing interests, ideas, and even journalists and analysts have posited identities. In this view, savvy populist that many people—especially older white political entrepreneurs discover trends people—feel disrespected by elites. It’s within the polity and then import them hard to ascertain how many people have into the political system. directly encountered disrespect. But But that is not how democracy really virtually day and night—on talk radio, works. Representation is a dynamic on ¤¨ news programs, and on social process, in which citizens’ self-perceptions media—millions o people are told that and identities are heavily inÊuenced by they feel disrespected. What is routinely what they see, hear, and read: images, presented as a cultural conÊict between words, and ideas produced and circulated supposedly authentic rural heartlands by politicians, the media, civil society, and cosmopolitan cities usually involves and even friends and family members. a much less dramatic ¿ght over how Modern democracy is a two-way street, opportunities are distributed through in which representative systems do not regulatory and infrastructure decisions: merely reÊect interests and political from the price o aÐrlÐne ticket for identities; they shape them, as well. Êights to more remote areas, to the Nationalist populists have bene¿ted status o community banks, to policies greatly from this process, as media that determine the cost oÈ housing in organizations and scholars have adopted big cities. their framing and rhetoric, with the By casting all issues in cultural terms eect o ratifying and amplifying their and by embracing the idea that popu- messages. Casual, seemingly self-evident lists have developed a unique purchase accounts o “ordinary people” who have on people’s concerns and anxieties, been “left behind” or “disrespected” and established parties and media organiza- who fear “the destruction o their culture” tions have created something akin to need to be treated with extreme caution: a self-ful¿lling prophecy. Once the they are not necessarily accurate descrip- entire political spectrum adopts popu- tions o people’s lived experience. One list language about voters’ interests and can frame, say, the French government’s identities, more and more people recent decision to raise taxes on gasoline will begin to understand themselves and to introduce tighter speed limits in and their interests in those terms. For the countryside—steps that spurred the example, voters fed up with established “yellow vest” protest movement—as center-right parties might initially demonstrating disrespect for a “way o cast protest votes for populist parties life” in rural and exurban areas. But a such as the far-right Alternative for more mundane interpretation is that Germany (AfD) or outsider political the French government simply failed to candidates such as Trump. But i those see how particular policies would have voters are then continuously portrayed dierent eects on dierent parts o as “AfD people” or as members o
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“Trump’s base,” they may well come ization was like “debating whether to adopt those identities and develop a autumn should follow summer.” Some more permanent sense o allegiance supporters o free trade falsely claimed to the party or politician who at ¿rst that everyone would bene¿t from a represented little more than a way to more integrated world. But nationalist express dissatisfaction with the status populists don’t truly want to address quo. Eventually, as mainstream parties those errors. They seek, instead, to opportunistically adapt their messages cynically exploit them in order to weaken and media commentators lazily repeat democratic institutions and lump populist talking points, the entire together advocates o globalization, political spectrum can shift rightward. transnational tax evaders, and high-Êy- ing private equity investors—along BEAT THEM, DON’T JOIN THEM with human rights advocates and This argument may sound like liberal immigrants, refugees, and many other wishful thinking: “People are not nearly marginalized groups—into an undier- as nationalist as populists claim! entiated “cosmopolitan, rootless elite”: ConÊicts are really all about material a “them” to pit against an “us.” interests and not about culture!” But There are deep and often legitimate the point is not that ¿ghts over culture conÊicts about trade, immigration, and identity are illusory or illegitimate and the shape o the international order. just because populists always happen Liberals should not present their to promote them. Rather, the point choices on these issues as self-evidently is that establishment institutions are too correct or as purely win-win; they quickly turning to culture and identity must convincingly make the case for to explain politics. In this way, they are their ideas and justify their stance to playing into populists’ hands—doing the disadvantaged. But they should also their jobs for them, in eect. not adopt the framing and rhetoric Consider, for example, populist o populists, opportunistic center-right attacks on “globalists” who favor “open politicians, and academics who make borders.” Even center-left parties now careers out o explaining away xenopho- ritually distancing themselves from that bic views as merely symptoms o idea, even though, in reality, no politi- economic anxiety. Doing so will lead cian o any consequence anywhere liberals to make preemptive concessions wants to open all borders. Even among that betray their ideals.∂ political philosophers not constrained by political concerns, only a very small minority calls for the abolition o frontiers. It is true that advocates o global governance and economic global- ization have made serious blunders: they often presented their vision o the world as an inevitable outcome, as when British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted in 2005 that debating global-
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that chimps are about 30 times as likely This Is Your Brain to kill a chimp from a neighboring group as to kill one o their own. On average, on Nationalism eight males gang up on the victim. I such is the violent reality oÈ life as an ape, is it at all surprising that hu- The Biology of Us and Them mans, who share more than 98 percent o their ²¦¯ with chimps, also divide Robert Sapolsky the world into “us” and “them” and go to war over these categories? Reductive comparisons are, o course, dangerous; e never stood a chance. His humans share just as much o their ²¦¯ THE NEW NATIONALISM ¿rst mistake was looking for with bonobos, among whom such brutal Hfood alone; perhaps things behavior is unheard of. And although would have turned out dierently iÈ he’d humans kill not just over access to a been with someone else. The second, valley but also over abstractions such as bigger mistake was wandering too far ideology, religion, and economic power, up the valley into a dangerous wooded they are unrivaled in their ability to area. This was where he risked running change their behavior. (The Swedes into the Others, the ones from the ridge spent the seventeenth century rampaging above the valley. At ¿rst, there were through Europe; today they are, well, the two o them, and he tried to ¿ght, but Swedes.) Still, humankind’s best and another four crept up behind him and worst moments arise from a system that he was surrounded. They left him there incorporates everything from the previ- to bleed to death and later returned to ous second’s neuronal activity to the last mutilate his body. Eventually, nearly 20 million years o evolution (along with a such killings took place, until there was complex set o social factors). To under- no one left, and the Others took over stand the dynamics oÈ human group the whole valley. identity, including the resurgence o The protagonists in this tale oÈ blood nationalism—that potentially most and conquest, ¿rst told by the primatolo- destructive form o in-group bias— gist John Mitani, are not people; they are requires grasping the biological and chimpanzees in a national park in Uganda. cognitive underpinnings that shape them. Over the course o a decade, the male Such an analysis oers little grounds chimps in one group systematically killed for optimism. Our brains distinguish every neighboring male, kidnapped the between in-group members and outsid- surviving females, and expanded their ers in a fraction o a second, and they territory. Similar attacks occur in chimp encourage us to be kind to the former populations elsewhere; a 2014 study found but hostile to the latter. These biases are automatic and unconscious and emerge ROBERT SAPOLSKY is Professor of Biology, at astonishingly young ages. They are, Neurosurgery, and Neurology and Neurological o course, arbitrary and often Êuid. Sciences at Stanford University and the author of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best Today’s “them” can become tomorrow’s and Worst. “us.” But this is only poor consolation.
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Not far from the tree: a chimpanzee at a zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, October 2017 Humans can rein in their instincts and face activates the amygdala, a brain build societies that divert group compe- region central to emotions o fear and tition to arenas less destructive than aggression, in under one-tenth o a warfare, yet the psychological bases for second. In most cases, the prefrontal tribalism persist, even when people cortex, a region crucial for impulse understand that their loyalty to their control and emotional regulation, springs nation, skin color, god, or sports team into action a second or two later and is as random as the toss o a coin. At silences the amygdala: “Don’t think the level o the human mind, little that way, that’s not who I am.” Still, the prevents new teammates from once initial reaction is usually one o fear, again becoming tomorrow’s enemies. even among those who know better. This ¿nding is no outlier. Looking TRIBAL MINDS at the face o someone o the same race The human mind’s propensity for activates a specialized part o the pri-
ILYA us-versus-them thinking runs deep. mate brain called the fusiform cortex,
NAYMUSHIN Numerous careful studies have shown which recognizes faces, but it is acti- that the brain makes such distinctions vated less so when the face in question automatically and with mind-boggling is that o someone o another race.
/ REUTERS speed. Stick a volunteer in a brain Watching the hand o someone o the scanner and quickly Êash pictures o same race being poked with a needle faces. Among typical white subjects in activates the anterior cingulate cortex, the scanner, the sight o a black man’s a region implicated in feelings o
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empathy; being shown the same with and gender. This is not because children the hand o a person o another race are born with innate racist beliefs, nor produces less activation. Not everyone’s does it require that parents actively or face or pain counts equally. implicitly teach their babies racial or At every turn, humans make auto- gender biases, although infants can pick matic, value-laden judgments about up such environmental inÊuences at a social groups. Suppose you are preju- very young age, too. Instead, infants diced against ogres, something you like what is familiar, and this often normally hide. Certain instruments, leads them to copy their parents’ ethnic such as the Implicit Association Test, and linguistic in-group categorizations. will reveal your prejudice nonetheless. Sometimes the very foundations o A computer screen alternates between aection and cooperation are also at the faces and highly emotive terms, such as root oÈ humankind’s darker impulses. “heroic” or “ignorant.” In response, you Consider oxytocin, a compound whose are asked to quickly press one o two reputation as a fuzzy “cuddle hormone” buttons. I the button pairings ¿t your has recently taken a bit o a hit. In mam- biases (“press Button A for an ogre’s mals, oxytocin is central to mother-infant face or a negative term and Button B bonding and helps create close ties in for a human face or a positive term”), monogamous couples. In humans, it the task is easy, and you will respond promotes a whole set o pro-social behav- rapidly and accurately. But i the pair- iors. Subjects given oxytocin become ings are reversed (“press Button A for more generous, trusting, empathic, and a human face or a negative term and expressive. Yet recent ¿ndings suggest Button B for an ogre’s face or a positive that oxytocin prompts people to act this term”), your responses will slow. There’s way only toward in-group members— a slight delay each time, as the disso- their teammates in a game, for instance. nance oÈ linking ogres with “graceful” Toward outsiders, it makes them aggres- or humans with “smelly” gums you up sive and xenophobic. Hormones rarely for a few milliseconds. With enough aect behavior this way; the norm is an trials, these delays are detectable, eect whose strength simply varies in revealing your anti-ogre bias—or, in the dierent settings. Oxytocin, however, case o actual subjects, biases against deepens the fault line in our brains particular races, religions, ethnicities, between “us” and “them.” age groups, and body types. Put simply, neurobiology, endocri- Needless to say, many o these biases nology, and developmental psychology are acquired over time. Yet the cogni- all paint a grim picture o our lives as tive structures they require are often social beings. When it comes to group present from the outset. Even infants belonging, humans don’t seem too far prefer those who speak their parents’ from the families o chimps killing each language. They also respond more other in the forests o Uganda: people’s positively to—and have an easier time most fundamental allegiance is to the remembering—faces o people o their familiar. Anything or anyone else is parents’ race. Likewise, three-year-olds likely to be met, at least initially, with a tend to prefer people o their own race measure o skepticism, fear, or hostility.
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FA.indb 44 1/18/19 7:57 PM In practice, humans can second-guess and tame their aggressive tendencies toward the Other. Yet doing so is usually a secondary, corrective step. The National Security Law
TURBANS TO HIPSTER BEARDS For all this pessimism, there is a crucial INSTITUTE dierence between humans and those warring chimps. The human tendency toward in-group bias runs deep, but it Center for National Security Law • University of Virginia School of Law is relatively value-neutral. Although human biology makes the rapid, implicit June 2–14, 2019 formation o us-them dichotomies University of Virginia School of Law virtually inevitable, who counts as an Charlottesville, Virginia outsider is not xed. In fact, it can change in an instant. The Most Recognized National Security Law Program of its Kind in the Nation For one, humans belong to multiple, overlapping in-groups at once, each Over Thirty National Security Law Topics with its own catalog o outsiders—those Over Twenty Subject Matter Experts o a dierent religion, ethnicity, or race; Advanced training in National Security Law for professors of law those who root for a dierent sports and political science, government ocials, and practitioners. team; those who work for a rival com- Comments from participants: pany; or simply those have a dierent “I have never attended a course that I have enjoyed as preference for, say, Coke or Pepsi. much. is high-level, unique, course is an absolute must for anyone who practices, teaches, and cares Crucially, the salience o these various about National Security Law.” group identities changes all the time. An Israeli participant. Walk down a dark street at night, see “ e scope of the material covered presented a full spectrum of national security-related legal matters. one o “them” approaching, and your e Institute taught me as much about being an amygdala screams its head o. But sit e ective government lawyer as it did the current state of the law.” next to that person in a sports stadium, A Canadian participant. chanting in unison in support o the “ is was the most relevant course that I’ve ever taken same team, and your amygdala stays in terms of National Security Law. All presentations were provided by the highest level of professionals asleep. Similarly, researchers at the in their respective areas of expertise. I will certainly University o California, Santa Barbara, recommend this Institute to my colleagues in the government agency in which I work.” have shown that subjects tend to quickly A Mexican participant. and automatically categorize pictures o “ is Institute was a unique opportunity to experience people by race. Yet i the researchers signi cant academic growth. It was two weeks of no-less-than perfect organization, logistics, learning, showed their subjects photos o both and hospitality. Be assured that I will spread the word black and white people wearing two regarding what you have very rightly called ‘the best program of its kind in the United States.”’ dierent colored uniforms, the subjects A U.S. participant. automatically began to categorize the For information concerning the Institute and how to apply for the 2019 people by their uniforms instead, paying program, visit the National Security Law Institute website: far less attention to race. Much o cnsl.virginia.edu/nslinstitute humans’ tendency toward in-group/
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out-group thinking, in other words, is instead on cultural kin selection, a not permanently tied to speci¿c human process allowing people to feel closely attributes, such as race. Instead, this related to what are, in a biological sense, cognitive architecture evolved to detect total strangers. Often, this requires a any potential cues about social coali- highly active process o inculcation, with tions and alliances—to increase one’s its attendant rituals and vocabularies. chance o survival by telling friend Consider military drills producing from foe. The speci¿c features that “bands oÈ brothers,” unrelated college humans focus on to make this determi- freshmen becoming sorority “sisters,” or nation vary depending on the social the bygone value o welcoming immi- context and can be easily manipulated. grants into “the American family.” This Even when group boundaries remain malleable, rather than genetically ¿xed, ¿xed, the traits people implicitly associ- path o identity formation also drives ate with “them” can change—think, for people to adopt arbitrary markers that instance, about how U.S. perceptions o enable them to spot their cultural kin in dierent immigrant groups have shifted an ocean o strangers—hence the impor- over time. Whether a dividing line is tance various communities attach to even drawn at all varies from place to Êags, dress, or facial hair. The hipster place. I grew up in a neighborhood in beard, the turban, and the “Make America New York with deep ethnic tensions, only Great Again” hat all ful¿ll this role by to discover later that Middle America sending strong signals o tribal belonging. barely distinguishes between my old Moreover, these cultural communi- neighborhood’s “us” and “them.” In fact, ties are arbitrary when compared to some actors spend their entire careers the relatively ¿xed logic oÈ biological alternating between portraying characters kin selection. Few things show this o one group and then the other. arbitrariness better than the experience This Êuidity and situational depen- o immigrant families, where the dence is uniquely human. In other species, randomness o a visa lottery can in-group/out-group distinctions reÊect radically reshuÎe a child’s education, degrees oÈ biological relatedness, or what career opportunities, and cultural evolutionary biologists call “kin selection.” predilections. Had my grandparents Rodents distinguish between a sibling, a and father missed the train out o cousin, and a stranger by smell—¿xed, Moscow that they instead barely made, genetically determined pheromonal maybe I’d be a chain-smoking Russian signatures—and adapt their cooperation academic rather than a Birkenstock- accordingly. Those murderous groups o wearing American one, moved to tears chimps are largely made up oÈ brothers by the heroism during the Battle o or cousins who grew up together and Stalingrad rather than that at Pearl predominantly harm outsiders. Harbor. Scaled up from the level o Humans are plenty capable oÈ kin- individual family histories, our big- selective violence themselves, yet human picture group identities—the national group mentality is often utterly indepen- identities and cultural principles that dent o such instinctual familial bonds. structure our lives—are just as arbitrary Most modern human societies rely and subject to the vagaries oÈ history.
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REVOLUTION OR REFORM? them into two groups by tossing a coin. That our group identities—national and The participants know the meaningless- otherwise—are random makes them no ness o the division. And yet within less consequential in practice, for better minutes, they are more generous toward and for worse. At its best, nationalism and trusting o members o their in-group. and patriotism can prompt people to Tails prefer not to be in the company o pay their taxes and care for their na- Heads, and vice versa. The pull o us- tion’s have-nots, including unrelated versus-them thinking is strong even when people they have never met and will the arbitrariness o social boundaries is never meet. But because this solidarity utterly transparent, to say nothing o when has historically been built on strong it is woven into a complex narrative about cultural markers o pseudo-kinship, it is loyalty to the fatherland. You can’t reason easily destabilized, particularly by the people out o a stance they weren’t forces o globalization, which can make reasoned into in the ¿rst place. people who were once the archetypes o Modern society may well be stuck their culture feel irrelevant and bring with nationalism and many other them into contact with very dierent varieties oÈ human divisiveness, and it sorts o neighbors than their grand- would perhaps be more productive to parents had. Confronted with such a harness these dynamics rather than disruption, tax-paying civic nationalism ¿ght or condemn them. Instead o can quickly devolve into something promoting jingoism and xenophobia, much darker: a dehumanizing hatred leaders should appeal to people’s that turns Jews into “vermin,” Tutsis innate in-group tendencies in ways into “cockroaches,” or Muslims into that incentivize cooperation, account- “terrorists.” Today, this toxic brand o ability, and care for one’s fellow humans. nationalism is making a comeback Imagine a nationalist pride rooted not across the globe, spurred on by political in a country’s military power or ethnic leaders eager to exploit it for electoral homogeneity but in the ability to take advantage. care o its elderly, raise children who In the face o this resurgence, the score high on tests o empathy, or ensure temptation is strong to appeal to people’s a high degree o social mobility. Such a sense o reason. Surely, i people were to progressive nationalism would surely be understand how arbitrary nationalism preferable to one built on myths o is, the concept would appear ludicrous. victimhood and dreams o revenge. But Nationalism is a product oÈ human with the temptation o mistaking the cognition, so cognition should be able to familiar for the superior still etched dismantle it, too. into the mind, it is not beyond the Yet this is wishful thinking. In human species to go to war over which reality, knowing that our various social country’s people carry out the most bonds are essentially random does little noble acts o random kindness. The to weaken them. Working in the 1970s, worst o nationalism, then, is unlikely the psychologist Henri Tajfel called this to be overcome anytime soon.∂ “the minimal group paradigm.” Take a bunch o strangers and randomly split
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Yes, nationalism helped give rise to the Building a Better modern state system, served as a liberat- ing force in anticolonial independence Nationalism struggles, and fueled anti-Soviet senti- ment during the Cold War. But surely, the thinking went, nationalism was a The Nation’s Place in a phase that the rich democracies o the Globalized World world had outgrown—and in those places where it still thrived, it posed Yael Tamir more problems than solutions. Today, however, many elite assump- tions about politics have come under THE NEW NATIONALISM assault, including those about national- The Virtue of Nationalism ism. A small but increasingly vocal BY YORAM HAZONY. Basic Books, group o American and European 2018, 304 pp. thinkers have begun to mount defenses o nationalism—some modest, others t a rally in Texas last October, more full-throated. One o the most U.S. President Donald Trump enthusiastic advocates is Yoram Hazony, A was delivering his familiar an Israeli philosopher and political “America ¿rst” message, complaining theorist. His latest book, The Virtue of about “corrupt, power-hungry globalists,” Nationalism, has brought him to promi- when he tried out a new line: “You know, nence in some American conservative they have a word—it sort oÈ became political circles. In it, he presents a old-fashioned—it’s called, ‘a nationalist.’ spirited defense o nationalism and the And I say, ‘Really, we’re not supposed nation-state. Although he does not to use that word,’” he added, grinning. ignore nationalism’s Êaws, he rightly “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, contends that Western intellectuals OK? I’m a nationalist.” As the crowd have been too quick to dismiss it and cheered, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” Trump that the topic deserves a more balanced nodded. “‘Nationalist’: nothing wrong and nuanced analysis than what the with it. Use that word!” academy has oered in recent years. As Trump correctly noted, in recent Hazony, however, goes beyond decades, “that word,” and all it suggests, merely defending nationalism. He also has fallen out o favor. For most politi- launches a ¿erce attack on contemporary cal thinkers and elites in the developed liberalism and its political manifestations, West, nationalism is a dangerous, divisive, particularly the § and the American- illiberal impulse that should be treated led “globalist” world order that emerged with skepticism or even outright disdain. in the wake o the Cold War, both o which Hazony derides as “imperialist YAEL TAMIR is President of Shenkar College projects.” Nationalism, he complains, of Engineering, Design, and Art, in Israel. From has been unfairly blamed for encourag- 1999 to 2010, she served as a Member of the Knesset for the Israeli Labor Party. She is the ing hatred and bigotry, even though author of Why Nationalism. “liberal-imperialist political ideals have
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Patriot games: an air show with the French Aerobatic Patrol, Marseille, France, July 2013 become among the most powerful marriage o liberal democratic and agents fomenting intolerance and hate nationalist values. The fact that liberalism in the Western world today.” Juxtapos- and nationalism don’t tend to advertise ing nationalism and liberal imperial- their theoretical interdependence should ism, Hazony accuses liberals o trying not prevent one from acknowledging to impose a uniform set o values on their commonalities and understanding nation-states, aiming to displace the their inherent bonds. authentic, “particular” views and beliefs held in those places. LIBERAL OR IMPERIAL? In reality, few liberals endeavor to Hazony begins by making a moral and establish global governance or oppress political case in favor o the nation-state. illiberal communities and cultures. A nation, he writes, is constituted o “a Rather, they seek a world order o number o tribes with a common lan- SIMON international institutions, multilateral guage or religion, and a past history o
LAMBERT cooperation, free markets, free trade, acting as a body.” A nation oers the and the free movement o people. best, most legitimate basis for a state, he Hazony’s insistence that this agenda argues, because it allows for the realiza- HAYTHAMREA / represents an imperialist assault on tion o the human aspiration to achieve nations ignores the fact that liberal and self-rule and collective freedom in the nationalist values often interact. More fullest and most satisfactory way. Nation- precisely, modern liberalism arose from states represent durable political unions
/ REDUX national political frameworks. The that confer meaning on their individual modern nation-state Hazony is so eager members, celebrating and giving voice to defend is, in fact, a product o the to what Hazony calls “the particular”
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(in contrast to the universal). Giving odd idea that, by their very nature, nation- such nations the ability to govern them- states are bound to live happily within selves promotes a healthy competition their borders, never looking to expand that inspires them to excel, opening up or conquer. I that were true, the reputa- new opportunities for fellow nationals tion o nationalism would be much while allowing the international com- easier to defend. munity o nation-states to prosper. Hazony confuses (or purposely In setting up this analysis, Hazony conÊates) the liberal belie in moral is clear and persuasive. Yet he muddies universalism and internationalism with a the water in two ways. First, he focuses desire to erect political empires. To him, too often on Jewish thinking and history those who call themselves “liberal inter- and relies too heavily on Israel and nationalists”—advocates o international Zionism as the primary example o law and institutions and humanitarian nationalism under assault by imperialist intervention—are in fact “liberal imperi- liberals. This makes what should be a alists.” Just like the tyrants who sought broad argument feel rather narrow and to rule the world in the nineteenth and speci¿c. (It is telling, and regrettable, twentieth centuries, today’s imperialists, that a book extolling nationalism barely he contends, are universalists who harbor mentions the group that today clamors a hatred for the particular and seek “to most loudly for a nation-state o its coerce the dissenters—dissenting indi- own: the Palestinians.) viduals and dissenting nations—making Things get muddier still when them conform to the universal theory by Hazony argues that the world faces a force, for their own good.” stark choice between two moral and This is a straw man. There are no political options: the nation-state, which contemporary liberal political move- “inculcates an aversion to adventures o ments or institutions seeking the kind conquest in distant lands,” and the o global domination Hazony describes. empire, which seeks “to bring the world No liberal empires wish to coerce, under a single authority and a single govern, and oppress dissenters the doctrine.” Those reductive, incomplete world over. Neither the U.S. hegemony de¿nitions allow Hazony to rewrite the that has de¿ned the post–Cold War past and miscast the present. period nor the liberal international Imperialism, he notes, produced the order that Washington has backed can greatest destroyers the earth has known, be honestly described as imperial— “with moderns such as Napoleon, Hitler and both are currently Êagging, any- and Stalin not least among them.” Hazony how. The § has never tried to extend is right that many empires have been its rule beyond Europe and is presently driven by universal ideologies (fascism, ¿ghting for its survival. I there are communism, and liberalism alike) that any imperialists around, they are more turned oppressive. Yet he ignores the vast likely to be found in corporate head- and often brutal imperial and colonial quarters in Silicon Valley or on Wall enterprises launched by nation-states, Street than in Washington or Brussels, such as Belgium, England, Portugal, and and the global dominance they seek is Spain. This leaves the reader with the commercial rather than political.
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In reality, the nation-state has no aligning themselves with nationalist senti- serious institutional competitors. ment. Witness, for example, the open International organizations are weak embrace o anti-Muslim rhetoric by the and ineective; international corpora- far-right · Independence Party; the new tions are powerful and eective but wave o anti-Semitism among French have no desire to spend their energy on nationalists; and the rebirth o “blood and governing. The struggle that Hazony soil” nationalism in the United States, describes between noble nationalists where white nationalist groups have and hate-¿lled imperialists is largely a combined populist grievances with racist fantasy. What does exist is a tension and anti-Semitic appeals. between nationalism and neoliberal Yet not all nationalists are bigots. globalism. Nationalism, in this context, Many simply feel ill served by globetrot- is a theory not just about self-rule but ting, cosmopolitan elites who have more also about the right (and perhaps the in common with elites elsewhere than duty) o states to intervene in the market with their fellow citizens. People hunger in order to defend their citizens and for leaders and policymakers committed control the malignant eects oÈ hyper- to serving and protecting their own, globalism: bringing jobs back home, giving preference and oering better supporting domestic production, limit- opportunities to the neediest among ing immigration, and raising taris. Such them rather than the neediest elsewhere. policies collide with liberal beliefs in the This is what many American voters hear primacy o free trade and the free move- when Trump cries, “America ¿rst!” and ment o people. The real debate between it makes them feel safe. nationalists and globalists is less about The nationalist resurgence is not identity than about economics. solely a right-wing phenomenon. Progres- Until recently, this debate seemed to sive and left-wing leaders and voters are have been settled in favor o globalism. becoming more openly comfortable with But recently, national preferences have policies that have a distinctly nationalist exploded into full view. The anger over Êavor. This has led to some surprising the economic and social outcomes o alliances, such as the one between Trump’s neoliberal globalism (growing inequal- lead trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, a ity, rapid cultural change) has stirred a career Republican policy hand who spent populist backlash, some o which has time as a lobbyist pushing for lower taxes taken on a nationalist bent. Conse- and who advocates pursuing a hard line quently, politicians on both sides o the against China, and Sherrod Brown, the Atlantic are competing for popular progressive Democratic senator from Ohio support by claiming to represent “the and a possible 2020 presidential contender, people” and by blaming elites for who is a darling o unions and labor adopting self-serving policies. rights activists. Critics accuse these newly minted But few liberals seem ready to embrace nationalists o racism and nativism and the term “nationalist.” Are there any o grounding their appeals in fears o alternatives? Last November, during a the other. One can certainly ¿nd ample ceremony in Paris to mark the 100th evidence oÈ bigotry among those now anniversary o the end oÈ World War I,
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French President Emmanuel Macron from a belie that the United States tried to oer one, drawing a sharp bene¿ts less than it should from those distinction between nationalism and global agreements he wants to renegoti- patriotism. “Patriotism is the exact ate. And on the other side o the globe, opposite o nationalism,” he argued. Chinese President Xi Jinping has “By saying, ‘Our interests ¿rst. Who developed the One Belt, One Road cares about the others?’ we erase what a initiative, which seeks to tie together nation holds dearest, what gives it life, vast swaths o the Eastern Hemisphere what makes it great, and what is essen- in a Chinese-dominated network o tial: its moral values.” But i patriotism infrastructure and supply chains: a does not involve putting the interests o nationalist project with a globalist twist. one’s own country over the interests o Regardless o Hazony’s claims, the others, what does it involve? Macron main struggle in today’s international argued that French patriotism stems politics is not between nationalists and from a “vision o France as a generous imperialists but between dierent nation, o France as a project, o France approaches to balancing national inter- as the bearer o universal values.” But ests with the demands o a globalized that could just as easily serve as a de¿ni- economy. When liberals indiscrimi- tion o traditional French nationalism. nately attack all forms o nationalism, Far from demonstrating an unequivocal they fuel an unnecessary ideological contrast between nationalism and patriot- struggle—one that they are currently ism, Macron managed only to demon- losing. IÈ liberalism is to regain power, strate that there is no clear, useful it needs to develop its own form o distinction between the two concepts. nationalism, one that reassures citizens that their leaders work for them and put A KINDER, GENTLER NATIONALISM their well-being ¿rst. The kind o semantic acrobatics Macron For too long, the least well-o performed would be unnecessary iÈ he citizens o powerful states have paid the and other liberals were willing to openly price o globalism. Their demand that embrace some forms o nationalism. leaders protect their interests is just and After all, it is only natural for political timely. One need not embrace Trump’s leaders to look at global issues from a crude, zero-sum worldview to believe national perspective and to put their that the wealth o nations should be own countries’ interests ¿rst. Macron produced and distributed as part o a and German Chancellor Angela Merkel relatively narrow social contract among endorse a pro-§ position as they particular individuals. Liberals should identify their countries’ national inter- not promote national egoism but sup- ests with membership in the union and port policies that will help make their with a measured degree o regional and fellow citizens feel connected and global collaboration. The government o committed to a worthy and meaningful British Prime Minister Theresa May community. Liberalism and nationalism holds the opposite view and therefore are not mutually exclusive; they can and supports Brexit. Slogans aside, Trump should go hand in hand.∂ makes similar calculations, operating
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democratic welfare states supported by The Broken international institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Bargain Monetary Fund (¢®¶), that coordinated economic policy between states while granting them the Êexibility to act in How Nationalism their own national interest. The political Came Back scientist John Ruggie has called this arrangement “embedded liberalism,” Jack Snyder because it embraced free markets while subjecting them to institutionalized ationalism and nativism are political control at both the domestic THE NEW NATIONALISM roiling politics on every conti- and the international level—a bargain Nnent. With the election o that held for several decades. President Donald Trump in the United Yet over the past 30 years, liberalism States, the growing power o right- has become disembedded. Elites in the wing populist parties in Europe, and United States and Europe have steadily the ascent o strongmen in states such dismantled the political controls that once as China, the Philippines, and Turkey, allowed national governments to manage liberals around the world are struggling capitalism. They have constrained demo- to respond to populist nationalism. cratic politics to ¿t the logic o interna- Today’s nationalists decry the “globalist” tional markets and shifted policymaking liberalism o international institutions. to unaccountable bureaucracies or supra- They attack liberal elites as sellouts who national institutions such as the §. This care more about foreigners than their has created the conditions for the present fellow citizens. And they promise to put surge o populist nationalism. To contain national, rather than global, interests ¿rst. it, policymakers will have to return to The populist onslaught has, under- what worked in the past, ¿nding new ways standably, prompted many liberals to to reconcile national accountability and conclude that nationalism itsel is a threat international cooperation in a globalized to the U.S.-led liberal order. Yet histori- word. The proper response to populism, cally, liberalism and nationalism have in other words, is not to abandon liberal often been complementary. After World internationalism but to re-embed it. War II, the United States crafted a liberal order that balanced the need for interna- THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION tional cooperation with popular demands Nationalism is generally understood as for national autonomy, curbing the the doctrine that the cultural unit o the aggressive nationalist impulses that had nation, whether de¿ned along civic or proved so disastrous in the interwar years. ethnic lines, should be congruent with The postwar order was based on strong the political unit o the state. For most o history, political loyalties did not coincide JACK SNYDER is Robert and Renée Belfer with national boundaries. This began to Professor of International Relations at Columbia University and the author of From Voting to change in early modern Europe following Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. the Protestant Reformation, as centralized
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Meeting in the middle: Viktor Orban greets Angela Merkel in Budapest, February 2015 states secured monopolies on violence however, dierent ethnic groups gained and legal authority within their territory, political consciousness while still living gradually displacing the Catholic Church together in multinational empires—there, and transnational dynastic networks. At homogeneity was achieved not through the same time, early commercial capitalism assimilating civic institutions but through was shifting economic power away from war, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion.) One rural landlords and toward the thriving o the most widely invoked theorists o urban middle classes. The state increas- nationalism, Ernest Gellner, argued that ingly fused with its nation, a distinctive this process o internal cultural homogeni- people that contributed blood and treasure zation was driven by the requirements o to the state and that, in exchange, insisted industrial capitalism. In order to partici- on the right to participate in government. pate in national economies, workers Over time, the nationalist claim to popular needed to speak the national language self-determination became the hand- and be fully integrated into the national maiden o democracy. culture. In countries with a strong civic During the nineteenth century, nation- state, these pressures transformed the states in western Europe (as well as Euro- nation-state into a culturally, politically, pean settler colonies such as the United and economically integrated unit. States) developed strong civic institutions, By the early decades o the twentieth TIBOR such as universalistic legal codes and century, however, tensions had begun to national educational systems, that could emerge between liberal capitalism and ILYES assimilate diverse groups into a shared nationalist democracy. Nineteenth-century
AP / cultural identity. (In eastern European capitalism relied on automatic market countries and other late-developing states, controls, such as the gold standard, to
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regulate ¿nancial relations between states. international order to manage this ten- Governments lacked both the will and sion. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s the ability to intervene in the economy, Fourteen Points called for a world o whether by spending to counteract independent national democracies, and downturns in the business cycle or by his proposal for a League o Nations acting as the lender oÈ last resort to promised a peaceful means for resolving forestall bank runs. Instead, they let the international disputes. In practice, the invisible hand o the market correct United States refused to join the League imbalances, imposing painful costs on o Nations, and the British and the the vast majority o their citizens. French ensured that the Treaty oÈ Ver- This laissez-faire policy became sailles humiliated Germany. But despite politically untenable during the late these shortcomings, the interwar liberal nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, order functioned, for a time. The 1922 as more and more people gained the right Washington Naval Treaty initially helped to vote. After the crash o 1929 and the prevent a naval arms race between Japan Great Depression, enfranchised citizens and the Western allies. The 1925 Pact o could demand that their national leaders Locarno guaranteed Germany’s western assert control over the economy in order border. And the 1924 Dawes Plan and the to protect them from harsh economic 1929 Young Plan provided the Weimar adjustments. In some countries, such as government with enough liquidity to pay Germany and Japan, this led to the ascent reparations while also funding urban o militantly nationalist governments that infrastructure improvements and social created state-directed cartel economies welfare provisions. The system held until and pursued imperial expansion abroad. the collapse o the international economy In others, such as the United States after 1929. In both Germany and Japan, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the resulting economic crisis discredited governments instituted a form o social liberal and social democratic political democratic capitalism, in which the state parties, leading to the rise o authoritarian provided a social safety net and launched nationalists who promised to defend their employment programs during hard times. people against the vicissitudes o the In both cases, states were attempting to market and the treachery o foreign and address what the economic historian Karl domestic enemies. Polanyi, in The Great Transformation, It was only after World War II that identi¿ed as the central tension oÈ liberal liberal internationalists, led by those in democratic capitalism: the contradiction the United States and the United King- between democratic rule, with its dom, learned how to manage the tension respect for popular self-determination, between free markets and national and market logic, which holds that the autonomy. The Marshall Plan, in which economy should be left to operate with the United States, beginning in 1948, limited government interference. provided ¿nancial assistance to western During the interwar years, the world’s Europe, did more than provide capital leading liberal powers—France, the for postwar reconstruction. It also condi- United Kingdom, and the United States— tioned this aid on governments opening had made tentative eorts to create an their economies to international trade,
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thereby strengthening liberal political The Bretton Woods system had relied coalitions between workers (who ben- on countries ¿xing their exchange rates e¿ted from cheaper goods imported from with the U.S. dollar, which was in turn abroad) and export-oriented capitalists backed by gold. But already by the early (who gained access to global markets 1970s, chronic U.S. trade de¿cits and the for their products). The institutions that increasing competitiveness o European came out o the 1944 Bretton Woods and Japanese exports were making this conference, including the World Bank system untenable. At the same time, and the ¢®¶, oered loans and ¿nancial the United States was experiencing aid so that states could adjust to the “stagÊation”—a combination oÈ high Êuctuations o the international market. As unemployment and high inÊation that originally intended, this postwar system, was resistant to the traditional Keynesian which included the precursor to the §, strategies, such as government spending, the European Economic Community, as on which postwar economic management well as the Bretton Woods institutions, had relied. In response, U.S. President was designed not to supersede national Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s states but to allow them to cooperate convertibility to gold in 1971, moving while retaining policy autonomy. Cru- toward an unregulated market system o cially, leading democracies such as France, Êoating exchange rates. Other structural the United Kingdom, the United States, developments also put embedded liberal- and West Germany decided to share ism under strain: the globalization o some o their sovereignty in international production and markets strengthened organizations, which made their nation- the relative power o capital, which was states stronger rather than weaker. In highly mobile, over labor, which was less more recent decades, however, these so. This weakened the power o tradi- hard-won lessons have been set aside. tional labor unions, undermining the capital-labor bargain at the center o the DISEMBEDDING LIBERALISM postwar order. For the ¿rst few decades following These economic trends were accom- World War II, embedded liberalism— panied by ideological developments that characterized by strong domestic challenged both core principles o embed- welfare states supported by interna- ded liberalism: social democratic regulation tional institutions—succeeded in o the economy and the political primacy granting autonomy and democratic o the nation-state. The ¿rst o these legitimacy to nation-states while developments was the rise o free-market curbing aggressive nationalism. Yet as fundamentalism, pioneered by economists early as the 1970s, this arrangement such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton came under pressure from structural Friedman and adopted by political leaders changes to the global economy and such as British Prime Minister Margaret ideological assaults from libertarians Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald and advocates o supra- and trans- Reagan. Beginning with Thatcher’s nationalism. The resulting erosion o election in 1979, these leaders and their embedded liberalism has paved the way ideological backers sought to drastically for the nationalist revival o today. curtail the welfare state and return to the
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laissez-faire policies o the nineteenth put considerable power in the hands o century. This market fundamentalism unelected technocrats. Europeans who was initially used by the right as a cudgel are unhappy with § policies have no against the social democratic left, but way to vote out the bureaucrats in over time it was adopted by leaders o Brussels; their only eective way to center-left parties, such as French Presi- impose democratic accountability is dent François Mitterrand, U.S. President through national elections, creating a Bill Clinton, and British Prime Minister strong incentive for nationalist mobili- Tony Blair, who during the 1980s and 1990s zation. Dierent European countries pushed through ¿nancial deregulation and have dierent policy equilibriums based cuts to the welfare state. These policies on the preferences o their voters, the hurt members o the white working class, needs o their national economies, and alienating them from the political system the rhetorical strategies o their national and the center-left parties that had tradi- political elites. The search for nationally tionally protected their interests. tailored solutions, however, is con- The other element o the ideological founded by the §’s requirement that assault on embedded liberalism came all member states agree on a policy in from enthusiasts o supra- and trans- lockstep. After the 2015 migrant crisis, nationalism. In an inÊuential 1997 essay in initiated by Germany’s decision to this magazine, Jessica Mathews argued brieÊy open its borders, Brussels began that technological change and the end o cajoling and coercing other § member the Cold War had rendered the nation- states to accept some o the migrants state obsolete. Its functions, according in the name oÈ burden sharing. Small to Mathews and other, like-minded wonder, then, that Hungarians, Italians, thinkers, would be usurped by suprana- and Poles who opposed immigration tional organizations such as the §, began Êocking to nationalist politicians coordinating institutions such as the who promised to resist pressure from World Trade Organization, and various the §. Similar policy divergences on transnational networks o activists, economic austerity have also been experts, and innovators. In 1993, for expressed in terms o national resent- instance, Europe had adopted a com- ments—between Germans and Greeks, mon market and created the bureau- for instance—and have fueled mobili- cratic edi¿ce o the § to administer the zation against Brussels. resulting Êows o goods, money, and Scholars debate whether populist people. This was followed by the adop- nationalism in the United States and tion o the euro in 2002. Although Europe arises mainly from economic or intended to promote European integra- cultural grievances, but the most per- tion, the euro eectively stripped its suasive explanation is that nationalist members o monetary sovereignty, political entrepreneurs have combined greatly reducing their policy autonomy. both grievances into a narrative about This transnational paradise, more- per¿dious elites who coddle undeserving over, left little room for democracy. out-groups—immigrants and minorities— The gradual transfer o authority from while treating the nation’s true people national governments to Brussels has with contempt. In this view, elites use
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bureaucratic and legal red tape to reforms—at the risk, however, o trigger- shield themselves from accountability ing even more nationalist backlash. and enforce politically correct speech norms to silence their critics. This story IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT doesn’t ¿t the facts—among other How, then, should leaders respond to the anomalies, residents o rural regions rise o nationalism? The ¿rst step is to with few immigrants are among the recognize that the tension fueling con- most dedicated opponents o refugees— temporary nationalism is not new. It is but it should not be surprising that a precisely the tension identi¿ed by narrative o self-dealing elites and Polanyi, which the embedded liberal dangerous immigrants has resonated, order o the postwar years was designed given humans’ well-known propensity to manage: the contradiction between free for in-group bias. Nativistic prejudice is markets and national autonomy. Illiberal latent, ready to be activated in times o nationalism has never been particularly cultural Êux or economic strain when successful at governing, but it is a tempta- traditional elites seem unresponsive. tion whenever liberalism drifts too far A dierent face o the contemporary away from democratic accountability. nationalist revival is the rise o authoritar- Historically, this contradiction has ian populism in developing states such as been resolved only through an order o Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Turkey. democratic welfare states supported by Similar to older rising illiberal powers, international institutions, which grant such as nineteenth-century Germany, them the policy Êexibility to adjust to these countries have been able to use the market Êuctuations without inÊicting so-called advantages oÈ backwardness— undue pain on their citizens. Resolving cheap labor, technology transfers, and today’s nationalist dilemma will require state-directed resource allocation—to abandoning laissez-faire economics and grow rapidly; that is, until they reach unaccountable supranationalism and approximately one-fourth o U.S. ³²£ per returning to the principles o embedded capita. Beyond that point, growth tends liberalism, updated for the present day. to slow markedly unless states follow in This, in turn, calls for a revival o the the footsteps o reformers such as Japan, basic practices o postwar liberalism: South Korea, and Taiwan and adopt national-level democratic accountability, the full panoply oÈ liberal institutions. economic coordination through interna- Often, however, their governments tional institutions, and compromise on eschew liberal reform. Instead, facing competing priorities. stagnating growth and ineciencies Today, political polarization makes from corruption, they double down on compromise seem unlikely. Both illiberal some combination o demagogic nation- nationalists and cosmopolitan elites alism, repression, and crippling overin- have, in their own way, doubled down on vestment in massive infrastructure one-sided solutions, seeking to rout their projects, which are designed to retain the opponents rather than reach a durable support oÈ business elites. In such cases, settlement. Trump calls for a border it is the responsibility o these states’ wall and a ban on Muslim immigration, liberal economic partners to press for and his opponents continue to speak as
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i immigration and refugee policy is a populists some o what they want now matter o abstract legal and moral com- may improve the prospects for embed- mitments rather than a subject for demo- ded liberal compromises in the future. cratic deliberation. In Europe, meanwhile, In December 2018, Hungarians began the Germans cling to austerity policies protesting in massive numbers against that punish countries such as Greece and their nationalist government’s policy o Italy, and illiberal populists fume against forced overtime, which had been enacted § restrictions on their autonomy. due to labor shortages. Faced with such Yet the very failure o these one- problems, some o the country’s anti- sided measures may open up space for immigration zealots may soon begin to a renewed embedded liberalism. In the reassess their stance. United States, President Barack Obama’s In the essay in which he coined the Aordable Care Act, which has mostly term “embedded liberalism,” Ruggie survived despite egregious assaults from noted that institutionalized power the right, is a clear example o what a always serves a social purpose. The modern embedded liberal solution might purpose o the postwar order, in his look like. It strengthened the welfare view, had been to reach a compromise state by vastly expanding access to state- between the competing imperatives o subsidized health care and accommodat- liberal markets and national autonomy. ing the needs o the private sector—an Today’s crisis oÈ liberalism stems in echo o the domestic capital-labor large part from a loss o this purpose. compromises that made the postwar The institutions o the present interna- order possible. tional order have ceased responding to Similar arrangements might be the wishes o national electorates. sought on immigration. For instance, The evidence o the past century rich countries might agree to coordinate suggests, however, that democratic investment in poorer ones in order to accountability is necessary for both stabilize migration Êows by improving political stability and economic welfare. conditions in the source countries. And even today, nation-states remain the These arrangements should be institu- most reliable political form for achieving tionalized before the next crisis hits, and sustaining democracy. It is likely not improvised as they were in 2015–16, impossible to remake them in order to when Germany and the § hurriedly better conform to the needs o global struck a deal with Turkey, paying Ankara markets and transnational institutions, billions o euros in exchange for housing and even i it were possible, it would be refugees. And although international a bad idea. Instead, defenders o the institutions such as the § should play a liberal project must begin adapting role in coordinating immigration policy, institutions to once again ¿t the shape o democratic states must be allowed to democratic nation-states. This was the tailor their own policies to the prefer- original dream o the embedded liberal ences o their voters. Pressuring coun- order; now is the time to revive it.∂ tries to accept more migrants than they want simply plays into the hands o illiberal populists. And giving the
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the past. The rate o ethnic civil war has THE NEW NATIONALISM Blood for Soil fallen, too. But now, ethnic nationalism is back with a vengeance. In 2016, British The Fatal Temptations of voters chose to leave the § out o a Ethnic Politics belie that the postnational vision o that body undermined British sover- Lars-Erik Cederman eignty and threatened to overwhelm the United Kingdom with immigrants from ince the French Revolution, Africa, the Middle East, and the less nationalism—the idea that state developed parts o Europe. Donald Sborders should coincide with Trump won the White House that same national communities—has constituted year by tapping into fears that the the core source o political legitimacy United States was being invaded by around the world. As nationalism spread Mexicans and Muslims. And in oce, from western Europe in the early Trump has not only fanned the Êames nineteenth century, it became increas- o ethnic nationalism; he has also deni- ingly ethnic in nature. In places where grated and damaged the norms and the state and the nation did not match institutions designed to save human- up, such as Germany, Italy, and most kind from such forces. o eastern Europe, the nation tended to Other leaders around the world have be de¿ned in terms o ethnicity, which eagerly embraced their own versions led to violent processes o uni¿cation o ethnic nationalism. Across Europe, or secession. At the beginning o the right-wing populist parties that oppose twentieth century, ethnic nationalism the § and immigration have gained came to disrupt political borders even greater electoral shares. In Austria, more, leading to the breakup o multi- Hungary, Italy, Norway, and Poland, ethnic empires, including the Habsburg, among others, they even hold executive Ottoman, and Russian ones. By chang- power. The brunt o ethnic nationalism ing the size o Europe’s political units, has targeted migrants and other for- this undermined the balance o power eigners, but ethnic minorities that have and contributed to two world wars. long existed in countries have been on But then came the liberal norms the receiving end o this wave, too, as and institutions established in the wake illustrated by the resurgence o anti- oÈ World War II. Principles such as Semitism in Hungary and growing territorial integrity and universal human discrimination against the Roma in Italy. rights and bodies such as the United Brazil, India, Russia, and Turkey, once Nations managed to reduce ethnonation- some o the most promising emerging alist conÊict in most parts o the world. democracies, have increasingly rejected Today, large interstate wars and violent liberal values. They are de¿ning their land grabs are almost entirely a thing o governing ideology in narrowly ethnic terms and giving militants more room to LARS ERIK CEDERMAN is Professor of attack those who do not belong to the International Conflict Research at ETH Zurich. dominant ethnic group. Ethnic nationalism
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now exerts more inÊuence than it has at and today, ethnic conÊict is far less any point since World War II. common than it was three decades ago. That fact has been bemoaned for all A big reason is that governments are sorts o reasons, from the uptick in hate increasingly accommodating minorities. crimes against immigrants it has caused That’s what the political scientists to the damage it has done to the post– Kristian Gleditsch, Julian Wucherpfennig, World War II order. Yet the scariest and I concluded after analyzing a data thing about today’s ethnic nationalism is set o ethnic relations that starts in that it could bring a return to the ills 1993. We found that discrimination that accompanied its past ascendance: against ethnic groups and their exclusion major violent upheavals both within and from executive power—major drivers o among countries. Should ethnic nation- conÊict—are declining globally. Out- alism continue its march, it risks fueling side the exception o the Middle East, destabilizing civil unrest in multiethnic where minorities in Bahrain, Iraq, states around the world—and even Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Syria continue violent border disputes that could reverse to struggle for inÊuence, ethnic groups the long decline o interstate war. Politi- are increasingly being included in power- cians need to resist the electoral tempta- sharing deals. Since World War II, the tions o exclusionary politics at home percentage o the world’s population and recon¿rm their commitment to the that lives in countries engaging in some norms and institutions o cooperation form o ethnic power sharing has grown abroad. Those who toy with ethnic from a quarter to roughly a half. Some nationalism are playing with ¿re. groups have been granted autonomous rule—for example, the Acehnese in IT’S BACK Indonesia and the indigenous Aymara At the end o the Cold War, there were and Quechua communities in Bolivia. warning signs that ethnic conÊict might The ¦’s globe-spanning peacekeeping return. But at the time, any fear o that operations, meanwhile, are helping actually happening seemed unwarranted. prevent the outbreak o new hostilities As the scholar Ted Robert Gurr pointed between old belligerents, and eorts to out in this magazine in 2000, despite promote democracy are making govern- the violence in the former Yugoslavia ments more responsive to minorities and in Rwanda, the frequency o ethnic and thus convincing such groups to conÊict had actually decreased since the settle their scores at the ballot box mid-1990s. Pointing to inclusive policies rather than on the battle¿eld. and pragmatic compromises that had Our data also show that the number prevented and resolved ethnic conÊicts, o rebelling ethnic groups has increased he argued that the trend toward peace only in the Middle East. Outside that would continue. Gurr’s essay reÊected region, the trend is moving in the oppo- the liberal optimism that characterized site direction. In the mid-1990s, about the decades after the Cold War. Global- three percent o the average country’s ization was transforming the world. population was composed o groups that Borders seemed to be withering away. rebelled against the government; today, The optimism was not simply fanciful, the share has fallen to roughly hal o
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It’ll end in tears: police confront migrants in Roszke, Hungary, September 2015 that. Moreover, based on a global compari- late 2010, rather than marking an son o the concessions made to various expansion o democracy, brought ethnic groups in terms o rights, auton- instability and strife. omy, and power sharing, we found strong Throughout the nineteenth and evidence that such moves have helped twentieth centuries, nationalism tended prevent new conicts and end old ones. to appear in waves, and it is unlikely that By and large, the post–Cold War eorts to the current one has nished washing stave o ethnic nationalism and prevent over the world. Moreover, it comes at a war appear to have worked relatively well. time when the bulwarks against conict Yet there have long been signs that it appear to be giving way: democracies is too soon to declare victory over ethnic around the world are backsliding, and nationalism. Around the turn o the peacekeeping budgets are under renewed millennium, right-wing populist parties pressure. Ever since it rst appeared, gained strength in Europe. In 2005, the ethnic nationalism has had violent
MARKO treaty to establish an constitution consequences. There is good reason to was defeated by French and Dutch worry that the current surge will, too.
DJURICA voters, suggesting that Europeans still cared greatly about national identity. In THE ROAD TO VIOLENCE
/ REUTERS 2008, the nancial crisis started to Rising ethnic nationalism leads to undermine condence in globalization conict in several dierent ways. The (and weakened the ). The upheavals key variable, recent research has found, that rocked the Arab world beginning in is access to power. When ethnic groups
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lack it, they are especially likely to seek These ¿ndings are not limited to it through violence. Oftentimes in multi- ethnic groups caught in power struggles ethnic states, elites o a particular group over the control o existing countries; come to dominate the government and they also apply to minorities seeking exclude other, weaker groups, even i self-rule. States usually view such the leaders’ own group represents a demands as anathema to their sover- minority o the country’s population. eignty, and so they often resist making Such is the case in Syria, where Presi- even limited compromises with the dent Bashar al-Assad, a member o the groups issuing them. They are disin- Alawite minority, a Shiite sect that clined, for example, to grant them composes 12 percent o the popula- regional autonomy. This stubborn- tion, nominally runs a country that is ness, in turn, tends to radicalize the 74 percent Sunni. That disparity has aggrieved minority, causing them to fueled widespread grievances among aim instead for full-Êedged indepen- other ethnic groups and led to a civil war dence, often through violence. Look no that has so far caused at least 400,000 further than the Catholics in Northern deaths and triggered a wave o migra- Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the tion that has destabilized Europe. Most Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, and several o the time, however, the groups strug- dierent ethnic groups in Myanmar. gling for power are minorities, such as Ethnic nationalism can cause conÊict the Tutsis, who launched a civil war in in another way, too: by leading to calls Rwanda in 1990, or the Sunnis in Iraq, for territorial unity among a single ethnic who are still ¿ghting to win a seat at group divided by international borders, the table there. which encourages rebels to rise up It’s not just a lack o political power against their current states. After the that can motivate ethnic groups to take breakup oÈ Yugoslavia left ethnic Serbs up arms under the banner o nationalism; stranded in several countries, their economic, social, and cultural inequality leader, Slobodan Milosevic, capitalized can, too. Scholars have consistently found on the resulting resentment and ad- that inequality along ethnic lines increases vanced claims on territory in Croatia the risk o rebellion. The economist and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fre- Frances Stewart, for example, has shown quently, nostalgia is invoked. Character- that such inequality is much more likely izing the collapse o the Soviet Union to lead to violent conÊict than inequality as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe among individuals, because it is far easier o the century,” Russian President to mobilize people along ethnic lines. Vladimir Putin has annexed Crimea and Similarly, my own collaborative re- invaded eastern Ukraine and justi¿ed search has found that the risk o rebellion these moves by talking o the uni¿cation increases rapidly with economic inequal- o the Russian nation. Turkish President ity along ethnic lines; for example, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn average Chechen is six times as poor as heavily on the past glory o the Otto- the average Russian, which translates man Empire to extend his country’s into a tenfold increase in the propensity inÊuence far beyond its current borders. for rebellion. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
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has similarly invoked the Habsburg empire, accepting Russian help to back Hungarian-minority militias inside Ukraine that advocate separatism. Ethnic nationalism is most likely to lead to civil war, but it can also trigger interstate war by encouraging leaders to make the sorts o domestic appeals that can increase tensions with foreign countries. That dynamic has been at play in the disputes between Armenia Bring the and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, REAL WORLD and Greece and Turkey. Researchers have found some evidence that politi- to your classroom cal inequality along ethnic lines makes things worse: when ethnonationalist leaders believe that their kin commu- nities in neighboring countries are Case Studies being treated badly, they are more inclined to come to their rescue with military force. American foreign policy What’s more, those ethnonationalist leaders are typically hostile to interna- Global institutions tional organizations that favor minority rights, multiethnic governance, and Terrorism & security compromise. In their eyes, calls for power sharing contradict their ethnic International trade group’s rightful dominance. They view Women, peace and security the protection o human rights and the Health and science rule o law, as well as humanitarian interventions, such as peacekeeping and more... operations, as direct threats to their ethnonationalist agendas, and so they Join our Faculty Lounge for work to undermine them. Russia has premier access to this unique explicitly sought to weaken international law and international institutions in online library of nearly 250 order to create more room for its own case studies and simulations project o occupation in Crimea. Israel — and make diplomacy part has done the same thing in the service o of your course its occupation o the West Bank. Trump, who has called for an end to U.S. sanc- tions on Russia and moved the U.S. https://casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu/ embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has actively backed these ethnonationalist
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impulses, further encouraging the steady progress toward peace, the trend erosion o the postwar consensus that could soon be reversed. put a cap on ethnic conÊict. I all o these are the risk factors for THE PATH TO PEACE ethnic nationalism sliding into ethnic In order to head o such destructive conÊict, then where are they most preva- consequences, it may be tempting to see lent today? Statistical analysis suggests ethnic nationalism as part o the solu- that the ethnically diverse but still rela- tion rather than the problem. Instead o tively peaceful countries most at risk o trying to resist such urges, the thinking descending into violence are Ethiopia, goes, one should encourage them, since Iran, Pakistan, and the Republic o the they are likely to bring political borders Congo. These are all developing coun- in line with national borders, thus elimi- tries with histories o conÊict and where nating the grievances at the root o the minorities face discrimination and problem. Some scholars, such as Edward exclusion from power. Luttwak, have even recommended that The risk o conÊict in the developed ethnic groups simply be allowed to ¿ght world is much lower, but even there, it out, arguing that the short-term pain ethnic nationalism could well threaten o war is worth the long-term bene¿t o peace. In Spain, the rise o the new the stability that comes when ethnic right-wing populist party Vox has put dominance replaces ethnic diversity. Yet pressure on two center-right parties, the as the case o Syria has shown, such People’s Party and Citizens, to become harsh strategies tend to perpetuate even less willing to compromise with resentment, not consolidate peace. Catalan nationalists, setting the stage Others, such as the political scientist for an enduring stando that could turn Chaim Kaufmann, contend that the violent i Madrid resorts to even harsher best way to diuse ethnic conÊict is to repressive measures. In Northern Ireland, partition a state along ethnic lines and Brexit could lead to the reimposition o then transfer populations among the new customs checks on the border with the political entities so that each group has Republic o Ireland, a development that its own territory. After World War II, could destroy the agreement that has for example, Western policymakers kept the peace since 1998. In eastern supported population transfers in the Europe, the return o ethnic nationalism hopes that they would lead to, in the threatens to reawaken so-called frozen words o the historian Tony Judt, “a conÊicts, interstate disputes that were Europe o nation states more ethnically stopped in place ¿rst by the Soviet Union homogenous than ever before.” The and then by the §. Beyond the outbreak problem with this option, however, is o new wars, the weakening oÈ liberal that even with large-scale ethnic cleans- pressures to share power and respect ing—which tends to be both bloody and minority rights will likely embolden morally dubious—there is no guarantee ethnonationalists to perpetuate ongoing that separation will create suciently conÊicts—particularly the long-standing neat dividing lines. I Catalonia broke ones in Israel, Myanmar, and Turkey. free from Spain, for example, a new Across the globe, after seven decades o minority problem would crop up within
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Catalonia, since many non-Catalans will have to address its deeper causes, not would still live there. just its immediate eects. Both supply O course, where widespread vio- and demand—that is, the willingness o lence and hatred have destroyed all governments to implement ethnonation- potential for peaceful cohabitation, alist policies and the appetite for such ethnic separation may well constitute policies among populations—will have the only viable solution. That’s why, for to be decreased. example, the two-state solution to the On the supply side, political elites Israeli-Palestinian conÊict still enjoys need to reinstate the informal taboo widespread support, at least outside against explicitly discriminatory appeals Israel. Yet the problem remains that and policies. Ultimately, there is no there are no clear criteria for just how place for the tolerance o intolerance. violent and generally hopeless a situa- What is required is courage on the part tion needs to be to justify division. o centrist politicians to ¿ght bigotry Without such a clear benchmark, seces- and defend the basic principles o sionism could destabilize interstate human decency. Multiethnic democra- borders around the world. Disgruntled cies will also have to take more forceful groups and irredentist states the world steps to resist foreign attempts to stoke over would have more cause to resort grievances among their ethnic groups to arms to boost their inÊuence. and sow domestic divisions, such as Although there are good reasons to Russia’s interference campaign during be skeptical o these radical solutions o the 2016 U.S. presidential election, ethnic separation, nationalism cannot when, for example, Kremlin-backed be wished away. Despite the emergence operatives masqueraded as Black Lives o such organizations as the §, supra- Matter activists on social media to stir national bodies are not going to replace up racial conÊict. nation-states anytime soon, because Within international organizations, people still mostly identify with their governments must defend core liberal nation, rather than with remote and values more strenuously. In the case o unelected regional bodies. For the §, the §, that means cutting the ¿nancial for example, the problem is not the lack support for illiberal member states o stronger decision-making authority and perhaps even creating a new, truly but the absence o pan-European liberal European organization with solidarity o the type that would allow, more stringent membership criteria. say, Germans to see themselves as part It also means doubling down on the o the same political community as promotion o inclusive practices such Greeks. Thus, any hope o replacing the as power sharing. The ¦ and regional nation-state is bound to be futile in the organizations, such as the § and the near future. African Union, have done much to encourage such solutions. A weakening CONTAINING NATIONALISM o these organizations could also under- Nationalism should therefore be con- mine the norms they are reinforcing. tained, not abolished. And to truly Inclusive practices tend to spread from contain ethnic nationalism, governments state to state, but so do exclusive ones:
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just as it did in 1930s Europe, the com- Setting aside the question o whether mitment to power sharing and group and how the § should be reformed, rights has now started to slip in eastern European political elites would do well Europe and in other parts o the world, to address their own homemade prob- including sub-Saharan Africa. lems o socioeconomic inequality and As for the demand side, ethnic regional underdevelopment. They nationalism tends to attract the most should stop pretending that draconian support from those who have been cuts to immigration levels will do the disadvantaged by globalization and trick when it comes to countering laissez-faire capitalism. Populist dema- populism and ethnic nationalism. gogues have an easy time exploiting As the violent ¿rst hal o the twentieth growing socioeconomic inequalities, century recedes into history, it becomes especially those between states’ geo- harder and harder to invoke the specter graphic centers and their peripheries, o ethnic conÊict. It would be tragic i and they blame ethnically distinct memories o that past were forgotten. immigrants or resident minorities. Part For what they suggest is that the jour- o the answer is to retool immigration ney from ethnic nationalism to ethnic policies so as to better integrate new- war may not be so long, after all.∂ comers. Yet without policies that reduce inequality, populist appeals that depict out-groups as welfare sponges will only gain traction. So governments hoping to tamp down ethnic nationalism should set up programs that oer job training to the unemployed in depressed regions, and they should prevent the further hollowing out o welfare programs. Although the economic problems on which ethnic nationalism feeds are most acute in the United States and the United Kingdom, inequality has been increasing across western Europe, and many o the welfare states in the region have been hit hard by austerity policies. Ultimately, however, the answer to ethnic nationalism goes beyond narrow economic ¿xes; political elites must argue explicitly for ethnic tolerance and supranational cooperation, portraying them as matters oÈ basic human decency and security. In Europe, politicians have preferred to use the § as a scapegoat for their own failings rather than point out its crucial contribution to peace.
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ESSAYS
Instead of expanding the liberal world order, the United States and its partners should consolidate the gains it has reaped. —Jennifer Lind and William Wohlforth
The Future o the Liberal Order Is The New Containment Conservative Michael Mandelbaum 123 Jennifer Lind and William C. Wohlforth 70 Educate to Liberate
MARCO Who’s Afraid o Budget Decits? Carla Norrlof 132 Jason Furman and Lawrence H.
VACCA Summers 82 Less Than Zero Fred Krupp, Nathaniel Keohane, and / GETTY No Country for Strongmen Eric Pooley 142 Ruchir Sharma 96 IMAGES The Kurdish Awakening Henri J. Barkey 107 Buy CSS Books Online https://cssbooks.net ? Call/SMS 03336042057
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The Future of the Liberal Order Is Conservative A Strategy to Save the System Jennifer Lind and William C. Wohlforth
he liberal world order is in peril. Seventy-¿ve years after the United States helped found it, this global system o alliances, Tinstitutions, and norms is under attack like never before. From within, the order is contending with growing populism, nation- alism, and authoritarianism. Externally, it faces mounting pressure from a pugnacious Russia and a rising China. At stake is the survival o not just the order itselÈ but also the unprecedented economic prosperity and peace it has nurtured. The order is clearly worth saving, but the question is how. Keep calm and carry on, some o its defenders argue; today’s diculties will pass, and the order is resilient enough to survive them. Others appreciate the gravity o the crisis but insist that the best response is to vigorously rearm the order’s virtues and confront its external challengers. Bold Churchillian moves—sending more American troops to Syria, oering Ukraine more help to kick out pro-Russian forces—would help make the liberal international order great again. Only by doubling down on the norms and institutions that made the liberal world order so successful, they say, can that order be saved. Such defenders o the order tend to portray the challenge as a struggle between liberal countries trying to sustain the status quo and dissatis¿ed authoritarians seeking to revise it. What they miss, however, is that for the past 25 years, the international order crafted by and for liberal states has itselÈ been profoundly revisionist, aggres- sively exporting democracy and expanding in both depth and
JENNIFER LIND is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. WILLIAM C. WOHLFORTH is Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.
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breadth. The scale o the current problems means that more o the same is not viable; the best response is to make the liberal order more conservative. Instead o expanding it to new places and new domains, the United States and its partners should consolidate the gains the order has reaped. The debate over U.S. grand strategy has traditionally been por- trayed as a choice between retrenchment and ambitious expansionism. Conservatism oers a third way: it is a prudent option that seeks to preserve what has been won and minimize the chances that more will be lost. From a conservative vantage point, the United States’ other choices—at one extreme, undoing long-standing alliances and institu- tions or, at the other extreme, further extending American power and spreading American values—represent dangerous experiments. This is especially so in an era when great-power politics has returned and the relative might o the countries upholding the order has shrunk. It is time for Washington and its liberal allies to gird themselves for a prolonged period o competitive coexistence with illiberal great powers, time to shore up existing alliances rather than add new ones, and time to get out o the democracy-promotion business. Supporters o the order may protest this shift, deeming it capitulation. On the contrary, conservatism is the best way to preserve the global position o the United States and its allies—and save the order they built.
A REVISIONIST ORDER Since World War II, the United States has pursued its interests in part by creating and maintaining the web o institutions, norms, and rules that make up the U.S.-led liberal order. This order is not a myth, as some allege, but a living, breathing framework that shapes much o international politics. It is U.S.-led because it is built on a foundation o American hegemony: the United States provides security guarantees to its allies in order to restrain regional competition, and the U.S. military ensures an open global commons so that trade can Êow uninterrupted. It is liberal because the governments that sup- port it have generally tried to infuse it with liberal norms about eco- nomics, human rights, and politics. And it is an order—something bigger than Washington and its policies—because the United States has partnered with a posse oÈ like-minded and inÊuential countries and because its rules and norms have gradually assumed a degree o independent inÊuence.
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This order has expanded over time. In the years after World War II, it grew both geographically and functionally, successfully integrating two rising powers, West Germany and Japan. Supporting liberalism and interweaving their security policies with the United States’, these countries accepted the order, acting as “responsible stakeholders” well before the term was optimistically applied to China. As the Cold War played out, ¦¯¤¥ added not just West Germany but also Greece, Tur- key, and Spain. The European Economic Community (the §’s prede- cessor) doubled its membership. And core economic institutions, such as the General Agreement on Taris and Trade (³¯¤¤) and the Inter- national Monetary Fund (¢®¶), broadened their remits. After the Cold War, the liberal order expanded dramatically. With the Soviet Union gone and China still weak, the states at the core o the order enjoyed a commanding global posi- tion, and they used it to expand their For the past 25 years, system. In the Asia-Paci¿c, the United the international order States strengthened its security com- crafted by and for liberal mitments to Australia, Japan, the Philip- states has itself been pines, South Korea, and other partners. In Europe, ¦¯¤¥ and the § took on profoundly revisionist. more and more members, widened and deepened cooperation among their members, and began intervening far beyond Europe’s borders. The § developed “neighborhood policies” to enhance security, prosperity, and liberal practices across Eurasia, the Middle East, and North Africa; ¦¯¤¥ launched missions in Afghanistan, the Gul o Aden, and Libya. For liberals, this is simply what progress looks like. And to be sure, much o the order’s dynamism—say, the ³¯¤¤’s transformation into the more permanent and institutional World Trade Organization, or the ¦’s increasingly ambitious peacekeeping agenda—met with broad support among liberal and authoritarian countries alike. But some key additions to the order clearly constituted revisionism by liberal countries, which, tellingly, were the only states that wanted them. Most controversial were the changes that challenged the principle o sovereignty. Under the banner o “the responsibility to protect,” gov- ernments, nongovernmental organizations, and activists began pushing a major strengthening o international law with the goal oÈ holding states accountable for how they treated their own people. Potent secu- rity alliances such as ¦¯¤¥ and powerful economic institutions such as
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the ¢®¶ joined the game, too, adding their muscle to the campaign to spread liberal conceptions oÈ human rights, freedom o information, mar- kets, and politics. Democracy promotion as- sumed a newly prominent role in U.S. grand strategy, with President Bill Clinton speak- ing o “democratic enlarge- ment” and President George W. Bush championing his “freedom agenda.” The United States and its allies increasingly funded nongov- ernmental organizations to build civil society and spread democracy around the world, blurring the line between pub- lic and private e orts. U.S. taxpayers, for example, have footed the bill for the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonpro¿ t that promotes democracy and human rights in China, Russia, and elsewhere. Meddling in other states’ domestic a airs is old hat, but what was new was the overt and institutionalized nature o these activities, a sign o the order’s post– Cold War mojo. As Allen Weinstein, the co-founder o the National Endowment for Democracy, admitted in a 1991 interview, “A lot o what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the ¢¯.” As never before, state power, legal norms, and public-private partner- ships were harnessed together to expand the order’s—and Washington’s— geopolitical reach. Perhaps the clearest example o these heightened ambitions came in the Balkans, where, in 1999, ¦¯¤¥ harnessed its mili- tary power to the emerging “responsibility to protect” norm and coerced Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to acquiesce to Kosovo’s de facto independence—after which the United States and its allies openly joined forces with local civil society groups to topple him from power. It was a remarkably bold move. In just a few months, the United States and its allies transformed the politics o an entire region that had tradi- tionally been considered peripheral, priming it for incorporation into the security and economic structures dominated by the liberal West.
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To say that all o this represented revisionism is not to equate it morally with, say, Beijing’s militarization in the South China Sea or Moscow’s invasion o Ukraine and electoral meddling in the United States and Europe. Rather, the point is that the order’s horizons have expanded dramatically, with state power, new legal norms, overt and covert actions, and public-private partnerships together stretching the order wider and pushing it deeper. No country these days is consistently interested in maintaining the status quo; we are all revisionists now. Revisionism undertaken by illiberal states is often seen as mere power grabbing, but revisionism undertaken by liberal states has also resulted in geopolitical rewards: expanded alli- ances, increased inÊuence, and more perquisites for the chie sponsors o the order, the United States above all.
A WHOLE NEW WORLD There are appropriate times to expand, but today is not one o them. Although the liberal order is still backed by a powerful coalition o states, that coalition’s margin o superiority has narrowed markedly. In 1995, the United States and its major allies produced some 60 per- cent o global output (in terms o purchasing power parity); now, that ¿gure stands at 40 percent. Back then, they were responsible for 80 percent o global defense expenditures; today, they account for just 52 percent. It is becoming more dicult to maintain the order, let alone expand it. All the while, the order is suering from an internal crisis oÈ legitimacy that is already proving to be a constraint, as war- weary Americans, Euroskeptical Britons, and others across the West have taken to the polls to decry so-called globalist elites. The order’s illiberal challengers, meanwhile, have gotten savvier about acting on their long-held dissatisfaction. China and Russia have insulated themselves from external inÊuences by manipulating information, controlling the media, and deploying new information- age techniques to monitor their populations and keep them docile. They have modernized their militaries and embraced clever asym- metric strategies to put the order’s defenders on the back foot. The result is that the United States and its allies not only command a slimmer power advantage relative to in the halcyon 1990s but also face a tougher task in sustaining the order. One might argue that the order should neutralize these challengers by bringing them in. Indeed, such was the motivation behind the
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U.S. strategy o engaging a rising China. But even though illiberal countries can participate productively in many aspects o the order, they can never be true insiders. Their statist approach to economics and politics makes it impossible for them to follow Germany’s and Japan’s path and accept any order that is U.S.-led or liberal. They see U.S.-dominated security arrangements as potential threats directed at them. And they have no interest in making concessions on democ- racy and human rights, since doing so would undermine vital tools o their authoritarian control. Nor do they wish to embrace liberal economic principles, which run afoul o the (often corrupt) role o the state in their economies. Given their fundamental aversion to the core precepts o the liberal order, it’s no wonder that illiberal powers have invested resources in creating alternative institutions reÊecting their own statist principles— bodies such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the New Development Bank, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. There was never a chance that a powerful, undemocratic Russia was going to join ¦¯¤¥, just as there was never a chance that China was going to be satis¿ed with U.S. military dominance in Asia. U.S. security commitments are directed against these very states. Washington and its allies buy into rules and values that these countries see as threatening. As long as the security commitments remain in place and the expansionist project continues, illiberal states will never fully integrate into the order. Perhaps, one might argue, the order’s authoritarian adversaries are paper tigers. In that case, the order has no reason to adopt a conservative stance; all it has to do is wait for these fragile governments to meet their inevitable demise. The problem with this bet is that it lay behind the liberal order’s recent expansion, and yet over the past couple o decades, illiberal governments have only grown more authoritarian. Indeed, history has shown that great powers’ domestic regimes rarely collapse in peacetime; the Soviet case was an anomaly. Cheering on political dissent within great powers from afar rarely succeeds, and by feeding narratives about their being encircled by threats, it often back¿res. The bottom line is that the external challenges to the order are happening now. Insisting on continued expansion while waiting for adversaries to decline, liberalize, and accept American leadership is likely to only exacerbate the problems aÎicting the order. I that happens, the ability o the United States and its allies to sustain the
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order will decline faster than will the capability o their opponents to challenge it. And a failure to head o the rising costs o maintaining the order will only increase the domestic political pressure to abandon it altogether.
CONSERVATISM IN PRACTICE A more conservative order would recognize that both internal and external circumstances have changed and would adjust accordingly. First and most important, this demands a shift to a status quo mindset in Washington and allied capitals. Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s occasional bluster about withdrawing from the world, his administra- tion has retained all o the United States’ existing commitments while adding ambitious new ones, notably an eort to radically scale back Iran’s inÊuence. And although the Obama administration was often accused o retrenchment, it, too, kept U.S. commitments in place and even tried its hand at regime change in Libya. Under a conservative approach, Washington would set aside such revisionist projects in order to concentrate its attention and resources on managing great- power rivalries. As part o this, the United States should reduce the expectation that it will take on new allies. At the very least, any prospective ally should bring more capabilities than costs—a litmus test that has not been applied in recent years. Because the liberal order is in dire need o consolidation rather than expansion, it makes no sense to add small and weak states facing internal problems, especially i including them will exacerbate tensions among existing allies or, worse, with great-power rivals. In July 2018, ¦¯¤¥, with U.S. support, formally invited Macedonia to join the alliance (reviving a dispute with Greece over the name o the country), and the Trump administration has backed ¦¯¤¥ membership for Bosnia, too (over the objections o the Serbian minority there). These straws may not break the camel’s back, but the principle oÈ limitless expansion might. The case oÈ Taiwan shows what a successful conservative approach looks like in practice, demonstrating how the United States can deter a rival great power from expanding while preventing a partner from provoking it. For decades, Washington has declared that the island’s future should be resolved peacefully. Leaders on both sides o the Tai- wan Strait have sometimes sought to overturn the status quo, as when Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian began making pro-independence
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moves after he was elected in 2000. In response, U.S. President George W. Bush publicly warned Chen against unilaterally changing the status quo—a tough stance toward a longtime U.S. partner that helped keep the peace. This policy may be tested again, as demographic and economic trends strengthen the Taiwanese people’s sense o na- tional identity, as China grows more assertive, and as voices in the United States call for an unambiguously pro-Taiwan policy. But Wash- ington should hold fast: for decades, conservatism has served it, and the region, well. A conservative order would also entail drawing clearer lines between ocial eorts to promote democracy and those undertaken inde- pendently by civil society groups. By example and activism, vibrant civil societies in the United States and other liberal countries can do much to further democracy abroad. When governments get in the game, however, the results tend to back¿re. As the political sci- entists Alexander Downes and Lindsey O’Rourke found in their comprehen- The United States should sive study, foreign-imposed regime change rarely leads to improved rela- reduce the expectation that tions and frequently has the opposite it will take on new allies. eect. Liberal states should stand ready to help when a foreign government itsel seeks assistance. But when one resists help, it is best to stay out. Meddling will only ag- gravate that government’s concerns about violations o sovereignty and tar opposition forces with the charge oÈ being foreign pawns. Far from ceding power to illiberal great powers, a strategy o conservatism would directly address those external threats. Part o the reason those countries contest the order is that it exacerbates their insecurities. Restraining the order’s expansionist impulses would reveal just how much o illiberal states’ current revisionism is defensive in nature and how much is driven by sheer ambition. It could also stymie potential balancing against the order by illiberal states—China, Iran, Russia, and others. Although these revisionists have many divergent geopolitical and economic interests that currently limit their cooperation, the more their rulers worry that their grip on power is under threat from a liberal order, the more they will be inclined to overcome their dierences and team up to check liberal powers. Reduce that fear, and there will be more opportunities for the liberal states to divide and rule, or at least divide and deter.
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A less revisionist order could take the edge o o growing great- power rivalry in another way, by fully exploiting the advantages o a defensive, rather than oensive, stance. In general, preserving the status quo is cheaper, easier, and less dangerous than overturning it, as strategists from Sun-tzu to Thomas Schelling have argued. The order is deeply set, legitimate, and institutionalized. When it re- mains committed to the status quo, it is easy for its defenders to set redlines clarifying which challenges will be reversed and which won’t, a strategy that can help contain adversaries and limit rivalry. Yet when all the players in the game are revisionists, setting unam- biguous lines becomes much more dicult; what is acceptable to- day could become unacceptable tomorrow. Shifting to a more clearly status quo orientation would increase the chances that the United States and its allies could strike explicit or, more likely, implicit bar- gains with their rivals. Like any strategic approach, conservatism oers no guarantees and requires skilled statecraft. But by setting more realistic goals, it can dramatically increase the likelihood o success. Greater conservatism would also help bolster the order against inter- nal challenges. Although these will require domestic policies to address, because a less ambitious order would provoke less pushback from au- thoritarian states—and such pushback is costly to deal with—it would also be a more sustainable order. The higher the costs o maintaining the order, the more suspicion about it grows, and the harder it gets to maintain domestic support for it. Polls show that American voters like the country’s existing alliances. What many balk at are commitments they see as costly adventures unrelated to core national security con- cerns. Continued expansion risks feeding those perceptions and gener- ating a popular backlash that would throw the baby out with the bath water. Conservatism, by contrast, would minimize that risk. Conservatism today need not mean conservatism forever. Any ambitious enterprise, whether it be a political movement or a corpo- ration, undergoes phases o expansion and phases o consolidation. After a rm engages in acquisition, for example, the C-suite must ask whether the new management and workers are fully on board with the rm’s culture and mission and must address any disloca- tions caused by the recent changes. Consolidation, then, should be seen as a prudent reaction to expansion. In the future, conditions may change such that the order can responsibly start looking for ways to grow, but that day has not yet arrived.
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A TIME TO HEAL One might wonder whether an order grounded in liberal principles can in fact practice restraint. In the mid-eighteenth century, the philosopher David Hume warned that the United Kingdom was prosecuting its wars against illiberal adversaries with “imprudent vehemence,” contradicting the dictates o the balance o power and risking national bankruptcy. Perhaps such imprudence is part and parcel o the foundational ideology and domestic politics oÈ liberal powers. As the political scientist John Mearsheimer has put it, “Liberal states have a crusader mentality hardwired into them.” Indeed, the principles oÈ liberalism apply to all individuals, not just those who happen to be citizens o a liberal country. On what basis, then, can a country committed to liberal ideals stand idly by when they are trampled abroad—especially when that country is powerful enough to do something about it? In the United States, leaders often try to square the circle by contending that spreading democracy actually serves the national interest, but the truth is that power and principle don’t always go together. Because liberal convictions are part o their identity, Americans often feel they should support those who rise up against tyranny. Perhaps in the abstract one can promise restraint, but when demon- strators take to Tahrir Square in Cairo, Maidan in Kiev, or Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, many Americans want their government to stand with those Êying freedom’s Êag. And when countries want to join the order’s key security and economic institutions, Americans want the United States to say yes, even when there is scant strategic sense in it. Political incentives encourage this impulse, since politicians in the United States know that they can score points by bashing any leader who sells out lovers oÈ liberty. There is evidence, however, that liberal countries can check their appetite for spreading virtue. Nineteenth-century British statesmen liked to think that liberal principles and imperial interests often coin- cided, but when the two clashed, they almost always chose realism over idealism—as when the United Kingdom backed the Ottoman Empire for reasons o realpolitik despite domestic pressure to take action on behal o persecuted Christians in the empire. The United States in the twentieth century had idealistic presidents, such as Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter, but it also had more pragmatic ones, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.
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The period o détente in U.S.-Soviet relations, which lasted throughout the 1970s, exempli¿es the possibility o a liberal order going on the defensive. During this period, the West largely followed a live-and-let-live strategy informed by Secretary o State Henry Kissinger’s controversial maxim to not hold détente hostage to improve- ments in Moscow’s human rights record. Washington negotiated with Moscow on arms control and a range o other security issues and held frequent summits symbolizing its acceptance o the Soviet Union as a superpower equal. In the 1975 Helsinki Accords, aimed at reducing East-West tensions, the United States eectively accommodated itsel to the reality o Soviet suzerainty in Eastern Europe. The essence o the deal was that the United States would render unto the Soviets roughly a third o the world—while making it clear that they should not dare come after its two-thirds. To be sure, super- power competition never truly ceased, and in the 1980s, détente died out altogether. But while it was in place, the strategy worked to limit U.S.-Soviet rivalry and facilitate rapprochement with China. This gave the United States and its allies the breathing room they needed to get their own houses in order and patch up alliances torn apart by domestic upheavals, the Vietnam War, and wrangling over trade and monetary policy. What this history suggests is that today’s liberal order, for a time at least, can be conservative. Liberal countries can never be thoroughly status quo actors, for they foster relatively free economies and civil societies presided over by governments committed to giving those vibrant forces free rein. Left to their own devices, those forces will always be revision- ist—such is the nature oÈ liberalism. But that inherent revisionism need not prevent leaders oÈ liberal states, responsible for dealing with the world as it is, from recognizing that conditions have changed and deciding to trim their sails and tack away from expansion. That is what those leaders must do now: to protect an order based on liberalism, they must embrace conservatism.∂
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Who’s Afraid of Budget Deficits? How Washington Should End Its Debt Obsession Jason Furman and Lawrence H. Summers
he United States’ annual budget de¿cit is set to reach nearly $1 trillion this year, more than four percent o ³²£ Tand up from $585 billion in 2016. As a result o the con- tinuing shortfall, over the next decade, the national debt—the total amount owed by the U.S. government—is projected to balloon from its current level o 78 percent o ³²£ to 105 percent o ³²£. Such huge amounts o debt are unprecedented for the United States during a time o economic prosperity. Does it matter? To some economists and policymakers, the trend spells disaster, dragging down economic growth and potentially leading to a full-blown debt crisis before too long. These de¿cit fundamentalists see the failure o the Simpson-Bowles plan (a 2010 proposal to sharply cut de¿cits) as a major missed opportunity and argue that policymakers should make tackling the national debt a top priority. On the other side, de¿cit dismissers say the United States can ignore ¿scal constraints entirely given low interest rates (which make borrowing cheap), the eagerness o investors in global capital markets to buy U.S. debt (which makes borrowing easy), and the absence oÈ high inÊation (which means the Federal Reserve can keep interest rates low).
JASON FURMAN is Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He served as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.
LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS is President Emeritus and Charles W. Eliot University Profes- sor of Economics at Harvard University. He served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and Director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.
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Budget buster: Trump after signing a tax bill, Washington, D.C., December 2017 The decit dismissers have a point. Long-term structural declines in interest rates mean that policymakers should reconsider the traditional scal approach that has often wrong-headedly limited worthwhile investments in such areas as education, health care, and infrastructure. Yet many remain xated on cutting spending, especially on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid. That is a mistake. Politicians and policymakers should focus on urgent social problems, not decits. But they shouldn’t ignore scal constraints entirely. The decit fundamentalists are right that the debt cannot be allowed to grow forever. And the government cannot set budget policy without any limiting principles or guides as to what is and what is not possible or desirable. There is another policy approach that neither prioritizes cutting decits nor dismisses them. Unlike in the past, budgeters need not JONATHAN make reducing projected decits a priority. But they should ensure that, except during downturns, when scal stimulus is required, new
/ REUTERS ERNST spending and tax cuts do not add to the debt. This middle course would tolerate large and growing decits without making a major eort to reduce them—at least for the foreseeable future. But it would also stop the policy trend o the last two years, which will otherwise continue to pile up debt.
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Policymakers must also recognize that maintaining existing public services, let alone meeting new needs, will, over time, require higher revenues. Today’s large de¿cits derive more from falling revenues than rising entitlement spending. More spending is not, by itself, some- thing to be afraid of. The United States needs to invest in solutions to its fundamental challenges: ¿nding jobs for the millions o Americans who have given up hope o ¿nding them, providing health insurance for the millions who still lack it, and extending opportunities to the children left behind by an inadequate educational system.
THE TRUTH ABOUT DEFICITS Economic textbooks teach that government de¿cits raise interest rates, crowd out private investment, and leave everyone poorer. Cutting de¿cits, on the other hand, reduces interest rates, spurring productive investment. Those forces may have been important in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when long-term real interest rates (nominal interest rates minus the rate o inÊation) averaged around four percent and stock market valuations were much lower than they are today. The de¿cit reduction eorts o Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton contributed to the investment-led boom in the 1990s. Today, however, the situation is very dierent. Although govern- ment debt as a share o ³²£ has risen far higher, long-term real interest rates on government debt have fallen much lower. As shown in the table, in 2000, the Congressional Budget Oce forecast that by 2010, the U.S. debt-to-³²£ ratio would be six percent. The same ten-year forecast in 2018 put the ¿gure for 2028 at 105 percent. Real interest rates on ten-year government bonds, meanwhile, fell from 4.3 percent in 2000 to an average o 0.8 percent last year. Those low rates haven’t been manufactured by the Federal Reserve, nor are they just the result o the ¿nancial crisis. They preceded the crisis and appear to be rooted in a set o deeper forces, includ- ing lower investment demand, higher savings rates, and widening inequality. Interest rates may well rise a bit over the next several years, but ¿nancial markets expect them to end up far below where they stood in the 1980s and 1990s. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell has noted that the Fed’s current 2.375 percent interest rate is close to the neutral rate, at which the economy grows at a sustainable pace, and ¿nancial markets expect that the federal funds rate will not rise any further.
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Low interest rates mean that governments can sustain higher levels o debt, since their ¿nancing costs are lower. Although the national debt represents a far larger percentage o ³²£ than in recent decades, the U.S. government currently pays around the same proportion o ³²£ in interest on its debt, adjusted for inÊation, as it has on average since World War II. The cost o The Dog That Didn’t Bark de¿cits to the Treasury is the Ten-Year Projected Debt and Ten- degree to which the rate o in- Year Interest Rate, 2000 and 2018
terest paid on the debt exceeds 2000 2018 inÊation. By this standard, the Debt-to-GDP ratio pro- resources the United States 6% 105% jected for ten years later needs to devote to interest pay- Real interest rate on ments are also around their his- 4.3% 0.8% torical average as a share o the ten-year government bonds economy. Although both real SOURCE: Congressional Budget Oice; U.S. Department of the Treasury; authors’ calculations. and nominal interest rates are set to rise in the coming de- cade, interest payments on the debt are projected to remain well below the share reached in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when de¿cit reduc- tion topped the economic agenda. Government de¿cits also seem to be hurting the economy less than they used to. Textbook economic theory holds that high levels o gov- ernment debt make it more expensive for companies to borrow. But these days, interest rates are low, stock market prices are high relative to company earnings, and major companies hold large amounts o cash on their balance sheets. No one seriously argues that the cost o capital is holding back businesses from investing. Cutting the de¿cit, then, is unlikely to spur much private investment. Moreover, the lower interest rates that would result from smaller de¿cits would not be an unambiguously good thing. Many economists and policymakers, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and the economist Martin Feldstein, worry that interest rates are already too low. Cheap borrowing, they argue, with some merit, has led investors to put their money in unproductive ventures, created ¿nancial bubbles, and left central bankers with less leeway to cut rates in response to the next recession. I the United States cut its de¿cits by three percent o ³²£, enough to stabilize the national debt, interest rates would fall even further.
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Some commentators worry that rising de¿cits don’t just slowly eat away at economic growth, as the textbooks warn; they could lead to a ¿scal crisis in which the United States loses access to credit markets, sparking an economic meltdown. There is precious little economic theory or historical evidence to justify this fear. Few, i any, ¿scal crises have taken place in countries that borrow in their own currencies and print their own money. In Japan, for example, the national debt has exceeded 100 percent o ³²£ for almost two decades. But interest rates on long-term government debt remain near zero, and real inter- est rates are well below zero. Even in Italy, which does not borrow in its own currency or set its own monetary policy and, according to the markets, faces a substantial risk o defaulting, long-term real interest rates are less than two percent, despite high levels o debt and the government’s plans for major new spending. The eurozone debt crisis at the start o this decade is often held up as a cautionary tale about the perils o ¿scal excess. But stagnant growth (made worse by government spending cuts in the face o a recession) was as much the cause o the eurozone’s debt problems as proÊigate spending. And countries such as those in the eurozone, which borrow in currencies they do not control, face a far higher risk o debt crises than countries such as the United States, which have their own currencies. Countries with their own currencies can always have their central bank buy government debt or print money to repay it; countries without them can’t. Higher levels o debt do have downsides. They could make it harder for governments to summon the political will to stimulate the economy in a downturn. But saying that a country would be better o with lower debt is not the same as saying that it would be better o lowering its debt. The risks associated with high debt levels are small relative to the harm cutting de¿cits would do. It’s true that future generations will have to pay the interest on today’s debt, but at current rates, even a 50-percentage-point increase in the U.S. debt-to-³²£ ratio would raise real interest payments as a share o ³²£ by just 0.5 percentage points. That would bring those payments closer to the top o their historical range, but not into uncharted territory. De¿cits, then, should not cause policymakers much concern, at least for now. But some economists adopt an even more radical view. Advocates o what is known as modern monetary theory (®®¤), such as Stephanie
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Kelton, an economist and former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, have been widely interpreted as arguing that governments that borrow in their own currencies have no reason to con- cern themselves with budget constraints. Taxes should be set based not on spending levels but on macroeconomic conditions, and de¿cit ¿- nancing has no eect on interest rates. Some politicians have invoked those positions to suggest that the government need not worry about debt at all. (Kelton and other ®®¤ supporters claim that this is a mis- interpretation o their theory, but it’s not clear what their true argu- ments are, and most o the political supporters o ®®¤ have used it as a justi¿cation for ignoring government debt entirely.) This goes too far. When the economy is held back by lack o demand during a downturn, modern monetary theory gives similar answers to those provided by more mainstream Keynesian theory—that is, that more spending or lower taxes will have little eect on interest rates. But the modern monetarist approach is a poor guide to policy in normal economic times, when it would prescribe large tax hikes to control inÊation—not exactly the policy its advocates highlight. In truth, no one knows the bene¿ts and costs o dierent debt levels—75 percent o ³²£, 100 percent o ³²£, or even 150 percent o ³²£. According to the best projections, the United States is on course to exceed these ¿gures over the next 30 years. Although the U.S. government will remain solvent for the foreseeable future, it would be imprudent to allow the debt-to-³²£ ratio to rise forever in an uncertain world. Trying to make this situation sustainable without adjusting ¿scal policy or raising interest rates, as recommended by some advocates o modern monetary theory, is a recipe for hyperinÊation.
HOW WE GOT HERE There is a widely held misconception that the de¿cit has risen primarily because government programs have grown more generous. Not so. De¿cits have ballooned because a series o tax cuts have dramatically reduced government revenue below past projections and historical levels. The tax cuts passed by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump totaled three percent o ³²£—much more than the projected increases in entitlement spending over the next 30 years. Those cuts meant that in 2018, the federal government took in revenue equiva- lent to just 16 percent o ³²£, the lowest level in hal a century, except for a few brie periods in the aftermath o recessions. Without the Bush
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and Trump tax cuts (and the interest payments on the debt that went with them), last year’s federal budget would have come close to balancing. As things stand, however, the Congressional Budget Oce projects that revenue over the next ¿ve years will continue to aver- age less than 17 percent o ³²£, a percentage point lower than under President Ronald Reagan. Today’s revenue levels are even lower relative to in the past than these share-of-³²£ ¿gures imply. I tax policy is left unchanged, government revenue should rise as a share o ³²£. In part, this is because o The United States has more what economists call “real bracket creep.” Society has decided that it is fair to tax of a revenue problem than people making, say, $1 million at a higher an entitlement problem. rate than those making, say, $50,000. Over time, economic growth means more people earn higher incomes, adjusted for inÊation, and so more people pay higher tax rates. More serious than leading to inadequate revenue is the way that tax cuts in the last 25 years have misallocated resources. They have wors- ened income inequality and, at best, have done very little for eco- nomic growth. The most recent tax cut, in 2017, will cost $1.9 trillion over ten years, but it boosted growth only slightly, i at all, while shift- ing the distribution o income toward the wealthy and reducing the number o people with health insurance. Look abroad, and it becomes obvious that the United States has more o a revenue problem than an entitlement problem. U.S. spend- ing on social programs ranks among the lowest in 35 advanced econo- mies, yet the country has the highest de¿cit relative to its ³²£ in the group. That is because the United States brings in the ¿fth-lowest total revenue as a share o ³²£ among those 35 countries. The idea that higher spending, particularly on entitlements, is to blame for rising de¿cits stems from a combination o faulty numbers and faulty analysis. Total U.S. government spending, excluding inter- est payments, amounts to 19 percent o ³²£, up only slightly from its average o 18 percent between 1960 and 2000. Social Security and Medicare spending are set to rise by more than this over the coming decades, but that rise will be at least partially oset by other spending reductions and will do less to increase the de¿cit in terms o present value, which accounts for the current value o future spending and borrowing, than the tax cuts passed in the last two and a hal decades.
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What’s more, looking at shares o ³²£ is a bad way to understand the underlying causes o de¿cits and how they might shrink. Entitlement costs have risen not because the programs have become more generous but largely because the population as a whole has aged, a fact that is mostly the result o falling birthrates. As retirees’ share o the population grows, so does spending on Social Security and Medicare. That is not making government spending more generous to the elderly, and there is no rea- son why retirees should bear most o the burden oÈ lower birthrates. One might argue that the rise in entitlement spending caused by longer life spans represents an increase in the generosity o Social Security and Medicare, since people are collecting bene¿ts for a lon- ger period o time. But that is the wrong way to look at it. By 2025, the standard retirement age for Social Security will complete its rise from 65 to 67, reducing the time that most people will collect bene¿ts. Many lower-income Americans, moreover, are dying younger than they used to. That disturbing trend means that poorer retirees are collecting less in Social Security payments than before. There’s another reason that shares o ³²£ make for a bad way to measure how much the government does: the things the government buys cost much more in relative terms than they used to. Over the last 30 years, the cost oÈ both a day in a hospital and a year in college has risen by a factor o more than 200 relative to the price o a television set. It’s also getting more expensive for the United States to maintain its global military advantage as potential adversaries, such as China, Iran, and Russia, boost their military spending. At a more abstract level, rising inequality also pushes up the cost o achieving any given policy goal. Most people acknowledge that the government has some role to play in redistributing income, even though they disagree on how large that role should be. For any given amount o redistribution, more inequality means more spending.
DO NO HARM Although politicians shouldn’t make the debt their top priority, they also shouldn’t act as i it doesn’t matter at all. Large mismatches be- tween revenue and spending will have to be ¿xed at some point. All else being equal, it would be better to do so before the amounts in- volved get out oÈ hand. And since economists aren’t sure just how costly large de¿cits are, it would be prudent to keep government debt in check in case they turn out to be more harmful than expected.
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Even setting aside these macroeconomic considerations, politicians should remember that running budget de¿cits does not replace the need to raise revenue or cut spending; it merely defers it. Sooner or later, gov- ernment spending has to be paid for. It is hard to budget rationally and decide what expenditures and tax cuts are worthwhile when one obfus- cates the ultimate cost o these policies. Policymakers won’t be able to argue against a poorly designed but well-intentioned spending program or middle-class tax cut without any limiting principles for ¿scal policy. The right budget strategy must balance several competing consid- erations: it should get as close as possible to the most economically ecient policy while remaining understandable and politically sus- tainable. The optimal policy from an economic standpoint would be to gradually phase in spending cuts or tax increases at a rate that would prevent perpetual growth in the national debt as a share o the economy but would avoid doing serious harm to economic demand along the way. Such an approach, however, would be complicated and dicult to understand. Nuance doesn’t sell. A requirement that the federal government balance its budget or begin paying down the debt is easier to grasp but would impose far more de¿cit reduction than the economy needs or could bear. Such measures are also politically unsustainable. Even i policymakers passed such legislation to- morrow, they could not bind their successors to it. Clinton oversaw four balanced budgets and bequeathed a declining national debt to Bush, but a decade after Clinton left oce, the debt was higher than when he arrived. A simple approach to ¿scal policy that would prove understand- able, sustainable, and economically reasonable would be to focus on important investments but do no harm. In short, when you are in a hole, stop digging. That means that instead o passing unfunded leg- islation, Congress should pay for new measures with either spending cuts or extra revenues, except during recessions, when ¿scal stimulus will be essential given the increased constraints on monetary policy now. This approach would provide a ready way to prioritize: i some- thing is truly worth doing, it should be worth paying for. Such a course would also strike a reasonable balance between the harms o extra debt and the harms o de¿cit reduction. The de¿cit would continue climbing to unprecedented levels. But no longer would the United States be pursuing the reckless ¿scal policies o the last two years, which, i continued, would add even more debt, even faster, while driving up inequality and failing to support growth.
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A lot o details would need to be worked out. Analysts will have to decide whether to exclude from their de¿cit calculations certain kinds o spending—such as infrastructure spending—that represent investments rather than current consumption. One Politicians should not critical question is whether analysts will use dynamic scoring, an approach that ac- let large de£cits deter counts for how a new policy will aect the them from addressing economy when calculating what it will the United States’ cost. Advocates o dynamic scoring argue that it provides more accurate cost esti- fundamental challenges. mates, but critics point out that getting the numbers right is tricky, so it’s easy to bake in overly optimistic assumptions and thus get almost any result you want. In truth, dynamic scoring is a useful tool, as long as it’s done right. Dynamic scoring is usually limited to tax debates. That’s a mistake, as nontax policies can also have signi¿cant budgetary eects. A wide range o experts believe that investments in tax enforcement pay o at a rate o $5 or more for every $1 spent. Although ocial scorekeepers gave only minimal credit to the cost-control measures in the Aordable Care Act, thanks in large part to those measures, cumulative Medicare and Medicaid spending in the decade after the ¯¯ was passed is likely to end up coming in about $1 trillion below forecasts made at the time. As policymakers set budgets in the coming years, a lot will depend on what interest rates do. Financial markets do not expect the in- creases in interest rates that budget forecasters have priced in. I the markets prove right, that will strengthen the case against de¿cit reduction. If, on the other hand, interest rates start to rise well above what even the budget forecasters expect, then, as in the early 1990s, more active eorts to cut the de¿cit could make sense. Even i interest rates remain low, however, the do-no-harm approach won’t be sustainable forever. How long the United States will be able maintain its growing national debt will depend on whether de¿cits come in above or below current projections. Even so, the national debt presents just one o many problems the United States faces—and not the most pressing.
WHAT REALLY MATTERS Much more pressing are the problems oÈ languishing labor-force partici- pation rates, slow economic growth, persistent poverty, a lack o access to
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health insurance, and global climate change. Politicians should not let large de¿cits deter them from addressing these fundamental challenges. A do-no-harm approach would allow large and growing de¿cits for a long time, but it would put some constraints on the most ambitious political agendas. Progressives have proposed Medicare for all, free col- lege, a federal jobs guarantee, and a massive green infrastructure pro- gram. The merits o each o these proposals are up for debate. But each idea responds to a real need that will take resources to address. Some 29 million Americans still do not have health insurance. College is un- aordable for far too many. Millions o working-age Americans have given up even looking for work. Global warming cannot be ignored. Add in the widely shared desire for more investments in education and infrastructure and the likelihood that defense spending will keep rising, and the federal government will clearly have to spend a lot more. Congress can fund some new programs by trimming lower-priority spending elsewhere. But this will be dicult. Take health care. There is substantial scope to slow the growth oÈ both public and private health spending. But this will require addressing the health-care sys- tem as a whole, not just cutting payments or reforming public health programs. That’s because public health-care spending has shrunk rela- tive to private spending in recent years as the government has found more eective ways to reduce payments and improve eciency. Beyond entitlements, everyone has a list o favorite examples o waste- ful government spending: farm programs, corporate welfare, and so on. But the dirty secret is that these programs are mostly small, so making them more ecient would not save much money. Enacting serious cuts to spending is much more dicult than most people acknowledge. One program the federal government should not cut is Social Se- curity. The gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor is growing, and reducing bene¿ts to retirees could exacerbate that trend. Cutting Social Security would also weaken economic demand far more than cutting most other programs would, as its bene¿ciaries tend to spend the money rather than save it. I policymakers reform Social Security and Medicare, they should do so to make the pro- grams more eective, not to reduce the debt. The truth is the federal government needs to raise more revenue. Even i the United States made no new investments and cut Social Security bene¿ts enough to eliminate hal o the long-term gap be- tween the program’s revenues and its expenditures (an unwise policy),
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it would save only about one-third o what is needed to keep the debt from growing relative to the economy. That is why the Simpson-Bowles Commission also proposed raising revenue to 21 percent o ³²£, a step that would require a $9 trillion tax increase over the next decade. Congress can raise some extra revenue in ways many Americans would consider fair, such as by imposing higher taxes on the richest households. It should also raise revenue with another round o corpo- rate tax reform. For example, it can make expensing permanent (ex- pensing allows companies to immediately deduct the cost o new investments from their taxable income) while raising corporate tax rates or taxing ¿rms for the carbon they emit. Economists regard such reforms as economically ecient because they make new investments cheaper while taxing windfall gains and past investments. But tapping the top few percent oÈ households and raising corporate taxes won’t be enough. Ultimately, all Americans will have to pay a little more to support the kind o society they say they want.
ENDING THE DEBT DELUSION The economics o de¿cits have changed. A better appreciation o the sources and consequences o government debt, and o the options to address it, should lead policymakers away from many o the old de¿cit- and entitlement-focused orthodoxies—but not to wholesale aban- donment o ¿scal constraints. De¿cit fundamentalists argue that they are championing a noble and underappreciated cause. In some ways, they are; de¿cit reduction is never a political winner. But i they turn out to be right, economists and policymakers will know soon enough. The ¿nancial markets give immediate feedback about the seriousness o the budget de¿cit. I the debt becomes a problem, interest rates will rise, putting ¿nancial and political pressure on policymakers to accomplish what ¿scal funda- mentalists have long wanted. But even i that happens, it is not likely to cost so much that it would be worth paying a de¿nite cost today to prevent the small chance o a problem in the future. Policymakers will always know when the market is worried about the de¿cit. But no alarm bells ring when the government fails to rebuild decaying infrastructure, properly fund preschools, or provide access to health care. The results o that kind o neglect show up only later— but the human cost is often far larger. It’s time for Washington to put away its debt obsession and focus on bigger things.∂
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No Country for Strongmen How India’s Democracy Constrains Modi Ruchir Sharma
ike most national elections in India, the one coming this spring will be decided in the mofussil. Originally a colonial term for Lany town outside the commercial capitals o the British Raj, mofussil now refers to the provincial areas beyond the burgeoning megacities o Mumbai and New Delhi, that is, to the rural and impov- erished stretches where two out o three Indians live. Come April or May, the inhabitants o these rural towns will vote in what is shaping up to be an unexpectedly tight race pitting the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party o Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the Indian National Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi. Until a year ago, Modi looked like the sure winner. He had sidelined all rivals in the Õ£ and overshadowed Gandhi and the rest o the opposition. He was running the most centralized administration India had seen in decades, with decisions large and small funneled through the prime minister’s oce. The Õ£ and its allies went from governing six o India’s 29 states in 2014 to holding 21 by early 2018. So ¿rm seemed Modi’s grip on power that many Indian liberals began drawing parallels to the slide toward one-man rule in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. A series o surprising setbacks late last year have dissipated this aura o invincibility. In three key state elections in December, many voters in the mofussil turned against the Õ£. Modi’s odds oÈ beating the Congress party and its allies at the national level now seem no better than even. This is exactly how Indian voters like their leaders: on the edge and fearing for their jobs. No other major democracy tosses out its ruling party as often as India does. Ever since the country became
RUCHIR SHARMA is Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and the author of Democracy on the Road: A 25-Year Journey Through India (Allen Lane, 2019), from which this essay is adapted.
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a true multiparty democracy, in the 1970s, two out o three govern- ments at the central and state levels have lost their bids for reelection. In many ways, India is less a country than a mosaic o states divided by hundreds oÈ languages and thousands o castes and subcastes, many o them ¿ercely loyal to their own regional parties and leaders. The Õ£ managed to overcome these divisions in 2014, when voters were eager for change following years o corruption scandals and double- digit inÊation under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh o Congress. Even then, the Õ£ won just 31 percent o the popular vote and was able to win a majority o seats in Parliament only thanks to a badly frag- mented opposition. Now, opposition parties appear to be uniting against Modi in many o the largest and most politically critical states, just as they have banded together against ascendant national leaders in the past. Modi’s reelection bid will hinge on whether he can cobble together coalitions oÈ his own to face this front, state by state, each with unique local dynamics.
THE ROOTS OF MODI’S RISE I got to see how national politics plays out in the mofussil by spending childhood summers with my grandparents in Bijnor, a provincial town in western Uttar Pradesh. Commonly known as £, Uttar Pradesh is the most populous and one o the least developed states. It has been said that all roads to national power in New Delhi run through £, and many Indian politicians try to get a head start by launching their bids for power there. Two o the last three Indian prime ministers— including Modi—have chosen to represent parliamentary constituencies in £, whether they lived there or not. All o India is passionate about politics, but nowhere are people more obsessed than in £—perhaps owing to the depth o its caste loyalties and its poverty, which make voters particularly dependent on their political leaders for protection and survival. During my visits in the late 1970s and 1980s, I would watch my grandfather and his friends, all upper-caste members o the Bijnor community, gather around the television and hurl Hindi epithets at the nightly news, much o which was state propaganda for the Con- gress party. Congress had led India to independence in 1947 and had held power ever since. But by the late 1970s, voters were growing frustrated with the increasingly imperious rule o Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and they voted her out o oce in 1977.
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Upper-caste Hindus, in particular, vili¿ed Congress for “coddling” Muslims, who made up 20 percent o the population in £, nearly twice the national average. They also attacked Congress for reserving ¿xed quotas o government jobs and college admissions for those marginalized by an ancient social order that ranks every Hindu into one o several thousand castes. The Congress party had designed much o its welfare system to lift up the lowest caste, the Dalits, but change occurred at a glacial pace. Well into the 1980s, it was routine among the upper castes to address Dalits with a string o abuse or to refuse them access to schools, temples, and other public spaces. Anger at this mistreatment fueled the rise o challengers to the Congress party’s rule, including dozens o regional parties based on caste, religion, or tribe. One o the most prominent regional leaders, Kumari Mayawati, a ¿ery champion o the Dalits in £, began her ascent in Bijnor, much to the dismay o local Brahmans, and eventually became the region’s chie minister, the Indian equivalent o a U.S. governor. An even bigger challenge to Congress came from Hindu national- ists, who united under the umbrella o the Õ£ after Indira Gandhi led Congress to a comeback win in 1980. In contrast to the secular and diverse nation extolled by Congress, Õ£ leaders envisioned India as a society governed by Hindu values and the Hindi language. Although the party was a melting pot for many shades o Hindu nationalism, including moderate strands that eschewed anti-Muslim rhetoric, I can remember listening to hard-core Õ£ supporters in Bijnor chanting a Hindi limerick that translates as “Muslims are crooks; they have heads like dogs and ears like cats.” In Bijnor and elsewhere, the Õ£’s message resonated, and in 1998, the party formed its ¿rst stable national government under the mod- erate statesman Atal Bihari Vajpayee. That same year, I convened a group o writers and editors to cover major national and state elec- tions on the campaign trail. As a writer and investor, I believed one had to get out and talk to voters in the mofussil to have any chance o accurately forecasting elections. Two decades and 27 trips later, our caravan has grown to include about 20 journalists, who have published commentary and analysis in The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Times of India, and many other outlets. In all, we have vis- ited 15 states, including the ten largest and most politically signi¿- cant, and this has given the group an intimate feel for how Indian
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Among the believers: at a Hindu nationalist rally in Gauhati, India, January 2018 democracy works on the ground. We have met with Modi twice and witnessed from the rally grounds his reelection as chie minister o Gujarat in 2007 and 2012 and his national victory in 2014. Over the same period, we watched the Congress party slide from dominance to irrelevance in one major state after another, sidelined by the and regional parties. In , for example, Congress has fallen to a distant fourth among the leading parties and has seen its share o the popular vote drop from more than 40 percent in 1984 to less than ten percent in 2017.
“MODI WHO?” Many commentators feared that the ’s meteoric rise under Modi portended a descent into an intolerant, increasingly ethnonationalist tyranny o the Hindu majority. After the won state elections in in 2017, Modi appointed the Hindu monk and right-wing rebrand Yogi Adityanath as the state’s chie minister. When we met Adityanath during the campaign, he greeted us in his temple dressed all in saron, ANUPAM the sacred color o Hinduism. Sitting in his temple, also decorated in saron, Adityanath spoke a pure form o Hindi, with no trace o the NATH usual Anglicisms, so close to the ancient language o Sanskrit that
AP / many o us could barely understand him. On the campaign trail, he embraced an unapologetic politics o Hindu supremacy, warning that
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£ must not become “another Kashmir”—a place where, in his telling, Muslims ruled and Hindus lived in fear. For liberal observers, his appointment to the state’s highest oce was a stunning example o the creeping normalization o Hindu extremism under Modi. But a more complex picture o the prime minister’s tenure emerges from our travels, particularly in states outside the northern “cow belt” around £, where Hindi speakers and Hindu conservatism dominate. In the country’s south, which has long embraced a more moderate Hin- duism, Modi’s nationalist message reso- nates far less. During a 2016 election There are too many Indias trip to the southern state oÈ Tamil Nadu, for the entire population to many voters dismissed our questions be held in thrall to any about the prime minister as irrelevant; single vision or £gure. one responded, “Modi who?” At a rally last year in the neighboring state o Karnataka, we watched as Modi re- ceived an enthusiastic response when he greeted the crowd with a few words in the local language, Kannada. Then, he switched back to Hindi, with a Kannada translator. Suddenly, his charisma seemed to disappear, and the crowd went silent. Alarmists who fear that India is succumbing to strongman rule miss the fact that there are still too many Indias for the entire population to be held in thrall to any single vision or ¿gure. I anything genuinely unites Indian voters, it is hostility toward whoever happens to be in oce. It wasn’t always this way: in post- independence India, voters returned the incumbent—usually a Congress party politician—to power in 90 percent o state or national elections. But ever since Indira Gandhi imposed a controversial state o emergency in 1975, inspiring the opposition to unite and topple her two years later, voters have unseated their leaders with astonishing regularity. This anti-incumbent bias is partly the result o India’s fragmented party system. In most states, dozens o parties compete, and the win- ners often ¿nd themselves scrambling for allies to help them form a government. Tiny shifts in the vote, or in the allegiance o one small coalition partner, can make or break a government. The whole system is almost designed to encourage change and make it easy for voters and rival parties to throw out the ruling party. The discontent o Indian voters is also a reaction to chronic economic mismanagement. The country became a democracy when it was still
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staggeringly poor, with newborn government institutions that could not meet the needs and demands o the impoverished masses. In the early decades, Congress was able to hold on to power mainly because voters were thankful that the party had led India to independence from the United Kingdom, not because it was delivering economic progress. Congress’ socialist vision relegated India to the so-called Hindu rate o growth, a measly 3.5 percent annually, too slow to lift a booming population out o poverty. Once Congress’ monopoly was broken, voters never hesitated to express their economic dissatisfac- tion at the ballot box. And yet the links between the country’s politics and its economics are not entirely clear-cut. After limping along under strong and stable Con- gress governments until the 1980s, the economy picked up speed under the fragile coalition governments that followed. Still, with the exception o a brie period late in the last decade, voters showed little willingness to reward their leaders based on strong economic performance alone. My analysis o the economic data, available back to 1980, shows that even when chie ministers presided over a state ³²£ growth rate above eight percent—which usually puts an economy into the “miracle” class— their chances oÈ being reelected were still only 50–50. This is not because voters do not care about jobs or a stable income. It’s that progress often fails to reach them. Many voters in the mofussil don’t feel a dramatic lift even when fast economic growth boosts the Mumbai stock market, but those enjoying the rise assume that everyone is feeling the good times. In response, many politicians have tried to buy voter loyalty by oering welfare giveaways rather than relying on rapid economic growth. In more advanced economies, the main ideological divide usually concerns the roles o the state and the market in distributing wealth. But in India, everyone is a statist. The economic debate is largely about how the state can best help the poor: by developing roads and other infrastructure, by distributing welfare bene¿ts, or by doing a bit o everything. Candidates vie to promise voters the longest and most generous list o government giveaways, from free medical care to rice and diesel subsidies to tax cuts for everyone from marriage- hall owners to cumin-seed buyers. Modi is now playing the same game. On the campaign trail in 2014, he sounded like a free marketeer, promising “maximum governance, minimum government” and bitterly criticizing Congress-sponsored welfare programs as an insult to the poor, who, he said, wanted “jobs,
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not handouts.” But lately, he has been ramping up spending on the same Congress programs he criticized, including a 2005 guarantee that every rural Indian would get 100 days o paid labor a year. But it’s not clear that welfare promises are any more a guarantee o victory than economic growth is. Voters who do not qualify for bene¿ts are always resentful, and those who do are often furious because the dys- functional Indian state fails to deliver on the promises. Corruption acts as another incumbent killer, although its exact eects are dicult to gauge. India provides no public funding for elections, and political campaigns have become private enterprises. To compete, candidates have little choice but to violate the ocial spending cap, which sits at just $70,000 to $100,000 per parliamen- tary candidate. We have covered state elections in which candidates exceeded those limits by a factor o 50 or more. To keep the cash Êowing, many Indian politicians wind up surrounding themselves with relatives and well-connected private businesspeople. Voters, for their part, know that there are hardly any “pure” candidates: the cleaner ones spend the dark money on their campaigns; the dirtier ones put a share in their own pockets. Rarely does an incumbent serve out a term without facing corruption charges—and really serious ones can bring leaders down. Still, the rise o “money politics” in Indian elections is easily exagger- ated. Private funding is on the rise but Êows heavily toward those in oce, who often outspend the opposition by ¿ve times or more. I money were the decisive factor, the ruling party would win most o the time, and yet it doesn’t. Candidates need to raise enough money to compete, but they have to pass a host o other tests—above all, those that revolve around community identities, including caste, religion, tribe, and language.
FAMILY, CASTE, THEN COUNTRY The worst abuses o the caste system—such as the exclusion o Dalits from public places—have continued to slowly fade with time. But community identities remain strong. In the mofussil, marriage across caste lines is still frowned on, and voters look mainly to leaders from their own group for protection and help. This means that parties can- not win i they do not get the community equation right. In each constituency and state, they need to select candidates who appeal to a complex mix o subcastes, religions, and languages.
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In some states, the “dominant” caste or religious community amounts to just ten to 20 percent o the electorate, as is the case in £ and the neighboring state o Bihar. The elections in these states often amount to contests for the aection o the three biggest voting blocs: Muslims, Dalits, and Yadavs (a midlevel caste). Yet the Dalits and the Yadavs o £ are from dierent subcastes than the Dalits and the Yadavs o Bihar, and they do not see themselves as members oÈ kindred po- litical communities. Mayawati is the unquestioned champion o the Dalits in £, but not in Bihar, whereas popular Yadav leaders in £ cannot draw a crowd in Bihar. As a result, the alliances required to win any state involve entirely dierent sets o caste and religious communities, mixed in varying proportions and led by dierent regional bigwigs. Multiply this confusion by 29 states, and one can begin to see why it is almost impossible to speak o an Indian election as a “national” event. The power o community also shines through in the dynasties that are omnipresent in Indian politics. The nationwide cult o adoration that once surrounded the Gandhi family lives on inside the Congress party, which has embraced the dynasty’s latest scion, Rahul Gandhi, as its undisputed leader. For years, Congress supporters have also hailed Rahul’s younger sister, Priyanka, as the second coming oÈ her grandmother Indira. The Õ£, meanwhile, is bitterly critical o Congress’ nepotism, and Modi constantly mocks the Gandhis as “entitled” political royalty, even though his own party has well-entrenched political dynasties, too. Still, some change may be afoot. More and more politicians are rising to power on the argument that their lack o family ties protects them from the temptation to pro¿t from oce. Modi, the bachelor prime minister, has made uncorrupted singlehood a centerpiece oÈ his political persona.
THE MYTH OF THE INDIAN NATION India’s complex polity makes it impossible for any one leader to push a reform agenda as aggressively as leaders in China have in the past, commandeering land for development, opening borders to trade, shuttering state factories, and killing o millions o redundant jobs. Since the 1980s, several Indian prime ministers have pursued ele- ments o free-market reform, but only when faced with some sort o crisis. None o them made a serious attempt to reform the bloated
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and incompetent central bureaucracy, even though frustration with bureaucrats fuels the permanent revolt against politicians. Yet the picture isn’t all gloomy. At the level o individual states, the obstacles to economic reform are less daunting. Dynamic chie minis- ters have helped spark strong runs o economic growth by tailoring reforms to the needs o their state. As chie minister o the coastal state o Gujarat, Modi encouraged an export manufacturing boom in part by building roads and ports; Nitish Kumar transformed land- locked Bihar in part by reining in its rampant crime. The combined eect o such breakout states has been strong enough to keep the economy as a whole growing at a pace o six to seven percent—a respectable showing for a developing country. India’s diversity is also a source o political resilience, as strong sub- national identities provide a check on ethnic and religious nationalism. Many Indians still see themselves as Bengalis, Gujaratis, or Tamils ¿rst and Indians second. Best oÈ luck to anyone who oends this ethnic and regional pride. In the early 1980s, after Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv called Many Indians still see the chie minister o Andhra Pradesh a “buoon,” the popular ¿lm star N. T. themselves as Bengalis, Rama Rao capitalized on this insult to Gujaratis, or Tamils £rst “Telugu pride” (Telugu is the principal and Indians second. language spoken in Andhra Pradesh) by forming a regional party that quickly rose to power in the state—demonstrating, in Rama Rao’s words, that in India, “the center is a myth and the state is a reality.” Ever since Indira Gandhi declared a state o emergency in 1975, no prime minister has been able to gain political momentum without trig- gering fears o creeping authoritarianism and inspiring the fragmented opposition to unite. This pattern brought down Indira in 1977, Rajiv in 1989, and the ¿rst Õ£ prime minister, Vajpayee, in 2004. The same dynamic may repeat itsel in this year’s election: i the opposition, scattered and squabbling in 2014, manages to unite against Modi in a majority o the states in 2019, the Õ£ could lose a sizable chunk o its seats in Parliament even i it once again wins a plurality o the vote. The Õ£ knows this well and will try to derail budding opposition alliances by casting them as cynical and unprincipled coalitions whose only common interest is power. Ironically, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, once the Õ£’s archenemies, used a similar line o attack to
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divide and undermine opponents o entrenched Congress party rule. Now back in the opposition under Rajiv’s son, Rahul, Congress will take inspiration from the 1960s socialist leader and Congress critic Ram Manohar Lohia, who supposedly quipped that “the Indian gov- ernment is like a piece o Êatbread that needs to be Êipped on the griddle or it will burn.” The stakes are high. The Õ£ and Congress oer two starkly diver- gent political visions: the former aspiring to build one India, the latter celebrating the reality o many Indias. But even i voters buck the historical trend and return Modi to the prime minister’s oce this spring, he will likely be left with a reduced majority. The Õ£’s vision will remain aspirational, as India’s complex ecosystem o identities will continue to act as a powerful break on a descent into outright ethnonationalism. At a time when democracy is said to be in retreat around the world, it is still thriving in India.∂
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The Kurdish Awakening Unity, Betrayal, and the Future o the Middle East Henri J. Barkey
“ e’ve been ghting for a long time in Syria,” said U.S. President Donald Trump in the last days o 2018. “Now Wit’s time for our troops to come back home.” The presi- dent’s surprise call for a rapid withdrawal o the nearly 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria drew widespread criticism from members o the U.S. foreign policy establishment. But it came as an even greater shock to the United States’ main partner in the ght against the Islamic State (or ), the Syrian Kurds. For weeks prior to the announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been threatening to invade areas o northern Syria controlled by Kurdish militants. The only thing stopping him was the presence o U.S. troops. Removing them would leave the Kurds deeply exposed. “I [the Americans] will leave,” warned one Syrian Kurd, “we will curse them as traitors.” Details about the U.S. withdrawal from Syria remain sketchy. But whatever Washington ultimately decides to do, Trump’s announce- ment marked a cruel turn for Kurds across the Middle East. Back in mid-2017, the Kurds had been enjoying a renaissance. Syrian Kurds, allied with the world’s only superpower, had played the central role in largely defeating on the battleeld and had seized the group’s capital, Raqqa. The People’s Protection Units (), a Syrian Kurdish militia, controlled large swaths o Syrian territory and looked set to become a signicant actor in negotiations to end the country’s civil war. Turkish Kurds, although besieged at home, were basking in the glow o the accomplishments o their Syrian counterparts, with whom
HENRI J. BARKEY is Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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they are closely aligned. And in Iraq, the body that rules the country’s Kurdish region—the Kurdistan Regional Government, or ·¡³—was at the height o its powers, preparing for a September 2017 referendum on independence. By the end o 2018, many o the Kurds’ dreams appeared to be in tatters. After the overwhelming majority o Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in the ·¡³’s referendum, the Iraqi government, backed by Iran and Turkey, invaded Iraqi Kurdistan and conquered some 40 percent o its territory. Overnight, the ·¡³ lost not only nearly hal o its land but much o its international inÊuence, too. The Turkish Kurds, despite gaining seats in parliament in the June 2018 elections, had endured relentless assaults from Erdogan and his government throughout the year, including a renewed military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (£··), a left-wing separatist group. In Syria, Turkey invaded the Kurdish-controlled town o Afrin in March 2018, displacing the Ö£³ and some 200,000 local Kurds. Then, in December, the Syrian Kurds learned that their American protectors might soon abandon them altogether. These setbacks, however, belie a larger trend—one that will shape the Middle East in the years ahead. Across the region, Kurds are gain- ing self-con¿dence, pushing for long-denied rights, and, most impor- tant, collaborating with one another across national boundaries and throughout the diaspora. To a greater extent than at any previous point in history, Kurds in the four traditionally distinct parts o Kurdistan— in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey—are starting down the road oÈ becom- ing a single Kurdish nation. Signi¿cant barriers to unity remain, including linguistic divisions and the presence o at least two strong states, Iran and Turkey, with an overriding interest in thwarting any form o pan-Kurdism. Yet recent events have initiated a process o Kurdish nation building that will, in the long run, prove dicult to contain. Even i there is never a single, uni¿ed, independent Kurd- istan, the Kurdish national awakening has begun. The Middle East’s states may fear the Kurdish awakening, but it is beyond their power to stop it.
THE LOST CAUSE Around 30 million Kurds currently live in Greater Kurdistan, a contigu- ous region stretching across southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. Kurdish tribes interacted with
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This land is our land: Kurdish peshmerga forces in Makhmur, Iraq, August 2014 the Arab, Persian, and Turkic empires over the centuries, some- times cooperating with them and sometimes rebelling against them. Modern Kurdish nationalism has its roots in the dissolution o the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The 1920 Treaty o Sèvres, signed between the Allies and the defeated Ottomans, called for an independence referendum in the Kurdish-majority areas o modern- day Turkey. Yet following Turkey’s war o independence, the new Turkish government renegotiated with the Allies. This resulted in the 1923 Treaty o Lausanne, which guaranteed Turkish sovereignty over what could have potentially been an independent Kurdistan. Kurdish demands for independence, however, did not go away. Throughout the twentieth century, Kurdish revolts, often backed by rival states, erupted in nearly every country that had a signi¿cant Kurdish population. Turkey put down Kurdish rebellions in 1925,
YOUSSEF 1930, and 1937. Then, in the mid-1980s, the £·· launched an armed insurgency in Turkey that has continued o and on until the present day. In Iran in 1946, Kurds backed by the Soviet Union established the BOUDLAL ¿rst genuine Kurdish government, the independent Republic o Mahabad, which lasted for one year before collapsing after Moscow / REUTERS withdrew its support. Iraqi Kurds have also frequently revolted against their central government. Supported by the shah o Iran, they fought two wars against Baghdad during the 1960s and 1970s, only to be
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defeated in 1975 after the shah struck a deal with the Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, abandoning the Kurds to their fate. This agitation has meant that for each o the four states with a large Kurdish minority, suppressing Kurdish nationalism has been a paramount policy objective. The new Turkish state under President Kemal Ataturk banned the use o the Kurdish language in 1924 and over time intro- duced draconian rule in Kurdish areas, burning villages, displacing people, and con¿scating their property. (Although U.S. intelligence was always con¿dent that Turkey could handle any challenge posed by the Kurds, a 1971 ¢¯ report conceded that Turkish policies, especially those preventing the use o the Kurdish language, were at the root o Kurdish unrest.) Iran similarly banned Kurdish dialects in the 1930s. In Syria, the central government not only prohibited the teaching and learning o Kurdish but also placed restrictions on Kurdish landown- ership. And beginning in the 1960s, Damascus revoked the citizenship o tens o thousands o Syrian Kurds, rendering them stateless. All across the Middle East, Kurdish areas were economically neglected and marginalized. In the face o this repression, the Kurds have succeeded in preserv- ing and even strengthening their identity across generations. As the Kurdish scholar Hamit Bozarslan has observed, Kurds have been treated as a minority by the governments o Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, but they do not see themselves as one. They are a majority in their homeland, Kurdistan, which only through an accident o geopo- litical history has been rendered an appendage o other states. And it is the Middle East’s modern state system that has, historically, been the main obstacle to Kurdish national aspirations. A prescient 1960 intelligence report by the ¢¯ argued that the Kurds o Iran and Iraq had all the necessary elements for autonomy—military strength, lead- ership, and the possibility o material support from an outside power, the Soviet Union. “Only the relative stability o parent governments,” the report noted, “stands in the way o active Kurdish separatism.”
TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK For most o the twentieth century, the only possible path to Kurdish autonomy (or independence, for that matter) ran through state fail- ure. And in eect, this is exactly what has transpired over the past two decades. I the Kurds today have a glimmer oÈ hope in Iraq and Syria, it is because o the collapse o authority in Baghdad and Damascus. In
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Why nationalism is a “A deft, accessible, and in-depth “Essential reading for anyone permanent political force— account of the Islamic Republic.” who wishes to know how great and how it can be harnessed —Mehran Kamrava, author of military powers fall, democracies once again for liberal ends The Impossibility of Palestine implode, and empires end.”
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particular, the actions o the United States—its support o the Kurds following the Persian Gul War, its 2003 overthrow o Saddam and subsequent occupation o Iraq, and its more recent eorts to combat in Syria—have created the conditions for the revival o Kurdish political aspirations. Washington, unintentionally and in service o its own strategic needs, has midwifed Kurdish nationalism. American military and political engagement with the Kurds began in earnest with the 1990–91 Gul War. After the Iraqi army was evicted from Kuwait, it turned its guns on the Kurds and Shiites who had responded to U.S. President George H. W. Bush’s call to rise up against Baghdad. Faced with the possibility o a humanitarian crisis, the United States, with support from France and the United Kingdom, declared a no-y zone over the Kurdish regions o northern Iraq. Protected by the no-y zone, the Iraqi Kurds were able to carve out regional au- tonomy, founding the in 1992. Iraqi Kurdistan became a bastion o pro-American sentiment in the country, especially after the United States’ invasion in 2003, promoting further U.S.-Kurdish coopera- tion. Kurdish forces allied with U.S. troops in the initial war against Saddam, and in the ensuing years, Iraqi Kurdistan provided an anchor o stability as the rest o the country descended into civil war. The founding o the provided an important psychological boost to the Kurds, not just in Iraq but across the rest o the Middle East, too. It demonstrated that Kurds could govern themselves and secure international recognition. It also began to reshape Kurdish relations with other states. Although Turkey has traditionally dis- approved o Kurdish demands for autonomy, the Turkish govern- ment under Erdogan chose not to confront the but to build political and economic links with it instead. The landlocked Iraqi Kurds needed a channel for diplomacy and commerce—especially oil exports—and Ankara was happy to provide one. In 2010, Turkey opened a consulate in the ’s capital, Erbil. Then, in 2012, the and Turkey signed a deal to construct an oil pipeline from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Mediterranean. By 2018, some 400,000 barrels o oil were reaching the Turkish port o Ceyhan every day. Ankara has provided an economic lifeline to the , granting it the breath- ing room to consolidate itsel in Iraq. For a time, Erdogan also pro¥ted domestically, as Turkish Kurds close to the ’s president, Masoud Barzani, began voting for Erdogan’s party in Turkish elections.
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Con¿dent oÈ his Kurdish bona ¿des, in 2009, Erdogan launched a domestic peace process with the £··. Yet soon, another U.S. action was to unintentionally change the Kurds’ position in the Middle East. In 2014, the Obama administra- tion began a bombing campaign to prevent Kobani, a Syrian Kurdish town on the Turkish border, from falling to ¢¢. At the time, ¢¢ had just swept through northern Iraq and Syria, capturing large stretches o territory, including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. Washington’s decision to protect Kobani elicited frenzied objections from Erdogan, since the United States would be directly supporting the Ö£³, which had close ties with the £·· in Turkey. The U.S. partnership with the Ö£³ was a battle¿eld success, and the Kurds’ eventual victory at Kobani became a turning point in the ¿ght against ¢¢. But this very success began to ring alarm bells in Ankara. For Erdogan, a U.S.-Ö£³ alliance represented a game changer for the region. What the Turkish president feared most was the emer- gence o a second ·¡³, this one in Syria. After all, the ·¡³ itsel was the product o a U.S. intervention that led to a civil war and the breakdown o central authority in Baghdad, culminating in the creation Washington, unintentionally o a federal system in Iraq, with the ·¡³ as a constituent element. With and in service of its own Syria already consumed by civil war, strategic needs, has midwifed Ankara believed that Washington was Kurdish nationalism. on the verge o repeating what it had done in Iraq—that is, transforming Syria into a federal state in which the Kurds would gain the right to govern themselves. Erdogan could not assent to federal arrangements in two neighboring countries, much less to a Syrian-Kurdish one closely linked to the £··. In 2014, Erdogan abandoned his negotia- tions with the £·· and began a policy o outright conÊict with both the Turkish and the Syrian Kurds. He sought to delegitimize all Kurdish political activity by associating it with the £··, arresting large numbers o Kurdish activists and politicians. But i the United States inadvertently disrupted Kurdish-Turkish relations, U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria, taken as a whole, has earned the Kurds an unprecedented degree o international legitimacy. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all ex- tended diplomatic recognition to the ·¡³, as well as providing it
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with economic and other forms o support. And the Syrian Kurds, previously ignored by the outside world, have been able to raise their global pro¿le thanks to their role in the ¿ght against ¢¢. This recognition has come not only from Western powers. In a draft proposal for a new Syrian constitution, put forward in 2017 through the Astana peace process, Russia suggested two important concessions to the Kurds: dropping the word “Arab” from the name Syrian Arab Republic and creating a “culturally autonomous” region in the coun- try’s northeast, where children would be educated in both Arabic and Kurdish. These concessions were rejected by Damascus, and there is no guarantee that they will ever be granted. But their inclu- sion in the Russian proposal demonstrated that despite the Syrian Kurds’ precarious position, outside powers are beginning to recognize them as an autonomous force to be reckoned with.
THE KURDISH RENAISSANCE Kurds mobilized throughout the twentieth century to win cultural autonomy and some degree o self-rule from central governments. For nearly 100 years, rebellions and resistance constituted the back- drop o ordinary Kurdish life. Now, this is changing, as Kurds have acquired governing experience—not just in the ·¡³ but also in numer- ous municipalities in Syria and Turkey. This, in turn, has caused Kurdish identity to begin to coalesce across national boundaries. So far, the Kurds’ experience in power has been fraught with prob- lems. The ·¡³, for instance, is on the path to becoming a petrostate, dependent on oil sales and beset by corruption, patronage, and the outsize power o its two leading political families, the Barzanis and the Talabanis. The political wing o the Ö£³, the Democratic Union Party, has succeeded in eciently providing services in the areas o Syria that it controls, but it has also constructed a one-party proto-state. And in Turkey, although representatives o the left-wing, Kurdish- dominated Peoples’ Democratic Party («²£) won 102 municipalities in the July 2016 elections, Erdogan has since removed 94 o them from oce. He has vowed to act similarly after the next round o municipal elections this March. Future «²£ success may even motivate Erdogan to have the party shut down by the Constitutional Court, as Turkey’s generals did to the «²£’s predecessors. But even i Kurdish self-government has not been an unalloyed success, it has been a boon for Kurdish culture and language across the
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region. This is especially true in Iraqi Kurdistan, which boasts its own Kurdish-language institutions, including schools and media organiza- tions. Despite challenges such as the existence o two distinct Kurdish dialects, which roughly correspond to the ·¡³’s political divisions— Kurmanji is spoken in areas dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, whereas Sorani is spoken in those run by the Patriotic Union o Kurdistan—the ·¡³ has established a rich Kurdish cultural environ- ment in the territory it controls. There are now hundreds o Kurdish television channels, websites, news agencies, and other cultural products, such as novels and movies. And in Syria, where for decades Damascus banned even private education in Kurdish, the Democratic Union Party has formally introduced Kurdish-language education in the areas under its control. After nearly a century o attempting to prevent the dissemination o Kurdish language and culture, central governments have now decisively lost that battle. Iraq’s Kurdish-language renaissance has in turn stimulated a renewal o Kurdish self-awareness in transnational social media and diaspora communities. The Kurdish diaspora is especially strong in Europe, to which over one million Kurds have immigrated over the past six decades—initially as guest workers and then as refugees Êeeing repres- sion. Free to organize and collaborate with other civil society groups, Europe’s Kurds have raised public awareness o Kurdish issues and put pressure on national governments in Germany, France, and the Netherlands—as well as on the § as a whole—to change their policies toward Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In this, they have been aided by the rise o Kurdish-language social media. The Êourishing o Kurdish has extended even to Iran and Turkey, where the Kurds have relatively little power. During Erdogan’s brie opening to the Kurds between 2009 and 2014, there was a prolifera- tion o Kurdish-language institutes, publications, and private schools. The resulting euphoria did not last long; by the end o 2017, almost all o these had been eliminated by Ankara, which went as far as system- atically taking down all signs in Kurdish, trac signals as well as signs for schools and municipal buildings. But not everything has been lost. Some Turkish universities still allow students to study Kurdish, and the Turkish state has created a ¤¨ channel dedicated to ocial broad- casts in Kurdish. In Iran, meanwhile, the government has, since 2015, allowed optional high school and university Kurdish-language classes in the country’s Kurdish-majority regions.
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MAKING A NATION The increasing Êuidity o physical boundaries between Kurds, the cre- ation o Kurdish-run governments such as the ·¡³, the emergence o strong diaspora communities (especially in Europe), and the rise o Kurdish-language social media and cultural products—all have com- bined to strengthen pan-Kurdish identity. Today, Kurds from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and the diaspora are all engaged in a common conversation. They do not speak in unison, but the days o Kurd-on- Kurd political violence, which Êared up in Iraq during the 1990s, are gone, in large part because the Kurdish public will not tolerate it. The Kurds have acquired all the attributes o a nation, except sovereignty. This newfound unity is reÊected in the emergence o pan-Kurdish military units. Turkish Kurds have fought with the Ö£³ in Syria, just as Syrian and Turkish Kurds have been integrated into the armed forces o the ·¡³. Diaspora Kurds have also volunteered to ¿ght, particularly with the Ö£³. The £·· commands armed forces in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria and in 2004 created an aliate in Iran. The erosion o intra-Kurdish boundaries was greatly accelerated by ¢¢’ advance through Iraq and Syria in the summer o 2014, which imperiled Kurds in both countries and fostered pan-ethnic solidarity. Faced with a genuine existential peril, the Kurds put their own fractious politics aside and appeared as one. And the more that they do so, the more they will begin to reshape the politics o the Middle East. In both Iraq and Syria, the fragility o central governments provides Kurds with an opportunity for self-rule that is still unthinkable in Iran and Turkey. This process is much further along in Iraq, where the ·¡³’s autonomy is protected by the constitution. Yet the ·¡³ is still vulnerable, as Baghdad’s reaction to the disastrous 2017 independence referendum demonstrated. In Syria, the Kurds may have an opportu- nity to reach a deal with the Assad regime that would grant them a degree o regional autonomy. Such a result is far from guaranteed, however, and a U.S. withdrawal from the country could leave the Syrian Kurds at the mercy o Damascus and Ankara. Even so, any Syrian or Turkish campaign to eliminate the Ö£³, however bloody, would engen- der a backlash among Kurds across the Middle East. Nothing builds national consciousness like a David taking on a Goliath. In Turkey, the Kurds have made a great deal o progress over the past decade, despite the recent deterioration in their relations with the central government. Erdogan’s eorts to sabotage the «²£’s electoral
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chances—imprisoning candidates, imposing media blackouts, and ha- rassing Kurdish voters—have not prevented the party from entering the Turkish parliament in three successive elections. (Many «²£ pol- iticians, including the party’s leader, Selahattin Demirtas, are even now languishing in jail.) The new Turkish constitution, passed by ref- erendum in April 2017, has transformed Turkey into a presidential system and neutered its parliament, so the «²£’s inÊuence, despite its signi¿cant number o deputies, is greatly limited. Nonetheless, the fact that the party came in third in the June 2018 elections, behind only the ruling party and the main opposition party, is an indication that the Kurdish issue has been institutionalized in Turkish politics. The «²£’s success will encourage the mobilization o Kurdish civil society and, eventually, the development o Kurdish ties with others in the Turkish opposition. And the proliferation o Kurdish organizations in Europe may help to move European attitudes toward Turkey in a more pro-Kurdish direction. It is the Turkish Kurds who, although divided between a military wing (the £··) and a political wing (the «²£), are in the best position to assume a leadership role for Kurds across the region. This is because they, unlike the other Kurdish communities, are part o a country embedded in Western institutions. Even iÈ Turkey’s practices diverge from Western norms, Turkish Kurds have bene¿ted from exposure to the values and prin- ciples associated with the West. The case o the Iranian Kurds is the most opaque, given Tehran’s strained relations with the outside world and the secretive nature o the regime itself. Yet events in other parts o Kurdistan are inÊuencing developments in Iran’s Kurdish regions. Iran has always pursued a multipronged policy toward the Kurds. Domestically, it has repressed them, including through the liberal use o capital punishment against activists. At the same time, it has forged ties with the ·¡³ in a successful eort to control Iranian Kurdish groups residing in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet as Iran ¿nds itsel overstretched in the region, its leaders worried about regime stability and the country’s worsening economy, the cen- tral government may come to see the Kurds as an even greater threat. Iranian Kurds have had little experience with self-rule, having lived for decades under a government that interferes in all aspects o daily life. But Iran, like Syria, is a brittle state. Change will start at the center. The more pan-Kurdish identity and con¿dence grow, the more likely it is that Iranian Kurds will be prepared for instability in Tehran.
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Finally, the United States remains the single most important actor when it comes to determining the future o the Kurds, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Trump may be ending the U.S. partnership with the Ö£³, but the Syrian Kurds have nonetheless bene¿ted from the relationship, as they were previously considered by outside powers to be the least important Kurdish population in the region. Now they are on the map: hours after Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from Syria, a spokesperson for the French foreign ministry claimed that France would “ensure the security” o the Syrian Kurds. Yet Washington’s move will force the Syrian Kurds to negotiate with Damascus earlier than they had planned to, and from a position o relative weakness. A full U.S. withdrawal, moreover, could cause a destabilizing scramble among regional powers in Syria, with disas- trous results for the Kurds. Concerned about these repercussions, U.S. ocials, including Secretary o State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, have warned Turkey not to intervene against the Kurds in northern Syria. Having stumbled into the Middle East’s perpetual Kurdish conundrum, the United States is ¿nding it hard to extricate itself. Washington will have to employ all its persuasive powers to ensure that the Kurds are not crushed by Ankara, Damascus, and other regional powers. That, in turn, will require a degree o interest and policy coherence not previously evident in the Trump adminis- tration. But to the extent that the United States values democracy, human rights, and minority rights, it should support Kurds across the Middle East within the existing nation-state system. Even iÈ Trump is unwilling to expend much political capital to support the Kurds, there are other centers o power and inÊuence in the United States, such as media and civil society organizations, that can do so. Whatever happens in the near future, however, there can be no going back to the status quo that obtained only a few decades ago, before the United States’ interventions in the region set the Kurds on a fundamentally new path. Despite frequent setbacks, continued repression, and over a century without a homeland, the Kurds are ¿nally emerging as a uni¿ed people. A Kurdish state may be a long way o, but i one ever does emerge, there will be a nation there to populate it.∂
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FA.indb 118 1/18/19 7:57 PM SPONSORED REPORT [www.gmipost.com] MALAYSIAThe CSS Point
REBUILDING THE NATION AND THE REGION By Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia
he 14th General Election last May was intense and Malaysians will remember it long after the settles. Not only will they remember the gruelling month-long campaign but Tmore than that, was their sel ess commitment to end the powerful Barisan Nasional’s 61-year rule. The victory de ed all the odds, something that from the outset pundits, journalists and analysts, both local and foreign, had declared nearly impossible.
On the 9th of May Malaysia is already No. not, has spoken out to 2018, Malaysians ral- 1 in the emerging mar- defend the rights of lied together to vote in kets list. weaker nations. We en- a new government, a Internationally, our deavour to be the voice government that they reputation had taken of developing countries. hoped would wash a beating because of a ‘Prosper thy neighbor’ is away all the dark and slew of cases involving the principle we adhere dirty stains left behind 1MDB (1Malaysia Devel- to, especially in a world by the previous regime. opment Berhad), whose facing many economic It was the end of a dark tentacles spread across challenges. period; a period when the continents. The pri- Our closest neighbors Malaysia was known to ority is to let the rule in ASEAN are our allies. the world as a kleptoc- of law return and pros- We admit that ASEAN racy. ecute all perpetrators of as a grouping lack the In the early hours of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Prime wrongdoing. Those who cohesiveness and the May 10th, when news Minister of Malaysia abused their position of potential to be an eco- of the victory swept ous administration was power for personal ben- nomic powerhouse. across the nation, the far greater than what efit will be brought to There are more than sense of relief was per- was believed. The gov- justice. We are serious in 600 million people in vasive. Clearly, democ- ernment’s first steps recapturing our respect- this region, yet the mar- racy had been restored involved a massive re- ability and reputation. ket is severely underuti- and restored in the best habilitation of the civil Malaysia is a trad- lized. manner possible. The service, which had be- ing nation. Trade is Close cooperation peaceful transition of come widely corrupted the main driver for our in areas that can bring power signified matu- and politicized. This was economy. Our principle about mutual benefit rity and good sense. done within the first six of being friendly to ev- must be encouraged. It was an epochal mo- months of our admin- ery nation has benefit- Industry 4.0 and the In- ment, a new begin- istration and will con- ted us since our inde- ternet of Things have ning. It meant that the tinue to be our focus in pendence in 1957. Any greatly changed the time for us to rebuild the years to come. Busi- disputes and disagree- business landscape and and re-energize our nesses will profit from ments will be resolved ASEAN cannot afford to past achievements had the eradication of cor- at the negotiation table, be left behind. Work- dawned. ruption and reduction not through conflict. ing cohesively as a unit However, stark reali- of bureaucratic delays. In terms of foreign will ultimately give a lot ties soon emerged and The private sector is relations, Malaysia has of reward in the face of it was obvious the dam- expected to grow from always been neutral trade wars and econom- age left by the previ- hereon. As I write this, and, more often than ic sanctions. Buy CSS Books Online https://cssbooks.net ? Call/SMS 03336042057
FA-MALAYSIA 2019.indd 1 18/01/2019 22:52 [Global Media Inc. / www.gmipost.com] SSPONSOREDPONSORED RREPORT
MALAYSIA Malaysia: A fresh start
en months since that the policy will ensure governance, stressing a country that is stable, historic elections the economic prosperity that it will attract more modern and progres- Tthat rocked the na- of the nation: “There will American foreign direct sive. This is a government tion’s political landscape, be no more ‘direct nego- investment to the coun- made up of very success- Malaysia, once again tiations for government try, which possesses ful and business-friendly headed by Prime Minister contracts and tenders.’ We abundant natural re- people. We, at LHAG, are Mahathir Mohamad, is want to embrace the idea sources and highly skilled doing our part to support focused on restoring the of open candor to the workers. and contribute to the transparency and rule of fullest,” he stated. AMCHAM Executive government’s push to- law to the country, which Given that the coali- Director Siobhan Das wards a better Malaysia,” was hounded by several tion is led by Mahathir said: “American compa- Partner Dato’ Nitin allegations of corruption and his erstwhile political nies have found a very Nadkarni said. during the nine-year ten- rival, Anwar Ibrahim, this exciting and coopera- Meanwhile, specialized ure of Najib Razak. new united front provides tive environment to base law firms, like Wong Jin As the Pakatan Harapan much needed reassur- themselves in the region. Nee & Teo (WJN&T) have (Alliance of Hope) coali- ance to governments and They’ve thrived, mutually identified the nation’s tion rebuilds Malaysia’s businesses, both domes- and symbiotically, with smaller companies as its reputation around the tic and foreign. Malaysia.” main clientele, mindful world, Foreign Minister The American Similarly, companies that SMEs are the foun- Saifuddin Abdullah re- Malaysian Chamber of from other parts of the dation of stable and suc- affirms Mahathir’s com- Commerce (AMCHAM) world have adopted a fa- cessful economies. mitment to transparent welcomes the fresh vorable view of Malaysia’s “Over 98% of Malaysian governance, confident commitment to open vision and choose for businesses are classified their operations to use as SMEs. They are the the country as a launch backbone of the econo- REAFFIRMING A COMMITMENT TO pad to the rest of the my. While we serve many CREATE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ASEAN region. international clients, we Amid this resurgence, do not put our own SMEs “Before the election, nobody little-known ones alike, LHAG Malaysia can resume its in the backseat because expected a change in gov- has proven to be a domestic project to build a knowl- they are the ones lack- ernment,” recalled Dato’ Nitin legal powerhouse. The firm Nadkarni, the Chairman has also widened its focus edge-based economy ing in services. We need of the Partners’ Committee outside the country as it taps and prepare for so-called to help them move up and Head of the Energy, its strong regional network to Industry 4.0. the value chain. We help Infrastructure & Projects, assist Malaysian clients want- Among those gearing educate them and make and International Arbitration ing to expand their businesses up the Fourth Industrial them realize the impor- Practice at the Malaysian law abroad. firm Lee Hishammuddin Meanwhile, the firm’s Revolution are the coun- tance of intellectual prop- Allen & Gledhill (LHAG). leaders have cited the cur- try’s law firms, which are erty,” Founding Partner Tracing its origins back rent government’s business- contributing to building Teo Bong Kwang said. more than a century, LHAG friendly approach to gover- the knowledge-based As Malaysia steps up its has nurtured a reputation for nance and its commitment excellence and expertise in to economic development as economy by providing efforts to regain its eco- dispute resolution, interna- positive steps towards creat- their partners with further nomic strength and move tional arbitration, tax, employ- ing a level playing field for big education and training. towards Industry 4.0, ment and industrial relations, ticket projects and opening Multi-disciplinary both the private and pub- and corporate law, while stay- the market to more foreign in- practices, like Lee lic sector have increased ing above the political fray, a vestment. notable achievement given “Malaysia’s current lead- Hishammuddin Allen their investment in im- Malaysia’s colonial and post- ers are business-oriented. & Gledhill (LHAG), have proving their technology, colonial history. Mahathir himself has a track adopted this strategy in developing entrepreneur- “We positioned ourselves record emphasizing economic order to offer extensive ship and providing work- as a professional law firm. And development. As a firm, we finding sustained success re- would like to take advantage services and in-depth ex- ers with the new skills re- gardless of who is in power of the coming growth - if not pertise to all their clients. quired by a another gen- speaks to the strength of our immediately, certainly in the “We want to develop eration of businesses. practice,” Nadkarni said. long term,” Partner Kumar a system that is not just Starting off as a semi- Consistently enlisted to Kanagasingam said. for us, but for the future conductor manufacturer handle high-profile cases and www.lh-ag.com of our youth. We want in the mid-1990s, when
FA-MALAYSIA 2019.indd 2 18/01/2019 22:52 SPONSORED REPORT [Global Media Inc. / www.gmipost.com] The CSS Point Malaysia was dubbed as offers funding for early having to turn its back on Electronic retail chain.
one of Asia’s Tiger Cub stage start-ups to de- cherished Islamic values. “We have grown be- MALAYSIA Economies, SilTerra was velop Malaysia’s tech en- In doing so, the company cause of the partnerships synonymous with innova- trepreneurship. Since its is able to provide a fresh that we have formed tion. More than three de- incorporation under the perspective about the throughout the years. cades later, the company Ministry of Finance in world view of Islamic-led We designed our own remains at the forefront 2003, the fund has helped businesses. brand, Vinnfier, and of its sector because of more than 900 local start- “Our company’s main also designed products its ability to quickly adapt ups and has achieved the goal is not necessarily for the own distribution to the ever-changing de- highest commercializa- to benefit from our busi- of other brands. These mands of the industry. tion rate of all similar gov- nesses, but to provide relationships we have Today, the Malaysian ernment initiatives. services to others. Profits formed are built on trust. company, with offices Among the world’s come when they come. In Southeast Asia, we also in Taiwan and Silicon fastest growing markets, Our success has stemmed have become experts,” Valley, develops emerging Malaysia highlights its from putting the needs VinnPower Executive technologies, like silicon various races, cultures, of others before our Director Alan Wong said. photonics and advanced languages and religions own,” GISB CEO Lokman As the Mahathir-led co- power, which go into bio- as an advantage to for- Hakim Pfordten said. alition completes its first sensors, DNA sequencing eign companies looking Among the top ten year in government, the chips, micro-mirror dis- for a base of operations in home-grown distribution world remains highly en- plays, and high efficiency Southeast Asia. brands in Malaysia and a thusiastic about the tra- power devices, among One company in par- major distributor of au- jectory of the economy, others. ticular, Global Ikwhan dio goods in Southeast still confident that the na- The Malaysian govern- Service & Business Asia, VinnPower has tion will regain its status ment has continued its (GISB) Holdings, has expanded rapidly in as an important, credible support for initiatives shown that it is possible the past eight years voice in the region grap- like the Cradle Fund Sdn to thrive in an increas- and has found its prod- pling with many chal- Bhd, which brings to- ingly globalized business ucts on the shelves of lenges, both geopolitical gether tech experts and environment without the Hypermarket and and economic.
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FA-MALAYSIA 2019.indd 3 18/01/2019 22:52 [Global Media Inc. / www.gmipost.com] SSPONSOREDPONSORED RREPORT SilTerra: De ning tomorrow in Malaysia today
MALAYSIA lobally ranked 16th by Gartner in the pure-play found- develop their dreams into innovative new products. SilTerra ries category, SilTerra clearly punches above its weight. is now looking forward to stepping up its role in Malaysia and GOriginally set up in 1995 as a semiconductor manu- playing our part in developing a vibrant high-tech ecosystem facturer in line with then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir for the nation,” CEO Firdaus Abdullah said. Mohamad’s Second Industrial Master Plan, the company has www.silterra.com since expanded into advanced microelectronics. By focusing on emerging technologies such as silicon pho- tonics, MEMS and advanced power, SilTerra has helped its cus- tomers to develop innovative products like bio-sensors, DNA sequencing chips, micro-mirror displays, high e ciency power devices and ultra-low power chips for the IOT, and wearables. Supporting e orts in the life sciences, healthcare and automo- tive markets, SilTerra also manages to meet green technology standards in the transportation, data-center and communica- tions industries. SilTerra’s emergence as a top company in its industry is the result of years of developing local skills and nurturing strategic partnerships with universities and organizations such as imec, the Belgium-based leading research institute in nanoelectron- ics. SilTerra’s customers include innovative start-ups and glob- SilTerra ensures that its customers receive only the highest al tech giants LG, Sony and Qualcomm that provide chips to quality wafers. brand names like Amazon and Google. One California-based start-up was acquired for $1.2 billion after enlisting SilTerra to launch its DNA Sequencing Chip. “Through SilTerra’s own transformation, we have been able to collaborate with emerging companies around the world to
FA-MALAYSIA 2019.indd 4 18/01/2019 22:52 Return to Table of Contents The CSS Point
The New Containment Handling Russia, China, and Iran Michael Mandelbaum
he quarter century following the Cold War was the most peace- ful in modern history. The world’s strongest powers did not T¿ght one another or even think much about doing so. They did not, on the whole, prepare for war, anticipate war, or conduct negotia- tions and political maneuvers with the prospect o war looming in the background. As U.S. global military hegemony persisted, the possibility o developed nations ¿ghting one another seemed ever more remote. Then history began to change course. In the last several years, three powers have launched active eorts to revise security arrangements in their respective regions. Russia has invaded Crimea and other parts o Ukraine and has tried covertly to destabilize European democracies. China has built arti¿cial island fortresses in international waters, claimed vast swaths o the western Paci¿c, and moved to organize Eurasia economically in ways favorable to Beijing. And the Islamic Republic o Iran has expanded its inÊuence over much o Iraq, Leba- non, Syria, and Yemen and is pursuing nuclear weapons. This new world requires a new American foreign policy. Fortunately, the country’s own not-so-distant past can oer guidance. During the Cold War, the United States chose to contain the Soviet Union, success- fully deterring its military aggression and limiting its political inÊuence for decades. The United States should apply containment once again, now to Russia, China, and Iran. The contemporary world is similar enough to its mid-twentieth-century predecessor to make that old strat- egy relevant but dierent enough that it needs to be modi¿ed and up- dated. While success is not guaranteed, a new containment policy oers the best chance to defend American interests in the twenty-¿rst century.
MICHAEL MANDELBAUM is Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth (Oxford University Press, 2019), from which this essay is adapted.
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FA.indb 123 1/18/19 7:57 PM Michael Mandelbaum
Now as before, the possibility o armed conÊict exerts a major in- Êuence on the foreign policies o the United States and countries throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The Cold War divided the world into rival camps, with regions and even countries split in two. Today, similar cleavages are developing, with each revisionist power seeking its own sphere o inÊuence separate from the larger U.S.-backed global order. Now as before, the revisionist powers are dictatorships that challenge American values as well as American interests. They seek to overturn political, military, and economic arrangements the United States helped establish long ago and has supported ever since. Should Vladimir Putin’s Russia succeed in reasserting control over parts o the former Soviet Union, Xi Jinping’s China gain control over maritime commerce in the western Paci¿c, or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Iran dominate the oil reserves o the Persian Gulf, the United States, its allies, and the global order they uphold would suer a major blow. But today’s circumstances dier from those o the past in several important ways. During most o the Cold War, Washington con- fronted a single powerful opponent, the Soviet Union—the leader o the international communist movement. Now it must cope with three separate adversaries, each largely independent o the other two. Russia and China cooperate, but they also compete with each other. And while both have good relations with Iran, both also have large and potentially restive Muslim populations, giving them reason to worry about the growth o Iranian power and inÊuence. Cold War containment was a single global undertaking, implemented regionally. Contemporary containment will involve three separate regional initiatives, imple- mented in coordination. The Soviet Union, moreover, presented a strong ideological challenge, devoted as it was to advancing not just Moscow’s geopolitical interests but also its communist principles. Neither Russia nor China has such a crusading ideology today. Russia has abandoned communism com- pletely, and China has done so partially, retaining the notion o party supremacy but shedding most o the economics and the messianic zeal. And although the Islamic Republic represents a cause and not just a stretch o territory, the potential appeal o its ideology is largely limited to the Muslim world and, primarily, its Shiite minority. None o today’s revisionist powers possesses the Soviet Union’s fearsome military capabilities. Russia is a shrunken version o its older
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Eye in the sky: a U.S. Navy helicopter in the South China Sea, October 2015 sel militarily, and Iran lacks formidable modern military forces. China’s economic growth may ultimately allow it to match the United States in all strategic dimensions and pose a true peer threat, but to date, Beijing is concentrating on developing forces to exclude the United States from the western Pacic, not to project power globally. Moreover, the initiatives each has launched so far—Russia’s seizure o Crimea and Middle East meddling, China’s island building, Iran’s regional subver- sion—have been limited probes rather than all-out assaults on the existing order. Lastly, the Soviet Union was largely detached from the U.S.-centered global economy during the Cold War, whereas today’s revisionist pow- ers are very much a part o it. Russia and Iran have relatively small economies and export mostly energy, but China has the world’s second- U.S.
NAVY largest economy, with deep, wide, and growing connections to coun- tries everywhere. / REUTERS Economic interdependence will complicate containment. China, for example, may be a political and military rival, but it is also a cru- cial economic partner. The United States depends on China to nance
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its de¿cits. China depends on the United States to buy its exports. Containment in Asia will thus require other policies as well, because although a Chinese military collapse would enhance Asian security, a Chinese economic collapse would bring economic disaster. Together, these dierences make today’s containment a less urgent challenge than its Cold War predecessor. The United States does not have to deal with a single mortal threat from a country committed to remaking the entire world in its own image. It must address three serious but lesser challenges, mounted by countries seeking not heaven on earth but greater regional power and autonomy. But i today’s chal- lenges are less epic, they are far more complicated. The old contain- ment was simple, i not easy. The new containment will have to blend a variety o policies, carefully coordinated with one another in design and execution. This will tax the ingenuity and Êexibility o the United States and its allies.
STRONGER TOGETHER As during the Cold War, containment today requires American military deployments abroad. In Europe, ground troops are needed to deter Russian aggression. The Putin regime has already sent forces into Georgia and Ukraine. The United States is committed to protecting its ¦¯¤¥ allies. These include the Baltic states, tiny countries on Russia’s border. By defending them, the United States could encounter some o the same diculties it did defending West Berlin, including, in the worst case, having to decide whether to bring nuclear weapons into play rather than accept military defeat. East Asia requires a robust U.S. naval presence to fend o China’s campaign to dominate the western Paci¿c. The United States is com- mitted to protecting allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan and maintaining open sea-lanes, and it conducts what it calls “freedom- of-navigation operations” in international waters newly claimed by China to make clear that the rest o the world does not accept Chinese claims and Chinese dominance there. And in the Middle East, American naval and air forces are needed to safeguard shipments o Persian Gul oil to Europe and Asia and to support a successful rollback o the Iranian nuclear program, should that become necessary. American troops on the ground are not re- quired; it is local forces that must check Iranian eorts at regional subversion (which are carried out by local militias).
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Diplomatically, Washington needs to maintain or assemble broad coalitions oÈ local powers to oppose each revisionist challenge. In Europe, ¦¯¤¥ was created to carry out this very mission and so should be the pillar o the United States’ strategy there. In Asia and the Middle East, the “hub and spoke” pattern o American Cold War al- liances still exists, even as regional powers have begun to collaborate among themselves. Working with partners exploits Washington’s greatest strength: its ability to attract allies and create powerful coalitions against isolated opponents. Coordinating with other countries also endows American foreign policy with a legitimacy it would otherwise lack, showing that the United States is not simply acting for itselÈ but defending broad principles o international order that many others support. The dependence o the revisionists on access to the global economy gives the United States and its coalition partners a potential source o leverage. Washington and its allies have tried to exploit this through sanctions on Russia for its invasion o Ukraine, taris on China for its trade practices, and sanctions on Iran for its nuclear weapons program. But interdependence cuts both ways. Russia has tried to pressure Ukraine by restricting Ukrainian access to Russian energy. China has placed targeted embargoes on Japan and Norway to express displeasure with speci¿c Japanese and Norwegian policies. Moreover, economic instruments have at best a mixed record in achieving political goals; the broader the sanctioning coalition is, the greater its impact will be.
MAKING IT OFFICIAL The prospect o a twenty-¿rst-century triple containment strategy raises several questions. Since the United States is already doing much o what is required, how much change in American foreign policy is needed? Is it necessary or feasible to confront all three revisionist powers at once? And how does all this end? As for the ¿rst, explicitly committing the United States to contain- ment would build on many existing policies while reframing them as part o a coherent national strategy rather than the products o inertia or inattention. A public commitment to containment would enhance the credibility o American deterrence and lower the chance o oppor- tunistic attacks by opponents hoping for easy gains (as happened in Korea in 1950 and Iraq in 1990). That, in turn, would reassure actual and potential allies and increase their willingness to join the eort.
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Adopting containment as a strategic frame would also help restrain Washington’s occasional impulses to do more (try to transform other societies) or less (retreat from global engagement altogether). As for confronting all three at once, geopolitical logic and historical experience suggest that reducing the number o threats is the best course, as the United States did by joining with the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis and then aligning with Mao Zedong’s China to defeat the Soviet Union. Post-Soviet Russia would have been a natural partner for the West. But Moscow was needlessly alienated from its logical geopolitical partnership by ¦¯¤¥ expansion, which brought foreign armies to its doorstep over its objections. At this point, all three revi- sionist regimes rely for domestic support on nationalist hostility to the United States speci¿cally and Western democracies more generally and reject being part o a U.S.-led coalition. Fortunately, Russia is much weaker than the Soviet Union, China is restrained by both de- terrence and the knowledge that military conÊict would damage its economy, and Iran is a regional power. So the United States can aord to pursue the containment o all three simultaneously (so long as it does so as part o robust coalitions). Cold War containment was an open-ended policy with a hoped-for eventual outcome. The same will be true for the new version: the policy should continue as long as the threats it is intended to counter continue, and ideally it will end similarly. Constructive regime change, for example, especially the advent o democracy, would alter the foreign policy orientations o the revisionist powers. Such a change would have to come about through internal processes and is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Still, none o the regimes can be con¿dent o its lon- gevity; repeated outbreaks o political turbulence over the years have shown that each faces signi¿cant domestic opposition, maintains itsel in power through coercion, and fears its people rather than trusts them. Situations like that can shift rapidly. A well-executed policy o containment could increase the chances o disruption by creating an external context that would encourage it. But when or, indeed, i it would bear fruit is impossible to predict.
BEWARE OF FREE RIDERS The biggest obstacles to a new policy o containment come, ironically, not from the powers being contained but from the countries doing the containing. The United States needs to relearn how to manage dura-
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ble coalitions o allies and persuade its own citizenry that the exercise o global leadership is still worth the eort required. Coalitions are dicult to manage in the best o circumstances. It was hard to hold the Western alliance together during the Cold War, even though it faced a single powerful threat. Building and main- taining comparable coalitions today, confronted by diverse smaller threats, will be more dicult still. In Europe, although all countries are wary o Russia, some are more so than others. Coalitions are di§cult Those closest to Russia’s borders most to manage in the best of strongly support an enhanced Western circumstances. military presence. Years o crisis over Europe’s common currency, meanwhile, have taken a political toll, increased intra-European tensions, and made cooperation o all kinds more dicult. The continuing Brexit drama will only com- pound the problems. In Asia, the Philippines and South Korea have sometimes taken a more benign view o Chinese power than other countries in the region. And among those agreeing on the need to check Chinese ambitions (including Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan), developing common policies is dicult because they are an amorphous, heterogeneous group. In the Middle East, crucial American allies, such as Qatar (which hosts a U.S. air base) and Saudi Arabia, are sharply at odds. The gov- ernment oÈ Turkey, a member o ¦¯¤¥, identi¿es with the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt and Saudi Arabia regard as a mortal enemy. Ironically, the one unproblematic member o the anti-Iran coalition is Israel, a country that for decades was anathematized as the root o all the problems in the Middle East but that is now recognized as a de- pendable counterweight to Persian power. All coalitions encounter free-rider problems, and the dominant members usually pay more than their fair share o the costs involved. So it will be with the new containment. The imbalance will be most glaring in Europe, where a tradition oÈ letting Washington carry much o the burden o collective defense has persisted for too long; it origi- nated when U.S. allies were weak and poor but continued even after they became strong and rich. During the Cold War, every American president tried, without much success, to get European countries to pay more for ¦¯¤¥, but none pushed the issue hard because the prior- ity was to maintain a common front against the Soviet threat. There
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may be a lower tolerance for such free-riding today, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments make clear. The Asian countries wary o China have increased their spending on defense. Still, the United States is destined to take the lead in op- posing China because the most pressing threat the People’s Republic presents is a maritime one—one that requires major naval forces to contest, o the kind that only the United States commands. In the Middle East, Israel has capable armed forces. Saudi Arabia has purchased expensive military hardware from the United States but has not demonstrated the capacity to use it eectively. Turkey has a formidable military, but the present Turkish government cannot be counted on to use it to contain Iran.
WILL AMERICA LEAD? The weakest link in the chain may be the most powerful country itself. There are reasons to expect the American public to support a leading role in the containment o Russia, China, and Iran. The United States has a long history with such a foreign policy. The approach has geopo- litical logic behind it, promising to protect American interests in crucial parts o the world at a reasonable price. But there are also reasons for skepticism. Today’s threats appear less urgent, coping with them will be more complicated, and the country’s attitude toward foreign en- tanglements has understandably soured over the last two decades. The United States was pulled into both world wars by external attacks, and Americans gave their support to a foreign policy o global reach during the Cold War because they were persuaded it would head o yet another world war. After the Soviet collapse, many o the Cold War arrangements persisted through inertia and gained support because they seemed to entail little expense or risk. Now that the expenses and risks o such a policy have increased, many Americans may reconsider their support. The skepticism has deepened because o the county’s recent misad- ventures abroad. The interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya turned out poorly, and the public has little taste for more. This view has much to recommend it. But it need not threaten the prospects o a new containment, because that course is quite dierent from the failed crusades o recent decades. Those involved eorts to transform the internal politics and economies o weak states. Containment in- volves the opposite, checking the external conduct o strong states. I
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national leaders can appreciate and explain the dierence, they may be able to bring the public along. The resurgence o populism, ¿nally, makes any such project more dicult. The essence o populism is hostility to elites, and the design and conduct o foreign policy are elite activities. The foreign policy establishment favors a robust American role in the world. That may be a good enough reason for antiestablishment rebels, including the populist in chie now residing in the White House, to oppose one. So the future direction o American foreign policy is unclear. Wash- ington might forgo leading coalitions to contain the three revisionist powers, in which case their strength will increase. Emboldened by the American abdication, they may grow aggressive and try to coerce their neighbors. Those neighbors currently rely on the American nuclear arsenal to protect them; i they come to doubt the credibility o Amer- ican security guarantees, they may follow Israel and opt to develop or acquire their own arsenals in order to protect themselves. An American retreat would thus make the world more dangerous and nuclear pro- liferation more likely. Thanks to the size, geography, and power o the United States, Americans for many generations have been able to pay less attention to American foreign policy than have the citizens o other countries, whose lives and fortunes that policy has more immediately and directly aected. Should the country turn decisively away from its global role and allow the revisionist challenges to advance unchecked, however, Americans’ happy detachment from the world beyond their borders may disappear. And by the time they realize what they need to protect, it may be too late to do so without great diculty and high cost.∂
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Educate to Liberate Open Societies Need Open Minds Carla Norrlof
populist wave is sweeping the Western world. In Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and the United States, populist parties A and candidates have entered the government. In France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, they have won record levels o support and reshaped the political landscape. What makes these victories so disturbing is the charac- teristic that unites all populists: their rejection oÈ liberal values. I the world once seemed to be moving inexorably toward greater political and economic freedom, human dignity, tolerance, equality, nondis- crimination, open markets, and international cooperation, all are now under threat. That is bad enough, but the decline oÈ liberalism will have consequences beyond a few individual countries. Because the countries that uphold the liberal international order, especially the United States, are turning against liberalism, they risk under- mining the order they built, ushering in a more antagonistic and dangerous world. Politicians and pundits have suggested many dierent responses to the populist phenomenon: reducing inequality, protecting major in- dustries from international trade, curbing immigration. But these are all indirect solutions. The best way to counter the populist trend is to address the underlying problem head-on, by fostering more liberal attitudes. There is a lot o evidence that the best way to promote lib- eral values is by giving more people more education. In every place where populism is surging, the main determinant o whether someone holds liberal values is his or her level o education. Higher education emphasizes equality, tolerance, and critical thinking; those without access to it are far more likely to oppose liberal values and practices.
CARLA NORRLOF is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.
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Since the 1990s, American college graduates have held more lib- eral positions than nongraduates on a wide range o issues. But simply sending more people to college is only the ¿rst step. To truly instill liberal values throughout society, universities will also have to live up to those values themselves—rooting out discrimina- tion, overturning traditional academic hierarchies, and breaking up networks o power and patronage that too often keep the connected in and the deserving out.
THE ILLIBERAL THREAT In the seven decades after World War II, the United States created and then sustained the liberal international order, a system character- ized by individual freedom, open markets, and fairly peaceful interna- tional relations. It was upheld by an interlocking network o institutions and alliances and undergirded by the United States’ brute military force. All 12 U.S. presidents during this era, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, supported the order. The system was built on the principles o economic and political freedom. Secure property rights and unrestricted Êows o goods, services, and capital have formed its economic backbone. Its found- ers wanted to free people from government oppression, coercion, and discrimination. So Western governments have focused on the need to combat human rights abuses and promote democracy. But they have spent far less time worrying about ethnic and religious discrimination, especially in developed countries. That is a mistake. IÈ left to fester, such discrimination poses a serious threat to the liberal international order. It undermines the principle o equality and allows illiberal populists to sur into oce, where they weaken democracy and the order itself. No one exempli¿es that trend better than U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump’s hostility to liberalism goes way back. Long before he started campaigning, Trump pushed the racist conspiracy theory that Obama was born outside the United States. During his campaign kicko, in 2015, he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and promised to build a wall along the United States’ southern border. He later shared inaccurate and racist crime statistics on Twitter and called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump doesn’t just reject liberal values; he rejects the liberal order, too. On the campaign trail, he called ¦¯¤¥ “obsolete,” suggested he
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might abandon U.S. allies in East Asia, and threatened to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, and the Trans-Paci¿c Partnership. Like his fellow right-wing populists in Europe, Trump looks at the postwar foreign policy consensus with disdain and advocates instead that countries shut their borders to foreign goods, clamp down on press freedom, curb immigration, and preserve traditional ethnic, re- ligious, and gender hierarchies. Since taking oce, Trump has made good on many oÈ his prom- ises. Within his ¿rst week, he issued an executive order suspending the entry o people from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. Since then, he has shunned mul- Trump doesn’t just reject tilateralism by withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Paci¿c Partner- liberal values; he rejects the ship and the Paris climate agreement, liberal order, too. launched a trade war, crippled the World Trade Organization by blocking the appointment o new judges to its Dispute Settlement Body, failed to act after Saudi Arabia murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and imposed punitive secondary sanctions on European companies doing business with Iran after withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. Most worrying for the global economy, the Trump administration has drafted a new trade bill, the United States Fair and Reciprocal Tari Act, that would allow the president to raise taris unilaterally. That would blow up the world trading system by violating two o the World Trade Organization’s basic principles: non- discrimination (the idea that the same taris apply to everyone, un- less free-trade agreements supersede them) and tari binding (the understanding that taris will not exceed pre-agreed maximums). Trump has also followed through on his rejection oÈ liberal values. He has expressed a wish that the United States take in more immi- grants from countries such as Norway rather than from Africa; pushed Congress to build a wall on the southern border; failed to distance himsel from white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia; and instituted, and then reversed, a policy o separating immigrant children from their parents. In area after area, the United States has started to abandon the liberal values it once touted. I this continues, the liberal international order will face a grim future. Openness to foreign goods and people
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The old college try: at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, November 2015 will be replaced by discriminatory trade and immigration practices. I the Trump administration continues to undermine the global trading system, American workers will be the biggest losers. More expensive imports will hurt household budgets, and as sales fall, companies will lay o workers. Retaliatory taris on U.S. goods will hurt exporters, too. I a trade war gets out o control, the dollar could lose its position as the global reserve currency. That would cost the United States the vast benets in trade, nance, and security it currently derives from its status as the world’s banker. As the U.S. economy suers, Wash- ington will have to spend a larger share o on the military. And i the Trump administration continues to alienate U.S. allies, they may form rival power blocs to compete with the United States rather than cooperate with it. That would usher in a more unpredictable, treach- erous world order. SHANNON STAPLETON Making matters worse, other countries are following Trump’s lead in turning their backs on liberalism. They are moving away from an emphasis on identities people can achieve through ingenuity and hard work to ones they can’t or won’t change, such as skin color or religion. The result will be a less meritocratic, more discriminatory / REUTERS world. That will have profound consequences for the liberal interna- tional order, because a country that is preoccupied with racial and religious hierarchies is more likely to close its borders to foreign capital,
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goods, and people and to downplay the role o collective action in achieving national security. Such countries are more likely to think in zero-sum terms.
IT’S IDENTITY, STUPID Trump’s attacks on the liberal order have centered on economic glob- alization. Because in his campaign, Trump so eectively harnessed the resentment Americans felt toward foreign goods and workers, many commentators have explained his success—and the broader populist phenomenon—as a backlash against globalization. But the populist trend is not easily accounted for by economics. In the United States, the gap between rich and poor has been rising since the 1970s without a populist backlash until now. Economic dislocation did account for some oÈ Trump’s appeal, but his support can be much better explained by education and race. Nationally, voters without college degrees backed Trump by eight points, while those with degrees voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, by nine points. That was a major change from the previous presidential election, when there was little dierence between the two groups. Among white voters, the gap was even wider: whites without a college education went for Trump by a 39-point margin; those with a college education voted for him by just a four-point margin. The only demographic factor that mattered more than education was race. White voters went for Trump by a 20-point margin. Non- whites went for Clinton by 53 points. Income did not have the same predictive power as education. Lower-income voters (those with an- nual incomes below $50,000) favored Clinton by a 12-point margin. Middle-income voters (those who earned between $50,000 and $99,999) favored Trump by a three-point margin. And upper-income voters split evenly between the two. Even in places that were struggling economically, identity often overrode economics. In the Rust Belt, for example, where voters had every reason to revolt over their economic lot, it was white Americans who voted for Trump, not poor Americans. Lower-income voters in the Midwest chose Clinton over Trump by a six-point margin. Mid- dle-income voters and upper-income voters favored Trump by a 12-point margin and an eight-point margin, respectively. Although in recent years, the median income among whites in the Midwest has grown slightly faster than the median income o all other ethnic
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groups in the region (except Asians), white voters supported Trump over Clinton by an 18-point margin, while nonwhite voters supported Clinton over Trump by a 54-point margin. Midwestern white voters were slightly more likely to support Trump than whites in the country as a whole (by two points), and Midwestern nonwhite voters were slightly more likely to support Clinton than their national counter- parts (by one point). Moreover, ¿nancial hardship is dicult to disen- tangle from concerns about identity. A salary cut or a job loss can cause someone to cling more tightly to other forms o social dieren- tiation, such as race or nationality. Education has proved important in elections outside the United States, as well. In the 2018 Swedish election, for example, 35 per- cent o voters without a high school degree and 27 percent o those with only a high school degree supported the populist right-wing Sweden Democrats, compared with just nine percent o those with a college degree. The political scientist Anders Sannerstedt has shown that the link between education and populism persists even when income is accounted for. In France, President Emmanuel Ma- cron defeated the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in 2017 by winning in highly educated districts. He won 84 percent o the vote in the top ten percent o townships by education level. In the bot- tom decile, he won only 53 percent. After the 2017 Dutch general election, a survey by the Financial Times showed that education lev- els correlated negatively with support for Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom. A separate Financial Times survey showed the same was true o support for Brexit in the United Kingdom. A similar trend is emerging in Germany, although education is a less clear predictor o populist support there. Some academics have argued that the populist wave reÊects voters’ concerns about eroding national sovereignty. In Trump’s case, this shows up in his opposition to illegal immigration. In the United King- dom, supporters o Brexit wanted to “take back control” o their country. But concerns about sovereignty are often really about race or nation- ality. Just as Europeans’ discontent with the § often manifests itsel in xenophobia—think o the stereotypes o spendthrift Greeks and austere Germans—it is impossible to miss the racial overtones in the U.S. immigration debate. When destitute emigrants from Scandinavian countries moved to the United States in the late nineteenth century, the blue-eyed visitors were largely welcomed. Today, Trump rejects
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Mexican immigrants as dangerous and sneers at African immigrants from what he reportedly called “shithole countries.” In short, the best way to understand the rise o right-wing popu- lism is as a rejection oÈ liberal values. And the best way to ¿ght it is not to search for economic answers or to try to assuage voters’ concerns about sovereignty but to instill those liberal values as widely as possible throughout society.
EDUCATION’S EFFECTS That means focusing on education. Although the educational divide started to matter in national politics only recently, researchers have long found that the more educated a person is, the more likely he or she is to adopt liberal social views. What accounts for that correlation is less apparent. Some argue that more liberals go to college in the ¿rst place, although there isn’t much evidence for that. Others emphasize education’s direct role in teaching rational thinking and changing attitudes. What’s clear is that higher education militates against simplistic thinking, undermines stereotypes, opens people up to other points o view, and encourages them to tolerate social dierences. In the United States, according to polls by the Pew Research Cen- ter, a college education increasingly correlates with sympathy for the Democratic Party. According to those polls, in 1994, 39 percent o those with a four-year college degree identi¿ed with or leaned toward the Democratic Party, and 54 percent identi¿ed with or leaned toward the Republican Party. Today, those ¿gures are reversed. Given the Democratic Party’s growing association with liberal values, the parti- san eect o education goes some way toward demonstrating universi- ties’ liberalizing eect. Attending college does more than increase people’s tendency to aliate with the Democratic Party. It also makes people more likely to tolerate dierent political views. College-educated liberals have warmer attitudes toward conservatives than non-college-educated lib- erals do. The same is true o conservatives’ attitudes toward liberals. More education could possibly ease the current crisis o polarization. On top o its liberalizing eect, higher education also seems to lead people to support the economic policies, such as free trade and high levels o immigration, that form the foundation o the global economic order. There’s also some evidence o a correlation between higher
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education and direct support for the liberal international order. In a 2013 survey o nine countries (not including the United States), peo- ple with college educations were between 24 percentage points (in Turkey) and ten percentage points (in the United Kingdom) more likely to support the ¦ than those without college degrees. Regardless o whether overall support was high, as in Germany, or low, as in Pakistan, the educational divide persisted. It’s possible that’s in part because a college education equips people for jobs that aren’t subject to competition from foreign workers, immigrants, or robots, so college graduates have less rea- son to oppose international Êows o goods and people. But that would not explain why graduates hold more liberal positions in areas unrelated to the ¿nancial bene¿ts o the liberal international order, such as freedom o speech, which, according to polling by Gallup, is supported by 73 percent o American college students but only 56 percent o all American adults. Given education’s liberalizing eect, the ¿rst step in promoting liberal values should be expanding access to education. Countries should dedicate more resources to their universities and give more people access to them. The U.S. government spends less than one percent o ³²£ on higher education, putting the United States 21st on that score within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2015. It lagged behind not only European countries, such as Norway (1.7 percent), but also emerging economies, such as Costa Rica (1.6 percent) and Turkey (1.2 percent). The United States makes up for its lack o public spending by having the highest level o private spending on higher education. But it still ranks only ¿fth in terms o the share o adults with college degrees. (Canada, where in 2017, 57 percent o adults had attended college, ranks ¿rst.)
FIXING HIGHER EDUCATION Sending more people to college is important, but the inÊuence o higher education matters beyond the raw number o students. Since elites in almost every section o society have college degrees, univer- sities have an outsize eect on culture, politics, the economy, science, and public policy. Throughout history, education has promoted liberal attitudes, but it hasn’t done so consistently. Independent thought and deference to au- thority have always coexisted uneasily in higher learning. From Plato’s
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philosopher kings, to the emergence oÈ higher education under the inÊuence o Christianity in the eleventh century, to the Enlighten- ment o the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to today, entrenched hierarchies and stale dogmas have always interfered with the search for truth. To cultivate an enlightened society, higher education needs to get serious about upholding liberal values. Many institutions oÈ higher learning pledge to act as vanguards oÈ liberalism in their mission statements. Beneath the surface, however, they look very dierent. For starters, although almost all universities in Canada and the United States commit themselves to nondiscrimination, the acad- emy is rummaging in the dark when it comes to understanding and ¿ghting for it. Explicit racism and religious intolerance are now thankfully rare. But many people with higher levels o education show other racist tendencies, particularly toward blacks, such as making negative assumptions about them, discounting their exper- tise, excluding them from professional opportunities, and retaliating against them. Even when universities recognize the problem, rigid hierarchies can prevent them from holding people accountable. In some ways, the system is set up for failure. Universities and profes- sional associations rely on fellow academics to adjudicate grievances. But it’s absurd to ask peers who may be seeking a research connec- tion, publishing opportunities, or a job with the alleged perpetrator to determine wrongdoing. Problems also arise because discrimination is rarely public; rather, it takes place behind the scenes, making it hard to document. Most administrative activities in academic departments, such as assess- ments o scholarly work and the decisions oÈ hiring and promotion committees, operate under codes o strict con¿dentiality, further complicating eorts to document bias. I academics truly want to ¿ght discrimination, they shouldn’t look for a smoking gun; they should ask whether a similar person from a dierent race or religion would have suered similarly. Universities are also stiÊingly hierarchical. Senior administrators reÊexively stand by those below them, so academics who allow dis- crimination to persist are usually supported all the way up the chain. And they can easily take cover under the principle o academic freedom, which often comes into conÊict with that o freedom from discrimina- tion. There’s an easy ¿x for this: hold senior administrators accountable
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whenever lower-level ocials fail to prevent discrimination. Finally, universities must put an end to the clubby attitude that excludes far too many people from professional opportunities. Ex- clusive networks, especially those within predominantly ethnically or religiously homogeneous groups, subvert norms o equal treat- ment and opportunity. They encourage their members to close ranks when challenged, making it nearly impossible to end discriminatory practices. Even scholars who are not trying to circle the wagons have a hard time imagining someone they know, like, and respect acting in a discriminatory way. Things are moving in the right direction. Within the American Po- litical Science Association, the leading professional organization o academic political scientists, for example, minority representation is far higher among those under 24 (34 percent) than it is among those over 75 (¿ve percent). But there is still a long way to go. Lack o inclu- sion is not just a generational problem, and institutions cannot police diversity into existence. Academics, senior administrators, professional associations, and journal editors, however, can all do more to encour- age it, by holding minorities to the same standards as everyone else. By broadening access to higher education and living up to the liberal values in which they claim to believe, universities have a chance to help save those values in society at large. That will play a crucial role in preserving the liberal international order. It’s not enough for citizens and policymakers to defend democracy and eco- nomic openness. The order cannot survive in societies that allow discrimination to go unchecked.∂
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Less Than Zero Can Carbon-Removal Technologies Curb Climate Change? Fred Krupp, Nathaniel Keohane, and Eric Pooley
ost Americans used to think about climate change—to the extent that they thought about it at all—as an abstract Mthreat in a distant future. But more and more are now see- ing it for what it is: a costly, human-made disaster unfolding before their very eyes. A wave o increasingly destructive hurricanes, heat spells, and wild¿res has ravaged communities across the United States, and both scientists and citizens are able to connect these ex- treme events to a warming earth. Seven in ten Americans agree that global warming is happening, according to a 2018 study conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. About six in ten think it is mostly caused by human activity and is already chang- ing the weather. Four in ten say they have personally experienced its impact. And seven in ten say the United States should enact measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including prices and limits on carbon dioxide pollution, no matter what other countries do. When it comes to generating support for climate policy, a war- ranted sense o alarm is only hal the battle. And the other half—a shared belie that the problem is solvable—is lagging far behind. The newfound sense o urgency is at risk oÈ being swamped by collective despair. A scant six percent o Americans, according to the Yale study, believe that the world “can and will” eectively address climate change. With carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels having risen by an esti- mated 2.7 percent in 2018 and atmospheric concentrations o carbon
FRED KRUPP is President of the Environmental Defense Fund. NATHANIEL KEOHANE is Senior Vice President for Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund.
ERIC POOLEY is Senior Vice President for Strategy and Communications at the Environ- mental Defense Fund.
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dioxide, which will determine the ultimate extent o warming, at their highest level in some three million years, such pessimism may seem justi¿ed—especially with a climate change denier in the White House. But it is not too late to solve the global climate crisis. A decade o extraordinary innovation has made the greening o the global econ- omy not only feasible but also likely. The market now favors clean energy: in many U.S. states, it is cheaper to build new renewable en- ergy plants than to run existing coal-¿red power plants. By combining solar power with new, ecient batteries, Arizona and other sunny states will soon be able to provide electricity at a lower cost per megawatt- hour than new, ecient natural gas plants. Local, regional, and fed- eral governments, as well as corporations, are making measurable progress on reducing carbon pollution. Since 2000, 21 countries have reduced their annual greenhouse gas emissions while growing their economies; China is expected to see emissions peak by 2025, ¿ve years earlier than it promised as part o the negotiations for the Paris cli- mate agreement in 2015. At the ¦ climate talks held late last year in Poland, countries agreed on rules for how to report progress on meet- ing emission-reduction commitments, an important step in imple- menting the Paris accord. What’s more, an entirely new arsenal is emerging in the ¿ght against climate change: negative emission technologies, or ¦§¤s. N§¤s are dierent from conventional approaches to climate mitiga- tion in that they seek not to reduce the amount o greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere but to remove carbon dioxide that’s al- ready there. These technologies range from the old-fashioned practice o reforestation to high-tech machines that suck carbon out o the sky and store it underground. The window o opportunity to combat cli- mate change has not closed—and with a push from policymakers, ¦§¤s can keep it propped open for longer.
THE HEAT IS ON How much time is left to avoid climate catastrophe? The truth is that it is impossible to answer the question with precision. Scientists know that human activity is warming the planet but still don’t fully understand the sensitivity o the climate system to greenhouse gases. Nor do they fully comprehend the link between average global warm- ing and local repercussions. So far, however, most eects o climate change have been faster and more severe than the climate models
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predicted. The downside risks are enormous; the most recent predic- tions, ever more dire. The Paris agreement aims to limit the increase in global average tem- peratures above preindustrial levels to well below two degrees Celsius, and ideally to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Going above those levels o warming would mean more disastrous impacts. Global average temperatures have already risen by about one degree Celsius since 1880, with two-thirds o that increase occurring after 1975. An October 2018 special report by the ¦’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body oÈ leading scientists and policymakers from around the world, found that unless the world implements “rapid and far-reaching” changes to its energy and industrial systems, the earth is likely to reach temperatures o 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels sometime between 2030 and 2052. Limiting warming to that level, the ¢£ found, would require immediate and dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide: roughly a 45 percent reduction in the next dozen years. Even meeting the less ambitious target o two degrees would require deep cuts in emissions by 2030 and sustained aggressive action far beyond then. The ¢£ report also warns that seemingly small global tempera- ture increases can have enormous consequences. For example, the half-degree dierence between 1.5 degrees Celsius and two degrees Celsius o total warming could consign twice as many people to water scarcity, put ten million more at risk from rising sea levels, and plunge several hundred million more people into poverty as lower yields o key crops drive hunger across much o the developing world. At two degrees o warming, nearly all o the planet’s coral reefs are expected to be lost; at 1.5 degrees, ten to 30 percent could survive. The deeper message o the ¢£ report is that there is no risk-free level o climate change. Targets such as 1.5 degrees Celsius or two degrees Celsius are important political markers, but they shouldn’t fool anyone into thinking that nature works so precisely. Just as the risks are lower at 1.5 degrees Celsius than at two degrees Celsius, so are they lower at two degrees Celsius than at 2.5 degrees Celsius. In- deed, the latter dierence would be far more destructive, since the damages mount exponentially as temperatures rise. To manage the enormous risks o climate change, global emissions o greenhouse gases need to be cut sharply, and as soon as possible. That will require transforming energy, land, transport, and industrial systems so they emit less carbon dioxide. It will also require reducing
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short-lived climate pollutants such as methane, which stay in the at- mosphere for only a fraction o the time that carbon dioxide does but have a disproportionate eect on near-term warming. Yet even that will not be enough. To stabilize the total atmospheric concentration o carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the world will have to reach net negative emissions—that is, taking more green- house gases out o the atmosphere than are being pumped into it. Achieving that through emission reductions alone will be extremely dicult, since some emissions, such as o methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture, are nearly impossible to eliminate. Countering the emissions that are hardest to abate, and bring concentrations down to safer levels, requires technologies that actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s where ¦§¤s come in—not as a substitute for aggressive ef- forts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but as a complement. By deploying technology that removes existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while accelerating cuts in emissions, the world can boost its chances oÈ keeping warming below two degrees and reduce the risk o catastrophe. Scientists and activists have tended to regard these technologies as a fallback option, to be held in reserve in case other eorts fail. Many fear that jumping ahead to carbon dioxide removal will distract from the critical need to cut pollution. But the world no longer has the luxury o waiting for emission-reduction strategies to do the job alone. Far from being a Plan B, ¦§¤s must be a critical part o Plan A. What’s more, embracing ¦§¤s sooner rather than later makes eco- nomic sense. Because the marginal costs o emission reductions rise as more emissions are cut, it will be cheaper to deploy ¦§¤s at the same time as emission-reduction technologies rather than waiting to ex- haust those options ¿rst. The wider the solution set, the lower the costs. And the lower the costs, the easier it is to raise ambitions and garner the necessary political support.
THE FUTURE IS NOW Even though removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere may sound like the stu o science ¿ction, there are already ¦§¤s that could be deployed at scale today, according to a seminal report released by the National Academies o Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in October 2018. One category involves taking advantage o carbon
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FA.indb 145 1/18/19 7:57 PM sinks—the earth’s forests and agricultural soils, which have soaked up more carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution than has been released from burning petroleum. To date, the growth o carbon sinks has been inadvertent: in the United States, for example, as agriculture shifted from the rocky soils o the Northeast to the fertile Midwest, forests reclaimed abandoned farmland, breathing in carbon dioxide in the process. But this natural process can be improved through better
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forest management—letting trees grow longer before they are har- vested and helping degraded forests grow back more quickly. The large-scale planting o trees in suitable locations around the world could increase carbon sinks further, a process that must go hand in hand with eorts to curb tropical deforestation and thereby continue to contain the vast amounts o carbon already stored in the earth’s rain- forests. Farmland provides additional potential for negative emissions. Around the world, conventional agricultural practices have reduced the amount o carbon in soils, de- creasing their fertility in the process. Removing carbon dioxide Smarter approaches can reverse the process. Small and large landholders from the atmosphere alike could add agricultural waste to may sound like the stu of soil, maximize the time that the soil is science ction. covered by living plants or mulch, and reduce tilling, which releases carbon dioxide. All these steps would decrease the amount o carbon that is lost from soil and increase the amount o carbon that is stored in it. The most technologically sophisticated available in the near term is known as “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage,” or . It is also the riskiest. Broadly dened, involves burn- ing or fermenting biomass, such as trees or crops, to generate elec- tricity or make liquid fuel; capturing the carbon dioxide produced in the process; and sequestering it underground. It is considered a neg- ative emission technology, and not a zero emission technology, be- cause growing the biomass used in the process removes carbon from the atmosphere. What makes so exciting is its potential to remove signicantly more carbon from the atmosphere than other approaches do. But it also brings challenges. For one, it is expensive: electricity generated from could cost twice as much as that generated with natural gas, because biomass is an inecient fuel source and capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide is costly. The technology would also require careful monitoring to ensure that the carbon dioxide pumped underground stays there and clear rules for legal liability in the event o leaks. But the fact that private compa- nies have been successfully injecting carbon dioxide into depleted oil and gas reservoirs for decades oers good evidence that permanent storage is possible on a large scale.
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More worrying are the additional climate risks that § poses. I § drives demand for biomass and more o the carbon that is stored in the forest ecosystem is released as a result, it could end up raising the level o carbon in the atmosphere rather than reducing it. Another con- cern is competition for land: converting farms or forests to grow energy crops, something that the large-scale use o § might require, could drive up the cost o food, reduce agricultural production, and threaten scarce habitats. These problems could be mitigated by using only bio- mass waste, such as residues from logging and agriculture, but that would reduce the potential scale. Although § deserves consider- ation as part o the arsenal, these risks mean that its contribution will likely end up being smaller than some proponents claim. Taking all these land-based ¦§¤s together, and factoring in the considerable economic, practical, and behavioral hurdles to bringing them to scale, the National Academies report concludes that by mid- century, ¦§¤s could remove as much as ¿ve billion tons o carbon di- oxide from the atmosphere annually. Given the signi¿cant risks involved, that estimate is probably too bullish. Even i it were not, that’s still only hal o the ten billion tons o carbon dioxide that will likely need to be removed each year to zero out the remaining green- house gas emissions, even with aggressive cuts.
CLOSING THE GAP Removing from the atmosphere the balance o the carbon dioxide nec- essary will require perfecting technologies currently in development. Two deserve particular mention; both are full o promise, although nei- ther is ready for widespread use. The ¿rst is called “direct air capture”— essentially, sucking carbon from the sky. The technology is already being tested in Canada, Iceland, Italy, and Switzerland at pilot plants where massive arrays o fans direct a stream o air toward a special sub- stance that binds with the passing carbon dioxide. The substance is then either heated or forced into a vacuum to release the carbon dioxide, which is compressed and either stored or used as feedstocks for chemi- cals, fuels, or cement. These technologies are real—albeit prohibitively expensive in their current form. As a recent study led by David Sandalow o Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy concludes, taking them to scale means solving a variety o technological challenges to bring down the costs. Above all, these processes are highly energy intensive,
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so scaling them would require enormous amounts oÈ low-carbon elec- tricity. (A direct-air-capture facility powered by coal-¿red electricity, for example, would generate more new carbon dioxide than it would capture.) These obstacles are serious, but the surprising progress o the past decade suggests that they can be overcome in the next one. The second technology, enhanced carbon mineralization, is even further from being realized, but it is full o even more possibility. Ge- ologists have long known that when rock from the earth’s mantle (the layer o the earth between its crust and its core) is exposed to the air, it binds with carbon dioxide to form carbon-containing minerals. The massive tectonic collisions that formed the Appalachian Mountains around 460 million years ago, for example, exposed subsurface rock to weathering that resulted in the absorption o substantial amounts o carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That took tens o millions o years; enhanced carbon mineralization seeks to fast-forward the pro- cess. Scientists are exploring two ways to do this. In one approach, rocks would be brought to the surface to bind with carbon from the air. Such natural weathering already occurs in mine tailings, the waste left over from certain mining operations. But mimicking this process on a large scale—by grinding up large quantities o rock containing reactive minerals and bringing it to the earth’s surface—would be highly en- ergy intensive and thus costly, roughly on par with direct air capture. Another potential approach is pumping the carbon dioxide under- ground to meet the rock. As the National Academies report explains, carbon-dioxide–rich Êuids injected into basalt or peridotite formations (two kinds o igneous rock that make up much o the earth’s mantle) react with the rock, converting the dissolved carbon dioxide into solid carbon-containing minerals. Pilot projects in Iceland and the United States have demonstrated that this is possible. There is also evidence for how this could work in the natural world. Peridotite usually lies deep inside the earth, but some rock formations around the globe contain pockets o it on the surface. For example, scientists are studying how the surface-level peridotite in Oman’s rock formations reacts with the air and absorbs large amounts o carbon. In theory, this approach oers nearly unlimited scale, because suitable rock formations are widespread and readily accessible. It would also be cheap, because it takes advantage o chemical potential energy in the rock instead o costly energy sources. And since the carbon dioxide is converted to solid rock, the eect is per- manent, and it carries few o the side eects that other ¦§¤s could bring.
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GETTING TO LESS These technologies do not come cheap. The National Academy o Sci- ences recommends as much as $1 billion annually in U.S. government funding for research on ¦§¤s. And indeed, such funding should be an urgent priority. But to make these technologies economically viable and scale them rapidly, policymakers will also have to tap into a much more powerful force: the pro¿t motive. Putting a price on carbon emissions creates an economic incentive for entrepreneurs to ¿nd cheaper, faster ways to cut pollution. Valuing negative emissions—for example, through an emission-trading system that awards credits for carbon removal or a carbon tax that provides rebates for them—would create an incentive for them to join the hunt for ¦§¤s. Forty-¿ve countries, along with ten U.S. states, have put in place some mechanism to price carbon. But only a handful o them oer rewards for converting land into forest, managing existing forests bet- ter, or increasing the amount o carbon stored in agricultural soils, and none oers incentives for other ¦§¤s. What’s needed is a carbon- pricing system that not only charges those who emit carbon but also pays those who remove it. Such a system would provide new revenue streams for landowners who restored forest cover to their land and for farmers and ranchers who increased the amount o carbon stored in their soils. It would also reward the inventors and entrepreneurs who developed new, better technologies to capture carbon from the air and the investors and businesses that took them to scale. Without these incentives, those players will stay on the sidelines. By spurring inno- vation in lower-cost ¦§¤s, incentives would also ease the way politi- cally for an ambitious pollution limit—which, ultimately, is necessary for ensuring that the world meets it climate goals. Simply put, hu- manity’s best hope is to promise that the next crop oÈ billionaires will be those who ¿gure out low-cost ways to remove carbon from the sky. The biggest hurdle for such incentives is the lack o a global market for carbon credits. Hope on that front, however, is emerging from an unlikely place: aviation. Currently responsible for roughly two per- cent o global greenhouse gases, aviation’s emissions are expected to triple or quadruple by midcentury in the absence o eective policies to limit them. But in 2016, faced with the prospect that the § would start capping the emissions o Êights landing in and taking o from member states, the ¦ body that governs worldwide air travel, the International Civil Aviation Organization, agreed to cap emissions
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from international Êights at 2020 levels. The airline industry sup- ported the agreement, hoping to avoid the messy regulatory patch- work that might result i the § went ahead and states beyond the § followed suit with their own approaches. The resulting program, called the Carbon Osetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (¥¡¢¯), requires all airlines to start reporting emissions this year, and it will begin enforcing a cap in 2021. Once in full swing, at least 100 countries are expected to partici- pate, covering at least three-quarters o the forecast increase in interna- tional aviation emissions. Airlines Êying between participating countries will have two ways to comply: they can lower their emissions (for ex- ample, by burning less fuel or switch- ing to alternative fuels), or they can buy emission-reduction credits from compa- Humanity’s best hope is to nies. Because the technologies for re- promise that the next ducing airline emissions at scale are crop of billionaires will be still a long way o, the industry will mostly choose the second option, re- those who £gure out lying on carbon credits from reduc- low-cost ways to remove tions in other sectors. It is estimated carbon from the sky. that over the ¿rst 15 years o ¥¡¢¯, demand for these credits will reach between 2.5 billion and 3.0 billion tons—roughly equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. power and manufacturing sectors. With this new option to sell emission-reduction credits to airlines, there is a good possibility that a pot o gold will await com- panies that cut or oset their carbon emissions. In short, ¥¡¢¯ could catalyze a global carbon market that drives investment in low-carbon fuels and technologies—including ¦§¤s. To realize its promise, ¥¡¢¯ must be implemented properly, and there are powerful forces working to see that it is not. Some countries, including ones negotiating on behal o their state-owned companies, are trying to rig the system by allowing credits from projects that do not produce legitimate carbon reductions, such as Brazil’s eort to al- low the sale o credits from huge hydroelectric dams in the Amazon that have already been built and paid for (and thus do not represent new reductions). Allowing such credits into the system could crowd out potential rewards for genuine reductions. But there are also pow- erful, sometimes unexpected allies who stand to gain from a global
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carbon market that works. For example, some airlines are motivated to act out o a fear that millennials, concerned about their carbon foot- print, may eventually begin to shun air travel. The new regulations, by creating demand for emission reductions and spurring investment in ¦§¤s to produce jet fuel, could be the industry’s best hope o protect- ing its reputation—and a critical step toward a broader global carbon market that moves ¦§¤s from promising pilot projects to a game- changing reality. Skeptics say that ¦§¤s are too speculative and a possibility only, perhaps, in the distant future. It is true that these innovations are not fully understood and that not all o them will pan out. But no group o scholars and practitioners, no matter how expert, can determine exactly which technologies should be deployed and when. It is impos- sible to predict what future innovations will look like, but that shouldn’t stop the world from pursuing them, especially when the threat is so grave. The fact remains that many ¦§¤s are ready to be deployed at scale today, and they might make the dierence between limiting warming to two degrees and failing to do so. Ultimately, climate change will be stopped by creating economic incentives that unleash the innovation o the private sector—not by waiting for the perfect technology to arrive ready-made, maybe when it’s already too late. No one is saying that achieving all o this will be easy, but the road to climate stability has never been that. Hard does not mean impossible, however, and the transformative power oÈ hu- man ingenuity oers an endless source oÈ hope.∂
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REVIEWS & RESPONSES
As millions of British men left to £ght in World War I, thousands of scienti£cally, medically, and technically trained women jumped into the breach. —Elaine Weiss
The Original Hidden Figures Recent Books 171 WIKIMEDIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Elaine Weiss 154
E Pluribus Unum? Stacey Y. Abrams; John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck; Jennifer A. Richeson; Francis Fukuyama 160 Buy CSS Books Online https://cssbooks.net ? Call/SMS 03336042057
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their minds and scienti¿c skills in the The Original service o their country. A Lab of One’s Own, the latest book by the historian o Hidden Figures science Patricia Fara, seeks to ¿ll this gap in public memory by focusing on this last group, giving the female British The Women Scientists Who scientists o the early twentieth century Won the Great War their rightful due. Fara’s welcome and novel work goes Elaine Weiss beyond the familiar nurse-on-the-western - front accounts o pluck and patience that appear in many histories o the Great War. Instead, the book meshes A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Surage two coinciding centenaries: the 1918 in the First World War armistice that ended World War I and BY PATRICIA FARA. Oxford the law that gave British women, at University Press, 2018, 304 pp. least the older and wealthier among them, the right to vote that same year. n the center o many British towns As i conducting her own experiment, stands a cenotaph, a memorial tomb Fara places her heroines on the examin- Ihonoring the native sons who gave ing table and observes their responses their lives during World War I. Etched to these historical stimuli. into the plinths, in between carved Both events were jolts to British garlands and laurels, are the names and society, shaking up families, economies, military ranks o the fallen. Additional and, as Fara reveals, laboratories. At rows list the soldiers and sailors lost in great personal risk, female scientists later conÊicts. On Remembrance Day, took on the study o dangerous explo- November 11, the anniversary o the sives, toxic chemicals, virulent diseases, end oÈ World War I, red silk poppies and the unrecognized lethal eects o adorn the monuments in remembrance radioactivity. Simply pursuing a career o these patriots’ sacri¿ces. in science was tough enough: whether Unrecorded and unrecognized, at universities, in industry, or in the much less inscribed in stone, is an War Oce, women faced entrenched entire class o patriots that British misogyny. Desperately needed but society has willfully forgotten over the decidedly unwelcome, they suered past century: the women who gave their indignities on the job and were paid far all for the war eort, including many less than their male coworkers. And the who even gave their lives. Some used rationales used to shut them out might their muscles in mines and munitions sound all too familiar to modern ears. factories. Some brought their medical expertise to the front. And some put BARRIERS TO ENTRY Fara has pulled o quite a feat o ELAINE WEISS is a journalist and the author of The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the archival archaeology. Digging through Vote. Copyright © by Elaine Weiss. the records o universities, scienti¿c
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societies, industrial establishments, students, and they were women-only newspapers, and personal journals and schools. Classes and laboratories at correspondence, she excavates and Cambridge and Oxford were segregated pieces together the lives o some o the by sex, and since many male professors ¿rst women to embark on scienti¿c refused to lecture to female students, studies and careers in the modern era. the task fell to female instructors, who, Often, what emerges are just tanta- no matter how talented, were rarely lizing snippets, frustratingly incomplete, given faculty status, let alone time or but such are the limits o the documen- resources for research. tary evidence. The compilation also In the rare instances that female skews toward the socially privileged, Cambridge or Oxford students got to who left behind a more complete paper attend a mixed-sex lecture or meeting, trail through their carefully preserved they had to endure the hoots, mockery, correspondence (it takes a big house and foot stamping o their outraged to store all those family letters), their male classmates. At Cambridge, even published and unpublished memoirs mathematical whizzes such as Philippa (often the fruit o thoughtful leisure), Fawcett (daughter o the surage and newspaper accounts (where socially movement leader Millicent Fawcett), prominent women were more likely to who beat out all her male classmates to pop up). Still, Fara tries hard to include take top honors, were neither allowed women endowed with scienti¿c talent to attend commencement ceremonies but not to the manor born. nor given an ocial degree. In 1897, At the turn o the century, the United when the Senate o the University o Kingdom was not exactly fertile soil for Cambridge considered granting women female scientists and mathematicians. full degrees, male students rioted in the Higher education for women, the think- streets, hanging and mutilating egies ing went, was not just a waste o time; o a bicycle-riding woman—the symbol it was a threat to the human species. o the feared female classmate. It wasn’t Eminent physicians warned that too until 1920 that Oxford allowed women much deep thinking would siphon a to become full members o the university woman’s bloodÊow from her reproduc- and bestowed proper diplomas on its tive organs to her brain, harming her female graduates; Cambridge women childbearing capacities. And with a little had to wait until 1948 to be oered a twisting, Darwinian theories o adapta- full degree. tion appeared to show that women had I the elite universities made life evolved for reproduction and nest build- dicult for women, less prestigious, ing rather than intellectual pursuits. regional “red brick” universities—such as I a strong-willed girl nonetheless Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester— convinced her family to let her prepare seem to have been more egalitarian and for college, and she passed the entrance welcoming, enrolling middle-class women exams, few opportunities were available in coeducational classrooms and labs. to her at the most prestigious institu- Less invested in tradition, pomp, and tions. Only two colleges at Cambridge privilege, these schools became impor- and four at Oxford enrolled female tant training grounds for female students
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and scientists. Still, science was a perilous a German spy ring. The physicist May career choice for women, and Fara does Leslie conducted groundbreaking secret an admirable job o conjuring the social, research on explosives in a government political, and scienti¿c attitudes that laboratory. made theirs an uphill and obstacle- For all these breakthroughs, prewar strewn climb. gender norms did not evaporate into thin air. British society recoiled at the WORKERS AND WARRIORS sight o “munitionettes” in wartime With the outbreak oÈ World War I factories, clad in safe and practical came a sudden opening, especially in overalls rather than customary long the work force. As millions o men left skirts. Many winced as nurses traded to ¿ght, thousands o scienti¿cally, their starched white caps for helmets medically, and technically trained and khaki breeches, riding motorcycles women jumped into the breach. By to hospitals behind the lines. Women necessity, women took over positions did what was needed, but in taking on long considered men’s work. Doors men’s work and wearing men’s garb, swung open; glass ceilings shattered. they were becoming irreparably “mascu- Female chemists worked with explosives linized”—at least in the eyes o many and poisonous gasses, female metallur- male compatriots. gists tested steel strength for the navy, The social and the physical toll o female engineers perfected airplane wartime work often went hand in hand. designs, female medical researchers Women ruined their health making ¤¦¤ fought the infectious diseases decimat- explosives, their skin and eyes turning ing troops, female physicians and nurses yellow and their internal organs green operated at the front. There were female from exposure to the toxic chemicals cryptologists, welders, nutritionists, involved. Dubbed “canaries” for their physicists, statisticians, pharmaceutical strange appearance, many o these researchers, laboratory directors, and women were shunned by neighbors and industrial supervisors. family; more than 200 o them died, The physician Mona Chalmers and thousands more became seriously Watson and the botanist Helen Gwynne- and permanently ill. Fara places their Vaughan left their clinic and lab to run predicament during four harrowing the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, years o national upheaval in high relief, supervising nearly 100,000 women in showcasing society’s shocking ambiva- military support activities. The chemist lence toward their patriotic eorts. Frances Micklethwait studied chemical It’s rather astounding that in the weapons during the war and was among midst o a savage war, the British people the ¿rst to analyze mustard gas, closely still mustered enough energy to rail observing the eects o the pernicious against working women. But for many, gas on her own skin. As an employee safeguarding patriarchal privilege and at the state’s Censorship Oce, Mabel the endangered male ego at home was Elliott heated a letter she was inspecting as much a priority as protecting the and found secret messages written in nation on the battle¿eld. The same lemon juice; her discovery broke open male alarm and resentment cropped up
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in the United States during its brie stint in the war, but the e ect was milder there, i only because the nation su ered less from the war. #1 InTeRnAtIoNaL
SCIENCE AND SUFFRAGE BeStSeLlEr Measuring the war’s impact on British “A history stretching from the women in general, and scientic women Germanic tribes who took on the Roman in particular, is admittedly easier than Empire, right up to Angela Merkel . . . gauging the subtler e ects o demand- Comprehensive, vivid, and entertaining ing and nally gaining the right to vote. . . . if you want to understand a country It’s hard to weigh the role that the pro- on which much of the free world is now tracted ght for su rage and women’s pinning its hopes, you could do worse civil rights played in the lives o female than start here.”— scientists, not least because these e orts Irish Examiner were largely put on hold from 1914 to 1918. Another problem is that, Fara’s lucid writing and admirable dedication notwith- standing, the book would have beneted from a cleaner narrative framework. At times, it reads like an archival dump, a slurry o names and anecdotes in a repeti- tive thematic stream. Time sequences are jumbled, which robs the story o any logical progression and a sense o societal progress—or lack thereof. Beyond this, Fara’s grasp o women’s su rage history is far less assured than her understanding o British scientic “A must-read.”—The Economist culture. She repeatedly dismisses the militant su ragists aliated with “Hawes argues that that Germany’s history, long-ago and recent, makes it a key, if not the Emmeline Pankhurst as mere obstruc- key, player in world leadership.”—Booklist tionists; in fact, historians agree that it was the synergy o the Pankhurst “Sweeping and confident . . . has a frightening urgency.”— militants and the law-abiding Fawcett Observer forces that powered the movement to “A fast-moving encapsulation of success. At one point, Fara alludes to German history. . . . Marvelously concise, Anna Howard Shaw as a character’s especially compelling as Angela Merkel is set to step down in 2021, leaving an “American friend” without identifying uncertain vacuum in Europe.”—Kirkus Shaw as the leader o the U.S. su rage movement—a woman o international Available wherever books are sold renown at the time. Fara’s account also fails to fully make the case that women’s role in science
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catalyzed the surage movement. The taught women to be unapologetically evidence for this claim is thin and loud, audacious, and ingenious. anecdotal. Fara hints at a more funda- So when the women o Cambridge mental link when she observes, early in found the doors to university class- the book, “Both suspect activities for rooms and laboratories closed to them women, science and surage were often in the 1880s, they didn’t whine and cry; bracketed together by critics worried they raised the funds to build and sta about this twin threat to long-established the Balfour Biological Laboratory for conventions o female domesticity, Women, where generations o female subservience, and demureness.” scientists were trained and nurtured. The animus against women barging When distinguished female academics into the male-ruled domains o math- were barred from representation on ematics and science was indeed the very university committees and denied entry same that denied women a place in the into the plush common rooms that their public sphere and a voice in their male colleagues frequented, they founded government. These prejudices contin- the British Federation o University ued to shape public resentment toward Women, in 1907. When fully quali¿ed female war workers—many o whom female chemists tried unsuccessfully to were also suragists. Yet it was the join the professional Chemical Society, decades-long ¿ght for the vote—born in the researchers Ida Smedley Maclean the Victorian era and carried out up and Martha Whiteley led the charge until 1918—that laid the logistical and to pry the gates open in 1920. Female emotional foundations for women to scientists learned from their suragist enter the universities and scienti¿c sisters to expect setbacks and disap- professions and propelled their wartime pointment but to keep their eyes on the participation, not the other way around. prize: the campaign to elect female The surage movement gave women fellows to the Royal Society, the coun- the con¿dence and skills to organize, try’s most prestigious learned society, demand change, and insist on inclusion, didn’t succeed until 1945. to slowly chip away at the customs and laws that kept them at home, their THE CLOCK OF EXPERIENCE bodies encumbered by pounds o By the war’s end, women composed petticoats, their minds caged. Three one-third o the British work force, three generations o committed surage million o them in industry. Female activists agitated and lobbied, formed scientists were lecturing to men, heading surage societies in every British city research labs, and running hospitals. But and town, published their own newspa- the direct bene¿ts proved short-lived. pers, put on massive conventions, and “Formerly seen as ‘saviours o the organized giant protests with 40,000 nation,’ wartime workers were now women marching through the streets o scorned as ‘ruthless self-seekers de- London. The women who participated priving men and their dependents o a in the movement learned to endure livelihood,’” Fara reports. One million contempt and ridicule, imprisonment British men did not return from the and torture. The surage movement war; those who did come home were
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distressed to nd that women had done lessons o the surage movement, so splendidly taking over their jobs. rather than the short bursts o wartime Women “have had the time o their opportunity, are probably more useful lives . . . swaggering about in every kind for the future. The surage movement o uniform,” wrote a British commenta- trained leaders and feminist thinkers, tor in January 1919, before admonishing organizing women o all classes to that they would have to resume their agitate for their own rights, whereas roles as “wives and mothers now the women’s wartime participation still took men are coming home.” place largely on men’s terms, with men’s And so they did. Women in industry reluctant cooperation. As today’s women were given pink slips or reduced wages; continue to shatter glass ceilings in govern- female scientists were sent back to teach- ment, business, and academia, the ing school or working behind the scenes suragists oer a legacy o organizing, in the lab. Possessing the vote didn’t mentorship, and proud self-reliance. help much: under the 1918 law, women Fara has composed a worthy and under 30 were not granted surage at lasting tribute to these pioneering all, as politicians feared that with so women. One wonders, o course, many men lost in the war, giving the whether the terrain o the so-called vote to all British women at age 21 would elds has been made much create a majority-female electorate. smoother for women during the past Thus, many o the young women who century—or whether modern-day had eagerly entered dangerous new female scientists, engineers, and tech- professions and contributed to the war nology professionals will shake their eort found themselves shut out o heads in sad recognition at the patron- civic participation for another decade. izing and infuriating attitudes described Yet they had learned to push, and in this book. Fara leaves this question they did so until the law was changed to open but cautions against too much include them, in 1928. In the words o optimism: “Before the First World War, one o the women highlighted in A Lab suragists could see what they were of One’s Own, the Cambridge mathematics ghting against, but modern discrimi- ace and surage organizer Ray Strachey, nation is elusive, insidious, and stub- “It is impossible to put the clock o bornly hard to eradicate.” Female experience backwards.” World War I scientists know how to carry on.∂ advanced the hands o that clock—by a little. Yet 20 years later, when the United Kingdom entered another shattering world war, the lessons o the last one had largely been forgotten. Once again, women took on “men’s work,” only to come home to mind the kitchen after the hostilities ended. The ght for equality in the work- place continues to this day, as does the quest for women’s rights. The long-lived
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changed the political landscape. Face- E Pluribus Unum? book captures examples o inequality and makes them available for endless replay. Twitter links the voiceless to The Fight Over Identity newsmakers. Instagram immortalizes Politics the faces and consequences o discrimi- nation. Isolated cruelties are yoked into a powerful narrative o marginalization that spurs a common cause. Identity Politics Strengthens These changes have encouraged activists and political challengers to make Democracy demands with a high level o speci¿city— Stacey Y. Abrams to take the identities that dominant groups have used to oppress them and convert ecent political upheavals have them into tools o democratic justice. reinvigorated a long-running Critics o this phenomenon, including R debate about the role o identity Francis Fukuyama (“Against Identity in American politics—and especially Politics,” September/October 2018), American elections. Electoral politics condemn it as the practice o “identity have long been a lagging indicator o politics.” But Fukuyama’s criticism relies social change. For hundreds o years, on a number o misjudgments. First, the electorate was limited by laws that Fukuyama complains that “again and explicitly deprived women, African again, groups have come to believe that Americans, and other groups o the right their identities—whether national, to vote. (Eorts to deny voting rights religious, ethnic, sexual, gender, or other- and suppress voter turnout continue wise—are not receiving adequate recogni- today, in less overt forms but with the tion.” In the United States, marginalized same ill intent.) When marginalized groups have indeed come to believe groups ¿nally gained access to the ballot, this—because it is true. Fukuyama also it took time for them to organize around warns that Americans are fragmenting opposition to the speci¿c forms o “into segments based on ever-narrower discrimination and mistreatment that identities, threatening the possibility o continued to plague them—and longer deliberation and collective action by still for political parties and candidates society as a whole.” But what Fukuyama to respond to such activism. In recent laments as “fracturing” is in reality the decades, however, rapid demographic result o marginalized groups ¿nally and technological changes have acceler- overcoming centuries-long eorts to erase ated this process, bolstering demands them from the American polity—activism for inclusion and raising expectations in that will strengthen democratic rule, not communities that had long been condi- threaten it. tioned to accept a slow pace o change. In the past decade, the U.S. electorate THE CLASS TRAP has become younger and more ethnically Fukuyama claims that the Democratic diverse. Meanwhile, social media has Party “has a major choice to make.” The
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party, he writes, can continue “doubling improved status for workers but has down on the mobilization o the identity been slow to include them in the groups that today supply its most fervent movement’s victories. activists: African Americans, Hispanics, The facile advice to focus solely on professional women, the ª³¤ community, class ignores these complex links among and so on.” Or it can take Fukuyama’s American notions o race, gender, and preferred tack, focusing more on economics. As Fukuyama himsel notes, economic issues in an attempt to “win it has been dicult “to create broad back some o the white working-class coalitions to ¿ght for redistribution,” voters . . . who have defected to the since “members o the working class Republican Party in recent elections.” who also belong to higher-status iden- Fukuyama and other critics o tity groups (such as whites in the identity politics contend that broad United States) tend to resist making categories such as economic class common cause with those below them, contain multitudes and that all atten- and vice versa.” Fukuyama’s preferred tion should focus on wide constructs strategy is also called into question by rather than the substrates o inequality. the success that the Democratic Party But such arguments fail to acknowledge enjoyed in 2018 by engaging in what he that some members o any particular derides as identity politics. Last year, I economic class have advantages not was the Democratic Party’s gubernato- enjoyed by others in their cohort. U.S. rial nominee in Georgia and became the history abounds with examples o ¿rst African American woman in U.S. members o dominant groups abandon- history to be nominated for governor ing class solidarity after concluding by a major political party. In my bid for that opportunity is a zero-sum game. oce, I intentionally and vigorously The oppressed have often aimed their highlighted communities o color and impotent rage at those too low on the other marginalized groups, not to the social scale to even attempt rebellion. exclusion o others but as a recognition This is particularly true in the catchall o their speci¿c policy needs. My category known as “the working class.” campaign championed reforms to ConÊict between black and white eliminate police shootings o African laborers stretches back to the earliest Americans, protect the ª³¤Ø commu- eras in U.S. history, which witnessed nity against ersatz religious freedom tensions between African slaves and legislation, expand Medicaid to save European indentured servants. Racism rural hospitals, and rearm that un- and sexism have long tarnished the documented immigrants deserve legal heroic story o the U.S. labor move- protections. I refused to accept the ment—defects that contributed to the notion that the voters most aected by rise o a segregated middle class and to these policies would invariably support persistent pay disparities between men me simply because I was a member o a and women, disparities exacerbated by minority group. (The truth is that when racial dierences. Indeed, the American people do not hear their causes authen- working class has consistently relied on tically addressed by campaigns, they people o color and women to push for generally just don’t vote at all.) My
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campaign built an unprecedented ¿ghting for inclusion—hence the need coalition o people o color, rural whites, for a politics that respects and reÊects suburban dwellers, and young people the complicated nature o these identi- in the Deep South by articulating an ties and the ways in which they inter- understanding o each group’s unique sect. The basis for sustainable progress concerns instead o trying to create a is legal protections grounded in an false image o universality. As a result, awareness oÈ how identity has been in a midterm contest with a record-high used to deny opportunity. The ª³¤Ø turnout o nearly four million voters, community is not included in civil I received more votes than any Demo- rights protections, which means mem- crat in Georgia’s history, falling a scant bers may lose their jobs or their right 54,000 votes shy o victory in a contest to housing or adoption. Antiabortion riddled with voting irregularities that rules disproportionately harm women bene¿ted my opponent. o color and low-income women o every ethnicity, aecting their economic DIFFERENT STROKES capacity and threatening their very Beyond electoral politics, Fukuyama and lives. Voter suppression, the most others argue that by calling out ethnic, insidious tool to thwart the eective- cultural, gender, or sexual dierences, ness o identity politics, demands the marginalized groups harm themselves renewal o the Voting Rights Act o and their causes. By enumerating and 1965 and massive reforms at the state celebrating distinctions, the argument and local levels. goes, they give their opponents reasons When the groups most aected by for further excluding them. But minori- these issues insist on acknowledgment ties and the marginalized have little o their intrinsic dierence, it should choice but to ¿ght against the particular not be viewed as divisive. Embracing methods o discrimination employed the distinct histories and identities o against them. The marginalized did not groups in a democracy enhances the create identity politics: their identities complexity and capacity o the whole. have been forced on them by dominant For example, by claiming the unique groups, and politics is the most eective attributes o womanhood—and, for method o revolt. women o color, the experience o To seek redress and inclusion, the inhabiting the intersection o marginal- ¿rst step is to identify the barriers to ized gender and race—feminists have entry: an array oÈ laws and informal demonstrated how those characteristics rules to proscribe, diminish, and isolate could be leveraged to enhance the the marginalized. The speci¿c methods whole. Take, for example, the Family by which the United States has excluded and Medical Leave Act, which feminists women, Native Americans, African originally pushed for in order to guar- Americans, immigrants, and the ª³¤Ø antee women’s right to give birth and community from property ownership, still keep their jobs, but which men educational achievement, and political have also come to rely on to take time enfranchisement have diered; so, too, o from work to care for children or have the most successful methods o aging parents.
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The current demographic and developments in the United States and social evolution toward diversity in the abroad—especially the emergence o United States has played out alongside populist nationalism—to identity politics. a trend toward greater economic and In Fukuyama’s telling, the rise o identity social inequality. These parallel but politics constitutes a fall from grace. For distinct developments are inextricably him, most o “twentieth-century politics bound together. The entrance o the was de¿ned by economic issues.” But in marginalized into the workplace, the the 1960s, he writes, the civil rights, commons, and the body politic— feminist, and other social movements achieved through litigation and legisla- embraced identity politics. Later, he tion—spawned reactionary limits on claims, forces on the political right their legal standing and restrictions followed suit, adopting “language and meant to block their complaints and framing from the left.” Fukuyama warns prevent remedies. The natural antidote that i democratic societies continue to this condition is not a retrenchment “fracturing into segments based on ever- to amorphous, universal descriptors narrower identities,” the result will be devoid o context or nuance. Instead, “state breakdown and, ultimately, failure.” Americans must thoughtfully pursue an Identity is indeed a “master concept” expanded, identity-conscious politics. for understanding American politics. New, vibrant, noisy voices represent the But identity politics has a much longer strongest tool to manage the growing history than Fukuyama describes. And in pains o multicultural coexistence. By the United States, identity politics hasn’t embracing identity and its prickly, led to the breakdown o democracy; uncomfortable contours, Americans rather, it has helped democracy thrive. will become more likely to grow as one. ORIGIN STORY STACEY Y. ABRAMS served as Minority In Fukuyama’s telling, identity politics Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017 and was the Democratic ¿rst emerged in the second hal o the Party’s nominee in Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial twentieth century. In fact, Americans have election. been engaged in identity politics since the founding o the republic. I the ¿ght for civil rights for African Americans was Identity Politics Can Lead to fueled by identity politics, then so was Progress the ¿ght to establish and ensure white supremacy via slavery and Jim Crow. In John Sides, Michael Tesler, and other words, identity politics isn’t behind Lynn Vavreck only the eorts o marginalized groups to seek redress: it also drives the eorts o dominant groups to marginalize others. rancis Fukuyama argues that Fukuyama believes identity politics “identity politics has become a went too far when groups such as African Fmaster concept that explains much Americans began to “assert a separate o what is going on in global aairs.” identity” and “demand respect for [their He attributes a variety o political members] as dierent from the main-
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stream society.” Leaving aside whether o African Americans. This divergence that statement correctly characterizes the sharpened during Barack Obama’s candi- goal o such groups, it is important to dacy and presidency, as whites’ racial acknowledge that identity politics also attitudes became more closely tied to de¿ned who was and who was not part o their partisan identities. “mainstream society” in the ¿rst place. This trend might have accelerated In Fukuyama’s telling, U.S. politics even faster than it did had major politi- were healthier when Americans— cal leaders tried to exploit it. But Obama especially those on the left—organized actually talked about race less than around economic concerns that tran- other recent Democratic presidents and scended ethnic categories. “In past eras,” frequently used rhetoric that sought to he writes, “progressives appealed to a unify Americans o dierent racial shared experience o exploitation and backgrounds. Meanwhile, Obama’s resentment o rich capitalists.” But there Republican opponents in the presiden- is no period in U.S. history when eco- tial elections o 2008 and 2012, John nomics were so cleanly divorced from McCain and Mitt Romney, chose not identity. For example, as the political to stoke racialized fears o Obama. scientist Ira Katznelson has documented, Donald Trump was dierent. His the key social welfare programs o the provocative statements about race, immi- New Deal era were predicated on racial gration, and Islam helped de¿ne the 2016 discrimination: U.S. President Franklin election. Partly as a result, Americans’ Roosevelt relied on the support o white views on such issues became stronger segregationists, which he won by allow- predictors oÈ how they voted. For ing southern states to prevent blacks example, compared with in earlier from enjoying the New Deal’s bene¿ts. elections, it was easier to determine how Identity, and especially racial and ethnic people voted in 2016 based on whether identity, has always been intrinsic to ¿ghts they wanted a pathway to citizenship for over economic opportunity and equality. undocumented immigrants or believed This is not to say that today’s identity that racial inequality was just a matter politics is the same as its historical fore- o minorities “not trying hard enough.” bears. What makes it dierent is how Meanwhile, economic issues achieved tightly Americans’ views about racial, more political potency when refracted ethic, and religious identities are now through race. As far back as the 2016 bound up with another salient American Republican primary, whether voters identity: partisan aliation. Well before supported Trump depended less on 2016, Democratic and Republican voters whether they were worried about losing had begun to diverge in their views o their own jobs than it did on whether they immigration and racial equality. Demo- were worried about whites losing jobs to crats became more supportive o immigra- ethnic minorities. tion and more willing to attribute racial inequality to discrimination. Republicans WHOSE CHOICE? became less supportive o immigration Since the election, this alignment o and more willing to attribute racial partisanship and attitudes about race and inequality to a lack o eort on the part immigration has grown even stronger,
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What democracy looks like: new members of the U.S. Congress, January 2019 and it has an important implication for wants federal action on his policy agenda Fukuyama’s argument. Fukuyama’s favored in an era o divided government and political agenda closely resembles that o narrow congressional majorities, the real Democratic voters and the Democratic onus is on Republicans to support his Party. He supports remedies for police ideas. And i he wants an American violence against minorities and the identity based on shared values and open sexual harassment o women, endorses to all citizens—even those who hail from birthright citizenship, and wants an what Trump reportedly called “shithole American identity based on ideals rather countries”—then he will need at least than on “blood and soil” nationalism. some Republicans to stand up to Trump. The most forceful opposition to such Fukuyama may be against identity poli- ideas has come from the Trump adminis- tics, but identity politics is also critical to tration and its Republican allies and the success o the agenda that he supports. supporters. Yet Fukuyama does not put History has shown that progress toward the onus on Republicans to reject Trump. equality doesn’t come about because o BRIAN SNYDER In his view, the “major choice” belongs happenstance, a sudden change o heart to the Democratic Party, which must on Capitol Hill, or the magnanimity o decide whether to double down on dominant groups. Instead, progress comes
/ REUTERS “the mobilization o . . . identity groups” when marginalized groups organize or “try to win back some o the white around their shared identities. Their ght working-class voters . . . who have is often unpopular. In one 1964 survey, defected” to the . But i Fukuyama conducted a few months after the passage
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o the Civil Rights Act, o those polled, Europe, undermining the kind o civil 84 percent o southerners and 64 percent discourse essential to the maintenance o Americans living outside the South said oÈ liberal democracy. He also claims that that civil rights leaders were pushing too “perhaps the worst thing about identity fast. But pushing was their only recourse, politics as currently practiced by the and pushing helped change the country’s left is that it has stimulated the rise o laws and attitudes. identity politics on the right.” This is Fukuyama wants a unifying American highly misleading. Identity politics was identity, what he calls a “creedal national part o the American political discourse identity.” But the country is already fairly long before liberals and leftists began to close to having one. According to the practice it in the 1960s and 1970s. Think o December 2016 Views o the Electorate the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party Research, or ¨¥¤§¡, Survey, 93 percent in the 1850s and the white-supremacist o Americans think that respecting U.S. Ku Klux Klan during the ¿rst hal o political institutions and laws is somewhat the twentieth century. What were such or very important to “being American.” groups i not early practitioners o a Far fewer believe that it’s important to be brand o white identity politics? born in the United States (55 percent) or But other parts o Fukuyama’s argu- to have European heritage (20 percent). ment are more persuasive, and he is Moreover, most Americans actually right to focus on the role that identity place identity politics at the center o plays in the health o American democ- the American creed: the vast majority racy. Fukuyama makes one particularly (88 percent) think that accepting people useful point in the closing passages o o diverse racial and religious backgrounds his article: is important to being American. There is no necessary tension be- People will never stop thinking about themselves and their societies in tween identity politics and the American identity terms. But people’s identities creed. The question is whether identity are neither ¿xed nor necessarily given politics will help Americans live up to by birth. Identity can be used to divide, that creed. Historically, it has. but it can also be used to unify. That, in the end, will be the remedy for the JOHN SIDES, MICHAEL TESLER, AND LYNN VAVRECK are political scientists and the authors populist politics o the present. of Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America. What Fukuyama gets right here is the fact that human beings have a funda- mental need to belong—a need that their A Creedal Identity Is Not collective identities, be they racial, Enough ethnic, religious, regional, or national, often satisfy. Such aliations, which Jennifer A. Richeson psychologists call “social identities,” serve multiple psychological functions. rancis Fukuyama argues that These include, for example, the need for identity politics is eroding national a sense o safety, which social identities Funity in the United States and satisfy by reducing uncertainty and 166 ¶¥¡§¢³¦ ¯¶¶¯¢¡
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providing norms that help people navi- politics. Hence, it is important not gate everyday life. Some social identities only to cultivate a common American also oer rituals and customs to aid with identity, as Fukuyama argues, but also loss, mourning, and other signi¿cant to promote the idea o the United challenges that occur during the course States as inclusive o multiple racial, o one’s life. At times, identities provide ethnic, religious, and other types o a sense o purpose and meaning and a basis identities. Indeed, Americans must for esteem and regard that is larger than create that society. people’s individual selves. As Fukuyama suggests, identities eciently satisfy the WHY DON’T WE HAVE BOTH? human need for respect and dignity. Perhaps the main weakness o Fuku- What Fukuyama gets wrong, however, yama’s argument is the implication that is the idea that a single unifying identity— Americans face a binary choice when it a “creedal” American identity—could comes to political identity: either they alone satisfy this suite o psychological can embrace a broad creedal identity or needs and thereby allow citizens to they can cling to narrow identities based abandon the smaller social identities that on race, ethnicity, gender, or ideology. people invest in and clearly value. Broad There is no reason to think that is true. identities such as the one Fukuyama Political leaders can address the sense o promotes are useful and unifying at psychological vulnerability triggered by times, but they rarely meet the human shifting demographics and social change need for individuation. That is why and also respect rightful claims for inclu- people look to narrower bases for identi- sion and fair treatment on the part o ¿cation. Moreover, broad social identi- members o marginalized groups. Ameri- ties such as national aliations—even cans can acknowledge and, when appro- when ostensibly based on principles that priate, celebrate the particular identities, are hypothetically accessible to all— cultures, and histories o distinct social often rely on the terms and norms o the groups and also pursue a unifying dominant majority and thus end up national creed. undermining the identity needs o There is even some evidence to minority groups. suggest that the more identities people Furthermore, people’s existing social maintain—and the more complex and identities are important to them, and overlapping those identities are—the less attempts to dissolve them would likely conÊict they will have with people who be met with severe resistance. The maintain dierent sets o identities. potential loss o a group’s identity, real Greater identity complexity may serve or imagined, is psychologically threat- as a buer against the feelings o ening. A powerful urge compels people humiliation and resentment that often to defend their groups at all costs in fuel ethnonationalist movements. the face o such threats. As Fukuyama Identifying as American does not himsel notes, a sense oÈ loss due to the require the relinquishing o other identi- changing racial and ethnic composition ties. In fact, it is possible to leverage those o the United States is partly to blame identities to cultivate and deepen one’s for the rise o right-wing identity Americanness. For instance, researchers
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have found that when people highlight Fukuyama Replies their shared experiences, even when they belong to what appear to be oppos- appreciate these thoughtful com- ing, i not adversarial, social groups, they ments on my article. But all three experience an increase in empathy and Iresponses, which contain a number harmony. Rather than dividing people, o common themes, fundamentally the act o reÊecting on the marginalization miscast my thinking about identity o one’s own social group—be it current politics. One reason for this might be or historical—can encourage societal that the article focuses more on the kind cohesion. o identity politics characteristic o the In the United States, an honest contemporary progressive left, whereas accounting and acknowledgment o what the book from which the article was it has meant to be American could reveal adapted, Identity, focuses more on my Americans’ shared vulnerability and central concern: the recent rise o right- their common capacity for wrongdoing, wing nationalist populism. This develop- as well as their resilience in the face o ment threatens liberal democracy because mistreatment. This sentiment is echoed populist leaders seek to use the legitimacy by the lawyer and civil rights activist they gain from democratic elections to Bryan Stevenson, who has argued for undermine liberal institutions such as the need to engage honestly with the courts, the media, and impartial bureauc- history o racial injustice in the United racies. This has been happening in States. “We can create communities in Hungary, Poland, and, above all, the this country where people are less bur- United States. Populists’ distrust o dened by our history o racial inequality,” “globalism” also leads them to weaken Stevenson told an interviewer last year. the international institutions necessary “The more we understand the depth o to manage the liberal world order. that suering, the more we understand I concur with the commonplace the power o people to cope and over- judgment that the rise o populism has come and survive.” been triggered by globalization and the That sounds like a unifying national consequent massive increase in inequal- creed that would allow Americans to ity in many rich countries. But i the embrace their own identities, encourage fundamental cause were merely eco- them to respect the identities embraced nomic, one would have expected to see by others, and arm shared principles o left-wing populism everywhere; instead, equality and justice. Fukuyama appears since the 2008 ¿nancial crisis, parties on to believe that this more complex form the left have been in decline, while the o national identi¿cation is not possible. most energized new movements have I think it is. It may even be the only path been anti-immigrant groups, such as the toward a diverse nation that lives up to far-right party Alternative for Germany its democratic principles. and the populist coalition now govern- ing Italy. In the 2016 U.S. presidential JENNIFER A. RICHESON is Philip R. Allen election, enough white working-class Professor of Psychology at Yale University. voters abandoned the Democratic Party to put Donald Trump over the top,
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capping a 40-year trend o shifting resonate with people who are not neces- party loyalties. This means that there is sarily racist. something going on in the cultural realm Another major misunderstanding o that needs explaining, and that something my argument has to do with my view o is concern over identity. contemporary identity movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. BALANCING IDENTITY O course they are rooted in real social The concept o “identity,” as I use the injustices such as police violence and term, builds on a universal aspect o the sexual harassment; they legitimately call human psyche that Plato labeled thymos, for concrete policy remedies and a broad the demand for respect for one’s inner shift in cultural norms. But people can dignity. But there is a speci¿cally modern walk and chew gum at the same time. expression o thymos that emerged after Even as Americans seek to right injus- the Protestant Reformation and that tices suered by speci¿c social groups, values the inner sel more highly than they need to balance their small-group society’s laws, norms, and customs and identities with a more integrative insists that society change its own norms identity needed to create a cohesive to give recognition to that inner self. national democratic community. I am The ¿rst major expression o modern not arguing, contrary to Richeson, that identity politics was nineteenth-century this will be an adequate substitute for European nationalism, when cultural narrower identities; rather, it will be a groups began to demand recognition in complement to them. the form o statehood. I believe that Liberal democracy cannot exist much o modern Islamism is similarly without a national identity that de¿nes driven by identity confusion among Mus- what citizens hold in common with one lims in modernizing societies who feel another. Given the de facto multicultural- neither Western nor traditional and see a ism o contemporary democracies, that particular form o politicized religion as a identity needs to be civic or creedal. That source o community and identity. is, it needs to be based on liberal political But is not correct to say, as John ideas that are accessible to people o dif- Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, ferent cultural backgrounds rather than on and Jennifer Richeson do, that identity ¿xed characteristics such as race, ethnicity, politics as I de¿ne it drove white- or religion. I thought that the United supremacist and anti-immigrant move- States had arrived at such a creedal ments in the nineteenth-century United identity in the wake o the civil rights States. Racism and xenophobia have movement, but that accomplishment is always existed. But a generation or two now being threatened by right-wing ago, white Americans did not typically identitarians, led by Trump, who would think o themselves as a victimized like to drag Americans backward to minority mistreated by elites who were identities based on ethnicity and religion. indierent to their problems. Today, many do, because contemporary racists WINNING VS. GOVERNING have borrowed their framing o identity Stacey Abrams criticizes my desire to from groups on the left, in ways that return to class as the de¿ning target o
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progressive politics, since class and race is on Republican politicians to stop overlap strongly in the United States. defending Trump, but they will do so But it is absurd to see white Americans only when they realize that their own as a uniformly privileged category, as she voters are turning against him. seems to do. A signi¿cant part o the The contemporary Middle East, like white working class has followed the the Balkans before it, is an extreme black working class into underclass status. example o out-of-control identity Communities facing deindustrialization politics and what ultimately happens to and job loss have experienced increases countries that do not invest in integrative in crime, family breakdown, and drug national identities. The United States is use; the Centers for Disease Control and fortunately far from that point o state Prevention has estimated that 72,000 breakdown. But what is happening in the Americans died in 2017 o drug over- country is part o a larger global shift doses related to the opioid epidemic. So from a politics based on economic ideas although part o the populist vote both to a politics based on identity. In the in the United States and in Europe is 2018 midterm elections, Trump was driven by racism and xenophobia, part o reportedly advised by Paul Ryan, the it is driven by legitimate complaints that Republican Speaker o the House, to elites—the mainstream political parties, campaign on the 2017 tax cut and eco- the media, cultural institutions, and nomic growth; Trump chose instead to major corporations—have failed to go the identity route by railing against recognize these voters’ plight and have migrant caravans and birthright citizen- stood by as this decline has occurred. ship. This is identity politics on steroids. Abrams knows much better than I do This shift, echoed in other countries, what is required to win an election in is not compatible with modern liberal the contemporary United States, and I’m democracy. The latter is rooted in the sorry that she did not succeed in her bid rights o individuals, and not the rights for governor o Georgia. But I’m not o groups or ¿xed communities. And sure that a successful electoral strategy unless the United States counters this would necessarily translate into a sustain- trend domestically, it will continue to set able governing strategy. The country’s a bad example for the rest o the world.∂ single greatest weakness today is the intense polarization that has infected its political system, a weakness that has been exploited by authoritarian rivals such as China and Russia. In practical terms, overcoming polarization means devising a posture that will win back at least part o the white working-class vote that has shifted from the left to the right. Peeling away populist voters not driven by simple racism means taking seriously some o their concerns over cultural change and national identity. I agree that the burden
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On Cultural Diversity: International Recent Books Theory in a World of Dierence BY CHRISTIAN REUSÛSMIT. Political and Legal Cambridge University Press, 2018, 274 pp. G. John Ikenberry Scholars o international relations rarely look at culture as a force in world politics. Theorists tend to focus on power and interests, not values. In this ambi- The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth tious book, Reus-Smit seeks to change BY MICHAEL MANDELBAUM. that. His ¿rst discovery is that scholars Oxford University Press, 2019, 232 pp. acknowledge the role o cultural interac- tions more than one might think. Samuel andelbaum argues that the Huntington famously depicted a “clash 25 years after the end o the o civilizations,” and realists sometimes MCold War were uniquely make arguments about the eects o peaceful thanks to three forces: U.S. nationalism. Liberal and rationalist liberal hegemony, the spread o democ- theories o politics often note how better racy, and rising economic interdepen- cultural understanding can make coop- dence. This was not merely a “realist eration easier. But Reus-Smit argues peace,” that is, a momentary pause in that scholars conceive o culture as ¿xed geopolitics or a reÊection o U.S. unipo- rather than Êuid. He also points out larity. Around the world, there were that all the great international orders in glimmers o a “Kantian peace,” rooted history—the Roman Empire, the Qing in shared interests and values among dynasty, the Ottoman Empire, and early liberal democratic states. Why did it modern Europe—evolved in heteroge- unravel? Mandelbaum points the ¿nger neous cultural contexts. Grappling with at Russia’s aggression in Europe, China’s such diversity, Reus-Smit argues, is one expansionism in Asia, and Iran’s ten- o the great tasks o order building. dency to sow chaos in the Middle East. Interestingly, Mandelbaum spares the The Development Century: A Global History United States most o the blame. He EDITED BY STEPHEN J. MACEKURA argues that although ¦¯¤¥ expansion AND EREZ MANELA. Cambridge did, as many suggest, antagonize Russia, University Press, 2018, 366 pp. today’s great-power revisionism was caused primarily by the spread o During the twentieth century, develop- democracy. Ironically, he argues, i ment emerged as a concept and an organ- democracy had not shown such world- ized activity in international society. wide appeal, illiberal states would Every year, governments, international have pursued less aggressive policies in organizations, and private foundations response. World peace, it seems, will send money and experts abroad to have to wait until democracy wins a promote economic growth and social more complete victory. development. This collection o essays by a group o prominent historians provides
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the best portrait yet o the origins and designed to make the world safe for evolution o international development. American capitalism. Walker oers a The rise o Cold War–era moderniza- third interpretation: the United States tion theory and the geopolitics o U.S. did want to spread its inÊuence and foreign aid are well-known stories. But the American way oÈ life, but it did so these authors show that international by weaving other societies into a Pax development has a much longer history, Americana. This is the vision Walker one that is intertwined with the emer- sees in the Life owner Henry Luce’s gence o the modern global order. In famous 1941 call for “an American her contribution, Amanda Kay McVety Century.” Walker provides an impres- traces the concept to the Enlightenment sively detailed account o U.S. foreign and the work o early political econo- policy in the early postwar decades, as mists, such as Adam Smith. Others look the United States, in the words o at how development was entangled with Secretary o State Dean Acheson, nineteenth-century European empires learned how to “run the show.” Walker and twentieth-century struggles over agrees with the historian Melvyn LeÎer decolonization and nation building. A that the United States was driven by chapter by Manela charts the history the need to protect itsel against the o disease control and the emergence o illiberal and imperial projects that imper- a global institutional framework for iled it. It sought “preponderance,” development assistance. Timothy Nunan Walker says, but not “domination.” explores the eorts o European foresters, Walker closes his story with the presi- American nongovernmental organiza- dency o Richard Nixon, when Ameri- tions, and Soviet engineers to develop cans feared that their century was Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s. Taken already ending and the country was together, these and other contributions struggling to avoid decline. suggest that international development is best understood not as the diusion Constructing Global Order: Agency and oÈ knowledge from the West to the rest Change in World Politics or as a manifestation o the Cold War BY AMITAV ACHARYA. Cambridge struggle but instead as a shared language University Press, 2018, 224 pp. and set o practices that transcend ideological and political divides. Most scholars believe that the modern international order was built in the West The Rise and Decline of the American and exported to the rest o the world. Century After all, the Westphalian state system BY WILLIAM O. WALKER . Cornell was invented in seventeenth-century University Press, 2018, 306 pp. Europe, and today’s order has Anglo- American ¿ngerprints all over it. Acharya After World War II, the United States stresses the agency o non-Western set about building a global order. Some actors and oers an alternative vision historians believe this was an eort to o a decentralized global system. He balance against Soviet power. Others argues that despite their pretensions to view the order as a modern empire, universality, the Westphalian system and
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the liberal world order do not encom- manufacturing, which will allow compa- pass the whole world. International nies to make products physically near order is contested, and countries on the their customers while controlling the receiving end oÈ Western power often process from distant headquarters. In push back. Regional institutions, in most countries, these giant companies particular, provide “sites for the creation will employ fewer people than their and diusion” o non-Western ideas. predecessors, as machines will replace Yet the global pluralism that Acharya assembly-line workers. They may create describes is closer to the open, multilay- some extra jobs in the United States, ered liberal international order than he but these will require much higher skill suggests. levels than does the typical manufactur- ing job today. The new behemoths will pose serious challenges to competition Economic, Social, and regulators and consumer watchdogs, Environmental which may need to act to block monop- olies and protect customers’ privacy.
Richard N. Cooper Broken Bargain: Bankers, Bailouts, and the Struggle to Tame Wall Street BY KATHLEEN DAY. Yale University The Pan-Industrial Revolution: How New Press, 2019, 440 pp. Manufacturing Titans Will Transform the World Day tells the story o U.S. banking BY RICHARD D’AVENI . Houghton since the beginning o the American MiÎin Harcourt, 2018, 320 pp. republic, emphasizing the bargain that she says was struck after the banking n the United States and elsewhere, crisis o 1930–33. Under that arrange- D’Aveni predicts, manufacturing ment, the federal government provided Iwill accelerate over the next decade deposit insurance (thereby limiting and come to dominate the economy. bank runs), and in exchange, the banks His book notes two broad trends behind accepted heavy regulation. In romping this takeo. The ¿rst is the increasing fashion, Day recounts the troubling substitution o 3-D printing (an example story o the last 40 years, during which o what is known as “additive manufac- a combination o new legislation and turing”) for traditional assembly lines. deregulation broke that bargain. In large This technology greatly reduces manu- part thanks to lobbying and campaign facturers’ economies o scale but makes contributions by ¿nancial ¿rms, Congress production faster and allows ¿rms to rolled back regulations. Meanwhile, cater to ever-changing consumer tastes regulators, such as Robert Rubin, U.S. and business requirements. The second treasury secretary during the Clinton trend is the growth o individual manu- administration, and Alan Greenspan, a facturing ¿rms, which he argues will longtime chair o the Federal Reserve, come to span many industrial sectors. embraced a philosophy o deregulation In part, that’s also the result o additive and supported, and even encouraged,
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the rollbacks. Some regulators, bankers, The Venture Capital State: The Silicon state government ocials, and even Valley Model in East Asia legislators did warn o the risks, but BY ROBYN KLINGLERÛVIDRA. those in power did not heed them. Cornell University Press, 2018, 210 pp.
Carbon Capture Silicon Valley has become a model for a BY HOWARD. J. HERZOG . MIT Press, cluster o successful business start-ups 2018, 216 pp. that later mature into ¿rms and turn huge pro¿ts for their original venture IÈ humans are to seriously mitigate capital investors. No surprise, then, that climate change, they will have to use a many governments—45 so far—have lot less coal, oil, and natural gas—or ¿nd attempted to replicate it. This informa- ways to capture and store the carbon tive book examines in detail three such dioxide that fossil fuels give o when attempts—in Hong Kong, Singapore, and they burn. This useful little book explains Taiwan—and draws on the experiences in simple terms the various methods o o related ventures in several other places, capturing and then storing the carbon including Israel and Japan. Unsurpris- dioxide emitted by power plants and ingly, Silicon Valley and its host govern- factories and how much doing so is likely ments, the California state government to cost. Herzog also discusses various and the U.S. federal government, have possible ways to suck carbon dioxide legal, institutional, and cultural character- directly out o the atmosphere, since istics that other places ¿nd hard to repli- what’s already up there is the leading cate. Klingler-Vidra shows how Hong cause o global warming. Right now, the Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan have main options for capturing and storing ¿nanced new ventures by giving funds carbon dioxide are not cheap, but the and tax breaks to venture capital ¿rms price might well prove bearable; capture and start-ups. She says little about the and storage would raise the cost o ultimate outcomes, such as the number producing electricity in a modern coal- o successful ¿rms per public dollar ¿red power plant by 43 percent. (Herzog spent, but she does show that the venture calculates that that would mean the capitalists supported by governments typical American consumer would pay tend to invest in older, already pro¿table about 25 percent more to run his or her ¿rms rather than true start-ups. appliances.) Herzog also describes various programs that already capture and store A Political Economy of the United States, carbon dioxide and the strengths and China, and India: Prosperity With Inequality de¿ciencies o their dierent approaches. BY SHALENDRA D. SHARMA . Given how much coal, oil, and gas the Cambridge University Press, 2018, 232 pp. world uses, it is surprising that countries have not already put more time and Sharma compares economic growth money into such technologies. and inequality in the world’s three most populous countries—China, India, and the United States—and then draws connec- tions to globalization and domestic politics.
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He summarizes a wealth o scholarly This illuminating, i uneven, collection research in this compact volume. World- o essays is united by the idea that the wide inequality has fallen over the last Star Wars movies are particularly valu- 30 years thanks to the rapid economic able in this regard. In part, that is due growth that has slashed poverty in China to the quality o the storytelling. But and India. But inequality has risen within Star Wars has another virtue: popularity. each o the countries Sharma studied and Students, even those in military acad- in many others, as well. Globalization has emies, often struggle with dry texts on played a role in both trends. Exports have strategy and have gaps in their knowl- created a lot oÈ low-wage jobs in China edge o contemporary conÊicts, but they and cut prices for Americans, bringing know all about the struggles between down global inequality (although trade has the Galactic Empire and the Rebel done less to help the more protectionist Alliance. As the contributors show, India). Meanwhile, the accompanying free teachers can use examples from the Star Êow o capital across borders has made its Wars movies to demonstrate the impor- owners richer, concentrating wealth in the tance o paying attention to vulnerable hands o a few. Local politics also shape societies (the lack o development on inequality. In the United States, campaign Endor), the limitations o modern contributions help determine who gets military training (Jedi training, which elected and the policies they enact. Local separates soldiers from the people politics also play a big role in authoritar- they serve and is far too geared toward ian China and democratic India, where individual combat), the dangers o an political connections and outright bribery overreliance on technology (the empire’s dictate policy and ensure that the wealthy dependence on the Death Star), and grow ever wealthier. common errors o grand strategy (Yoda’s overcon¿dence in the Jedis’ ability to protect the republic). These failings Military, Scienti¿c, and also highlight a key dierence between Technological the movies and real-life situations: without them, the plots would have been left Lawrence D. Freedman with less suspense and fewer thrills.
Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Strategy Strikes Back: How “Star Wars” Battle of Manila Explains Modern Military Con©ict BY JAMES M. SCOTT . Norton, 2018, EDITED BY MAX BROOKS, JOHN 640 pp. AMBLE, ML CAVANAUGH, AND JAYM GATES. Potomac Books, 2018, Early in 1945, U.S. General Douglas 272 pp. MacArthur, who had Êed the Philippines three years earlier, returned to wrest the cademics have long mined capital, Manila, from the Japanese—just as science ¿ction for insights into he had promised. Facing him were just Aleadership, strategy, and conÊict. over a quarter o a million soldiers, led by March/April 2019 175 Buy CSS Books Online https://cssbooks.net ? Call/SMS 03336042057
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one o Japan’s top generals, Tomoyuki began serving as soldiers rather than Yamashita, the conqueror o Singapore. entertainers. In this fascinating history, The Japanese were well positioned to Vuic largely lets the women speak for thwart the American advance but had themselves. They signed up out o a little ammunition or food. Manila itsel desire for overseas adventure, to sup- was home to one million civilians, many port the war eort, and out o sympathy o them close to starvation, and 10,000 for lonely and fearful young men who prisoners o war, including many Ameri- missed their families. Vuic explores the cans. During the ferocious battle for sexual politics o frontline forces, as the the city, which raged for 29 days, some women tried to ¿nd the appropriate 100,000 Filipino civilians died. Some codes o dress, dating, and maintaining were killed by U.S. artillery, but most distance to avoid raising expectations were murdered by unhinged Japanese they could not meet. The issues o race troops who used bayonets and grenades and segregation also inevitably loom to avenge their imminent defeat. Scott’s large in her account. masterful reconstruction o the horror o the battle intersperses accounts o Operation Columba—The Secret Pigeon massacres with happier moments o Service: The Untold Story of World War II liberation. Resistance in Europe BY GORDON CORERA. William The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Morrow, 2018, 352 pp. Front to the Front Lines BY KARA DIXON VUIC . Harvard During World War II, British intelligence University Press, 2019, 392 pp. agencies sent operatives into occupied Europe to place some 16,000 homing From 1918 until the end o the Vietnam pigeons carried in special containers. War, every time young American men Most o the birds were never seen again, were sent to ¿ght overseas, they would in some cases lost to hawks sent by the be joined by small groups o young Germans to intercept them. But about women who would serve drinks and ten percent returned, enough to make snacks, put on shows, and oer (pla- the eort worthwhile. The aim was to tonic) friendship to the soldiers. The persuade any local people who chanced women were chosen for their good on the birds to write messages, hope- character and attractive appearance, fully containing intelligence on German and their presence was meant to remind military positions and movements, on the men o the ideal o womanhood for tiny pieces o rice paper stued into a which they were ¿ghting, raise soldiers’ canister clipped onto each pigeon’s leg. morale by providing them with femi- As so often in wartime British intelli- nine company, and discourage them gence, the project was handled by a from seeking out prostitutes. By the collection o “oddballs and professors” end o the Cold War, the practice had and suered from bureaucratic in¿ghting, died out, as U.S. forces were made up but it still made a dierence. Corera’s o volunteers rather than draftees and vivid account shows how the pigeons’ feminism was on the rise. Women messages revealed daily life under the
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Nazis and valuable intelligence. Some o the most useful information, includ- The United States ing details o German positions and an assessment o recent British air raids, Walter Russell Mead came from a Belgian network known as Leopold Vindictive, which was led by Father Joseph Raskin, a priest with intelligence experience from the previous Every Day Is Extra war. In the end, Raskin was betrayed BY JOHN KERRY. Simon & Schuster, and caught and executed by the Germans. 2018, 640 pp.
We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of erry will likely be remembered Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom as the last U.S. secretary o state BY JOEL SIMON. Columbia Global Kwhose outlook reÊected the Reports, 2019, 189 pp. assumptions and aspirations o the post Cold War unipolar era in world politics. This excellent and careful book asks For Kerry, the job involved serving as a tough questions about whether and kind o global ¿rst responder. Christmas how governments should negotiate with 2013 found him managing a crisis in kidnappers to get hostages released. South Sudan: “I was talking to our Simon, who has worked for two decades embassy in Juba and the White House at the Committee to Protect Journalists, as we tracked militias and ¿ghters. . . . challenges the view that paying ransoms I they reached Juba, and the ¿ghting simply creates incentives for more kidnap- devolved into chaos, it would be ‘Katy, ping. His detailed history oÈ hostage bar the door!’” Kerry’s successors are taking includes case studies demonstrat- unlikely to follow the news in Juba as ing the dierent approaches followed closely. In other ways, too, Kerry, a son by such countries as France and Spain, o the old µ¯£ ascendancy, seems to which are prepared to do whatever it belong to an America that is rapidly takes to free their citizens, and the United receding in the rearview mirror. Kerry Kingdom and the United States, which saw U.S. power much as he saw his generally refuse to negotiate and whose own privilege: as a call to service. His nationals are, therefore, more likely to memoir gives a comprehensive and, in be killed. Kidnappers’ motives vary: places, moving account oÈ his response some crave publicity; others just want to that call. People disagree over the cash. Simon’s overall approach is prag- wisdom and eectiveness o U.S. foreign matic. In addition to arguing against a policy in the Kerry years, but there can blanket refusal to negotiate, he addresses be no serious dispute about the integ- the value o publicity campaigns, the rity and patriotism that Kerry brought risks involved in rescue missions, the to the job. role o insurance companies and private negotiators, and how the ransoms actually get paid.
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The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication o the national government over the of Global Leadership states, formed the foundation o the BY IVO H. DAALDER AND JAMES M. American state. As Brookhiser shows in LINDSAY. PublicAairs, 2018, 256 pp. this brisk biography, Marshall’s success was partly due to the power oÈ his legal Few observers o U.S. foreign policy reasoning and partly to his brilliant have the skills and experience o Daalder management o the men who served with and Lindsay. In their new book, they him on the Supreme Court. Marshall lucidly, i not very originally, argue that doesn’t oer much grist for a biographer; U.S. President Donald Trump’s leader- he led a quietly respectable private life ship has weakened the United States’ and was as marmoreal in his public alliances, undermined the institutions persona as George Washington. Few on which much o U.S. security de- surviving papers reveal much o the pends, and put American companies inner man. Brookhiser does his best and exporters at a disadvantage. On with this unpromising material, but the question o why so many voters Marshall would doubtless be pleased rejected the traditional foreign policy that it is his ideas that dominate this approach in 2016, Daalder and Lindsay biography, not his quarrels, debts, ambi- have less to say. Their book refers to tions, or amours. The greatest blot on U.S. over extension in the Clinton and Marshall’s record, as Brookhiser notes, Bush administrations and notes that was his failure to confront the horrors the Obama-era attempt to oer a more o slavery. Washington freed his slaves limited form o American leadership when he died, in 1799. Marshall, who proved less satisfying than many hoped, died in 1835, left his in bondage. but such concerns occupy a marginal place in the narrative. One hopes their The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became next book will do more. The most an American Religion urgent task facing students o contem- BY STEVEN R. WEISMAN . Simon & porary U.S. foreign policy is less to Schuster, 2018, 368 pp. deconstruct Trump’s approach than to craft long-term strategies that will be Weisman makes a convincing case that politically sustainable at home and the cultural and theological beliefs o eective abroad. the nineteenth-century American Jewish community continue to shape John Marshall: The Man Who Made the American Jewish life today. American Supreme Court Jews o that era, like many o their neigh- BY RICHARD BROOKHISER . Basic bors, tended to be anticlerical, suspicious Books, 2018, 336 pp. o institutions, and independent-minded with respect to religion. Enthusiastically It is thanks to John Marshall’s work as embracing the rational, liberal theology the fourth chie justice o the United and biblical criticism then coming out States that the constitutional doctrines o Germany, they worked to adapt an o the Federalist Party, which espoused ancient religion to what they saw as a strong judicial power and the supremacy new era o enlightenment. Change was
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not always smooth: at the 1883 grad- this book, Krauthammer’s son, Daniel, uation o the ¿rst new rabbis from the himsel a writer, assembles some oÈ his Hebrew Union College o Cincinnati, father’s most important columns. To guests were horri¿ed when waiters served read (or reread) them is to be reminded crab, shrimp, and frogs’ legs. After 1880, oÈ how central the elder Krauthammer the largely German American Jewish was to 30 years o American foreign community would be overwhelmed by policy debate. a great wave o Jews from central and eastern Europe. But their ideas about Judaism, including their complicated Western Europe responses to Zionism, endured. Andrew Moravcsik The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER. EDITED BY DANIEL Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts From KRAUTHAMMER. Crown Forum, the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern 2018, 400 pp. History BY CATHARINE ARNOLD. St. Martin’s Last summer, the death o Charles Press, 2018, 368 pp. Krauthammer, a longtime columnist for The Washington Post, silenced one o atients coughed up blood riddled the most inÊuential voices in the world with parasitic bacteria, spraying o U.S. foreign policy. After a diving Pit across hospital rooms. Dying accident left him partially paralyzed in bodies inÊated with the air seeping out 1972, Krauthammer went to on graduate o their punctured lungs. Huge numbers from Harvard Medical School, practice o otherwise healthy young people died psychiatry, and then enter politics, work- within hours when their powerful immune ing as a speechwriter for Vice President systems turned on them. Worldwide, Walter Mondale. After the end o the between 50 million and 100 million people Cold War, Krauthammer, already known perished. Among remote populations for his hawkish foreign policy views, that lacked immunity, the mortality rate embraced and helped de¿ne the concept often exceeded 90 percent. Cities threw o unipolarity—the idea that the compe- the dead in mass graves—unless, as in tition between the United States and Philadelphia, too few workers remained the Soviet Union had been replaced by to bury them all. Scientists and govern- a “unipolar moment,” in which the United ments were powerless to stop it. This is States, for a limited time, had no serious no horror-movie vision o Ebola or the rivals. Krauthammer went on to bitterly Black Death. These are stories from the criticize what he saw as President Barack Spanish Êu pandemic a century ago, Obama’s retreat from U.S. responsibili- which claimed ¿ve times as many victims ties and what he deemed the funda- as World War I. More scienti¿cally mentally irresponsible approach o rigorous accounts exist, but Arnold, a Obama’s successor, Donald Trump. In popular historian, has assembled the
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most terrifying eyewitness testimony. Yet he fails to provide a plausible alter- The lessons are obvious. A pandemic native explanation for their behavior. today might well spread even more quickly and kill even more people. A Bite-Sized History of France: General multipurpose vaccines—even Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, genetically engineered ones—are often and Enlightenment powerless to combat diseases that mutate BY STÉPHANE HÉNAUT AND JENI rapidly. Only a permanent global MITCHELL. New Press, 2019, 352 pp. system that can quickly diagnose and treat people could blunt the spread o This engaging book recounts the such a scourge, yet governments still history o France through its food. For underfund such programs. the French, their cuisine is a prime source o national pride, but as Hénaut English Nationalism: A Short History and Mitchell’s lively vignettes show, few BY JEREMY BLACK. Hurst, 2018, French delicacies are indigenous. The 224 pp. Romans converted uncouth beer-drinking Gauls to wine. The Frank Charlemagne Does England have a national identity standardized French farms, decreeing distinct from that o the United King- that every estate should grow garlic, dom? Recent political conÊict between produce honey, and much else. Return- England and the rest o the union over ing crusaders brought plums and other Brexit, Scottish independence, Irish exotic fruits. Schismatic popes from unity, and other issues has made this a Italy established eggplants and Syrah hot-button question. Black argues that wine. An Italian noblewoman turned English nationalism is genuine: Eng- French queen, Catherine de Medicis, lishness rests on the shared experiences brought artichokes, spinach, broccoli, o Magna Carta, the Reformation, the sorbet, and the fork. The Turks added Thirty Years’ War, the British Empire, coee; the Austrians the croissant. and World War II. Yet Black struggles Brutal slave plantations in imperial to persuade. Memories o internal and domains satis¿ed sugar cravings. One external warfare hundreds o years ago day, Louis XIV’s troops in Spain substi- neither distinguish England from the tuted olive oil for butter, and—voilà!— rest o the United Kingdom nor reveal mayonnaise was born. In the nineteenth much about how media-savvy politicians, century, farmers had to graft American a sensationalistic press, and right-wing vines onto French grape plants to save skinheads are rede¿ning populist nation- them from disease. Today, couscous and alism today—something the author all pho are ubiquitous in Paris. Aside from but admits in the last chapter, “Postscript a few cases, such as champagne, which From a Pub.” In general, current events was perfected by Dom Pierre Pérignon, stymie Black. In considering Brexit, he a French Benedictine monk, French dismisses (without evidence) any cuisine is largely the fruit o globaliza- thought that Euroskeptical voters are tion and appropriation. ignorant or have been manipulated, or that they are indulging in nationalism.
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The End of the French Intellectual The Islamic State in Britain: BY SHLOMO SAND. TRANSLATED Radicalization and Resilience in an BY DAVID FERNBACH. Verso, 2018, Activist Network 304 pp. BY MICHAEL KENNEY . Cambridge University Press, 2018, 298 pp. Modern French intellectuals receive tremendous social respect—so much This book contains an ethnographic so that they are generally immune from study o al Muhajiroun, an outlawed punishment even when they commit radical jihadist group in London. Kenney common crimes, preach treason or seeks to explain how, despite intense hatred, or speak in riddles. This book police surveillance, the group survived, argues that in recent decades, although attracted adherents, and recruited ¿ghters these intellectuals’ social status has to join the war in Syria until the British remained largely intact, the quality o government banned it in 2010. Ideologi- their thought has ebbed. Sand is hardly cal sympathy, ties o friendship, charis- the ¿rst to say this—and certainly not matic leaders, and youthful inexperience the most persuasive. He is concerned led people to join the group. Once there, with only one angle o French intellec- they learned how to be activists by watch- tual life: the conÊict between Jews and ing more experienced members, often Muslims. He argues that a century imbibing even more dangerous ideologies ago, anti-Semitism led many leading along the way. Tight subgroups permitted French intellectuals to abandon the army the movement to deÊect government captain Alfred Dreyfus after he was pressure by frequently recon¿guring falsely convicted o treason. Under the themselves and fostering ambiguity Nazi occupation, many again failed to about their purposes. As they aged, some defend the Jews. Today, Islamophobia is members left for more normal lives, while common. Sand argues that the cartoons others turned to dierent, often more that provoked the Charlie Hebdo shoot- radical groups. These broad conclusions ing in 2015 trucked in tasteless ethnic are hardly new, but some readers may be stereotypes that would have been unac- surprised by Kenney’s argument that ceptable i directed at Jews. He has a such groups can allow young men to let point, but he is wrong to level the same o steam, thus containing, rather than charge at such leading French thinkers as promoting, violence. As the authorities Alain Finkielkraut, Michel Houellebecq, stamp out these organizations, their and Éric Zemmour. These men may be disgruntled members may pose an even sensationalistic and perhaps even distaste- greater danger. ful, but Sand does little to show that they preach systematic ethnic hatred in the manner o their anti-Dreyfusard and pro-fascist predecessors.
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acknowledge that Chinese inÊuence may Western Hemisphere have some upsides. Chinese surveillance technology could enable Latin America Richard Feinberg to overcome two o its biggest scourges: ocial corruption and crime syndicates. From the perspective o some Latin Americans, these gains may warrant a The Future of Latin America and the grudging acquiescence to Chinese power. Caribbean in the Context of the Rise of China González, a leading Costa Rican BY R. EVAN ELLIS . Center for economist, worries that economic ten- Strategic and International Studies, sions between China and the United 2018, 42 pp. States could upend the international trading system, dampen global economic Latin America–China Trade and Investment growth, and harm Latin America’s Amid Global Tensions: A Need to Upgrade prospects. But she also foresees plentiful and Diversify opportunities in Chinese markets for BY ANABEL GONZÁLEZ . Atlantic Latin American exports, such as high-end Council, 2018, 32 pp. agricultural products. She cites Chile’s success in exporting fresh fruit to China llis warns o a possible dystopian as a promising example. The growing future for Latin America. By Chinese middle class could also create a E2050, i current economic trends bonanza for the Latin American tourism persist, China may use its growing industry. González argues that rather economic power and technological than fear Chinese inÊuence, other Latin sophistication to co-opt Latin American American governments should follow the business and political elites and give lead o Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru and Chinese ¿rms a competitive advantage. strike free-trade agreements with Beijing The Chinese military presence in Latin in order to ensure that their companies America is also likely to expand, espe- have access to Chinese markets. González cially i China wins a military confronta- counsels Latin America to upgrade its tion with the United States (over Taiwan, trade infrastructure, improve its schools, for example). Latin America is unlikely boost its labor productivity, and enact to produce a coherent strategy to counter good-governance reforms in order to ben- China’s encroachments, Ellis judges, e¿t more fully from Chinese partnerships. although he recommends that the United States help strengthen the region’s regula- tory and political institutions so they can better protect against predatory Chinese practices. Ellis’ description o the asym- metric relations between a dominant China and a subservient Latin America recalls Marxist-leaning theorists’ critiques o U.S.–Latin American relations in the 1960s and 1970s. Ellis, however, does
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Report of the Expert Advisory Group on Desarrollo, integración e igualdad: La Anti-Corruption, Transparency, and respuesta de Centroamérica a la crisis de la Integrity in Latin America and the globalización (Development, integration, Caribbean and equality: The response o Central BY EDUARDO ENGEL, DELIA America to the crisis o globalization) FERREIRA RUBIO, DANIEL BY THE UN ECONOMIC KAUFMANN, ARMANDO LARA COMMISSION FOR LATIN AMERICA YAFFAR, JORGE LONDOÑO AND THE CARIBBEAN. UN Economic SALDARRIAGA, BETH SIMONE Commission for Latin America and the NOVECK, MARK PIETH, AND SUSAN Caribbean, 2018, 180 pp. ROSEÛACKERMAN. Inter-American Development Bank, 2018, 42 pp. This comprehensive, data-rich review traces the social and economic progress This all-star team o eight governance o Central America since 1960, with an and anticorruption experts has produced emphasis on the last ¿ve years. The region a powerful indictment o Latin American has enjoyed economic stability and has institutions. The authors condemn both made signi¿cant strides toward inte- public and private elites for “undermin- grating commerce, installing modern ing sound policymaking and the rule o telecommunications networks, adopting law, entrenching impunity, and diverting renewable energy, and improving its public resources and investment away residents’ quality oÈ life. Local ¿rms now from the public good.” The prosecution stretch across the region, and foreign continues: “Though some [Latin Ameri- direct investment has accelerated. But a can] countries . . . have been engaged in demographic explosion has eroded these selected anti-corruption reforms for the gains. Central America’s population last decade, these have been uneven, skyrocketed from 13 million in 1960 to partial, and focused more on enacting nearly 50 million today. Rural poverty laws and regulations rather than imple- remains shockingly high, especially in mentation.” Although the report provides Guatemala and Honduras. As a result, an invaluable compilation o state-of-the- much o the region’s foreign currency art anticorruption initiatives, the authors comes from emigrant workers; remit- fail to confront the inconvenient contra- tances totaled $84 billion from 2013 to diction in their work: the very same elites 2017. The report emphasizes the need they indict are called on to enact compre- for investment in public education, hensive reforms that would presumably rural irrigation, and basic infrastructure, prejudice their own interests. since lasting increases in real wages will require strong growth in labor produc- tivity. It also warns the United States against deporting millions o immi- grants, as sending so many people back would inÊame social tensions in their home countries.
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The Peace Corps and Latin America: In Middle East the Last Mile of U.S. Foreign Policy BY THOMAS J. NISLEY . Lexington Books, 2018, 158 pp. John Waterbury
Over 230,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers since the What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East? agency was established in the early days BY DMITRI TRENIN . Polity, 2017, o the Kennedy administration. Nisley, 144 pp. a former volunteer in the Dominican Republic, argues that the Peace Corps, renin packs a great deal o sub- which costs roughly $50,000 per volunteer stance into this slender volume. per year, has provided a cost-eective TIn quick strokes, he paints Russia’s way to advance U.S. foreign policy. history in the Middle East and President Small project by small project, the Vladimir Putin’s objectives over the last volunteers promote development in two decades. Putin has chosen the region poor countries. Statistical evidence as the theater to reassert Russia’s global suggests that their sustained interactions role after its 25-year absence. Russia has with local citizens improve perceptions no grand strategy for the Middle East, o the United States. In perhaps its but it has managed overlapping and often most important role, the Peace Corps antagonistic coalitions with great skill. As serves as a graduate school in foreign Trenin reminds readers, Russia unreserv- policy, preparing volunteers for careers edly supported the United States in the in diplomacy and international develop- wake o the 9/11 attacks, and in 2011, ment. The White House’s enthusiasm Putin tasked Prime Minister Dmitry for the Peace Corps has waxed and waned, Medvedev with crafting a grand bargain Nisley ¿nds, depending on presidential with U.S. President Barack Obama. The preferences and perceived security eort failed, and after the Obama admin- threats. For John F. Kennedy, the Peace istration’s disastrous intervention in Libya Corps aligned well with his Alliance later that year, which Russia had initially for Progress initiative, which aimed to endorsed, Putin challenged the United promote democracy and economic States in the Middle East for the ¿rst growth in Latin America. Richard time. Moscow still wants to strike deals Nixon saw the Peace Corps as a haven with Washington on several speci¿c for those opposed to the Vietnam War issues: post-civil-war Syria, Iran’s nuclear and reduced the number o volunteers. program, the future o Afghanistan, and Later, Ronald Reagan expanded the the Arab-Israeli conÊict. On the last, agency’s presence in Central America Trenin shows that Putin has positioned to counter leftist insurgencies. himsel to serve as a far more honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians than has the Trump team.
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Building the Nation: Missed Opportunities each place. The survey leaves out some in Iraq and Afghanistan important countries, but its results oer BY HEATHER SELMA GREGG . cause for hope. Although most o the Potomac Books, 2018, 296 pp. respondents had negative views o the 2011 uprisings that formed the Arab Gregg believes that U.S. security needs Spring, two-thirds o them expressed will always drive Washington to attempt optimism about the future. The vast to salvage failed or fragile states. So the majority wanted to help the less privi- United States needs to understand why leged. They respected their families it failed to build nations in Afghanistan more than any other institution. (Their and Iraq and how it might do better countries’ respective militaries came elsewhere. It must focus on creating a second.) And although they reported shared sense o national destiny, Gregg having little respect for political parties says, which will require devolving reform or parliaments, they still wanted to to the local level so that the people own participate in civic life. Two-thirds the process. Gregg sees the U.S. military professed strong religious faith, but as the right agent to achieve this. The most o them regarded religion as a military can even make Afghan peasants personal matter. In the ¿nal chapter, better farmers, she says. Nearly every Mathias Albert and Gertel compare part o Gregg’s analysis contains prob- those surveyed with their German lems. She largely ignores the literature counterparts. The two groups have on democratic transitions and counter- similar levels o optimism, they ¿nd, insurgency and barely mentions the role but German youth are much more o external actors, such as Pakistan’s interested in formal politics than are intelligence services, in supporting the young Arabs. Taliban in Afghanistan. Worst o all, she oers no examples o successful The Islamic State in Khorasan: nation building by an occupying power. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the New In the success stories Gregg does tell, Central Asian Jihad such as Rwanda, reform came from BY ANTONIO GIUSTOZZI . Hurst, the inside. 2018, 296 pp.
Coping With Uncertainty: Youth in the Giustozzi, together with a group o Middle East and North Africa anonymous colleagues, spent two EDITED BY JÖRG GERTEL AND years interviewing members o jihadist RALF HEXEL. Saqi Books, 2018, 400 pp. groups active in Khorasan, a region that includes parts o Afghanistan, This study presents the results o a 2016 Pakistan, and Central Asia. The book survey o Arabs aged 16 to 30 in Bahrain, provides extraordinary depth and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, detail, yet Giustozzi still manages to Tunisia, Yemen, and the Palestinian show the forest along with the trees. territories, as well as Syrian refugees in As its home base in Iraq and Syria the same age group in Lebanon. The collapses, the Islamic State (or ¢¢) is organizers interviewed 1,000 people in looking for a new home. Khorasan
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oers big advantages over Libya, supposed local color. They also lament Yemen, or the Sahel: it is close to the “castration” o the ¢¯ by the 1975 China, Iran, and Russia, and to U.S. Church Committee investigation into forces based in Afghanistan. The ¢¢ the intelligence community, and they aliate known as the Islamic State in rejoice that the 9/11 attacks prompted Khorasan receives around $300 million the rebirth o the agency as a paramili- each year from outside donors, mostly tary force tasked with hunting the individuals from Kuwait, Qatar, and United States’ enemies. Saudi Arabia, but the governments o those countries contribute, too. The ¢· wants to absorb the Taliban and Asia and Paci¿c then take the ¿ght to its external enemies, above all Iran. The ¢·’s Andrew J. Nathan greatest hope is Iran’s fear: that the Taliban will cut a deal with the Afghan government that will discredit the group among true believers, sending The RSS: A View to the Inside recruits to the ¢·. BY WALTER K. ANDERSEN AND SHRIDHAR D. DAMLE. Penguin Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station India, 2018, 400 pp. Chief and Hezbollah’s War Against America he Rashtriya Swayamsevak BY FRED BURTON AND SAMUEL M. Sangh is a Hindu nationalist KATZ. Berkley, 2018, 400 pp. Torganization that provides crucial electoral support for India’s In March 1984, Hezbollah ¿ghters ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its abducted William Buckley, the ¢¯ leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, station chie in Beirut. They held him who is a former ¡ cadre. The two prisoner until June 1985, when he died organizations coordinate policy, but o torture and neglect. Buckley, who neither calls the shots for the other. had served in the Korean War before Andersen and Damle take an exception- embarking on a long and distinguished ally well-informed look at the ¡, career with the ¢¯, rose to the position including its relations with aliate o Beirut station chie after the bomb- organizations, such as India’s largest ings o the U.S. embassy and the Marine trade union and student association, barracks there. His nemesis was Imad and its policies on the slaughter o Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s master hit man, cows, foreign direct investment, rela- who was himselÈ blown up by a car bomb tions with China, and other issues. As in Damascus in 2008. The authors o the ¡ has grown, its leadership has this account o Buckley’s murder seek to moderated the group’s fundamentalist honor his memory and openly thirst to ideology, denounced caste discrimina- avenge his death. They clearly intend the tion, and tried, without much success, story to grip the reader, but too often to bring women and non-Hindus into they fall into annoying invocations o the ranks. The group’s core concept o
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Hindutva, or “Hinduness,” is now Brand New Art From China: A glossed as loyalty to a vaguely de¿ned Generation on the Rise Indian civilization rather than adher- BY BARBARA POLLACK . I.B. Tauris, ence to speci¿c religious practices, a 2018, 192 pp. revision made easier by the unsystem- atic character o Hindu beliefs. But Chinese artists in their 20s and 30s seem religious nationalism remains the ¡’ to have escaped the growing repression chie mobilizing tool, and many o the in China, perhaps because the censors organization’s local branches and ali- have no idea what to make o their work. ates still espouse aggressive anti-Muslim As Pollack reveals, they are linked as and socially conservative positions. much to Berlin, Miami, and New York as to Beijing and Shanghai, and as much Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions to the Internet, animation, and perfor- BY BRAD GLOSSERMAN. mance as to paint and wood. They make Georgetown University Press, 2019, fresh use o images and techniques from 272 pp. all over the world and from many dier- ent historical periods. They do not feel Glosserman explores Japan’s inability compelled to focus on the totalitarian to adopt much-needed reforms during past or the enduring puzzle o what it four recent political and economic means to be Chinese, as the ¿rst post- shocks: the 2008 global ¿nancial crisis, Mao generation o modern Chinese the 2009 electoral defeat o the long- artists did. But China and its problems ruling Liberal Democratic Party by its keep tugging at them. To avoid politics rival the Democratic Party o Japan, the is to be political; to produce unique 2010 crisis with China over the Diaoyu/ work is to join a trend; to call onesel Senkaku Islands, and the 2011 triple “an artist from China” (as this younger disaster o an earthquake, a tsunami, generation prefers to do) instead o “a and a nuclear power plant meltdown. Chinese artist” is to comment on being The country faces intractable problems: Chinese today. Along with this analysis, a falling population, excessive government Pollack oers plenty o sharp biographi- debt, the decline o its most important cal and aesthetic insights. The book’s ally (the United States), and the rise o illustrations leave the reader eager for its main rival (China). But weak leader- more contemporary Chinese art. ship and political gridlock have made Japan’s situation worse. Glosserman The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean puts the ultimate blame on Japan’s War: The Untold History culture o collectivism, harmony, and BY MONICA KIM. Princeton fatalism. The Japanese are too comfort- University Press, 2019, 452 pp. able to strike out on a new path, he says. Although Prime Minister Shinzo During the Korean War, the United Abe aims to revitalize his country, States seemed to strike a blow for Glosserman regretfully concludes that individual liberty when it insisted on Japan “can no longer harbor grand oering Chinese and North Korean ambitions.” prisoners o war the opportunity to stay
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in South Korea rather than return home group. He helped persuade Myanmar to after the war was over. But the result accept international aid after Cyclone was to import the ideological Cold War Nargis, mediated Cambodian-Thai talks into £¥µ camps. Anticommunist North over the contested Preah Vihear Temple, Koreans tattooed themselves and wrote worked to pull ¯§¯¦’s member states petitions in blood demanding to be back together after a split over the South released to ¿ght against their former China Sea, and pushed the group to comrades. Meanwhile, the majority o adopt a declaration o principles on North Korean prisoners saw the U.S.- human rights. Natalegawa’s stories led forces as colonialists and anyone constitute a primer on the dark arts o who refused repatriation as a traitor, so diplomacy, including the value o they protested the voluntary repatria- ambiguity, the cultivation o personal tion policy by demonstrating, singing relationships with fellow leaders, cre- songs, getting into shouting matches ative word and punctuation choices, the with the guards, going on hunger strikes, proÊigate use o the passive voice—and and, in one famous incident, kidnapping just showing up. As the most populous a U.S. camp commander. American and most active member o ¯§¯¦, Indo- £¥µs in Chinese and North Korean nesia has been accused o “overactivism” camps formed groups o self-described by other members. Natalegawa is proud “reactionaries,” including one that called to own the label. itsel the Ku Klux Klan, to punish anyone who seemed to accept the communists’ India and Nuclear Asia: Forces, Doctrine, criticisms o the United States. When and Dangers 21 American £¥µs decided to go to China BY YOGESH JOSHI AND FRANK instead o returning home, Americans O’DONNELL. Georgetown University panicked over “brainwashing.” Partly as Press, 2018, 235 pp. a result o the panic, even American £¥µs who came home were suspected The authors’ language is clinical, but their o communist contamination. message is frightening. India possesses or is developing ballistic missiles that Does ASEAN Matter? A View From can reach anywhere in China, shorter- Within range missiles for potential tactical use BY MARTY NATALEGAWA. ISEAS— against China and Pakistan, missiles Yuso Ishak Institute, 2018, 258 pp. with multiple independently targeted warheads, submarine-launched missiles, Natalegawa, a former Indonesian foreign and missile defenses. Pakistan has minister, is a strong believer in the value developed a variety o nuclear weapons o the ten-member Association o South- and delivery vehicles intended to deter east Asian Nations, and its often-derided even nonnuclear Indian attacks. China process o constant meetings and decla- has merged its conventional and nuclear rations, for dampening conÊict and getting missile forces under a single command, the attention o outside powers. He making it harder for an adversary to gives blow-by-blow accounts o some o know what kind o warhead has been his toughest negotiations within the launched. China and India have both
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adopted more aggressive postures near wealth, the stages o social development, disputed sections o their shared border. and the role o women. These disputes The two countries have announced “no laid the foundations for much o modern ¿rst use” policies but have left them political thought. Over the course o the ambiguous; Pakistan has no such policy eighteenth century, Europeans shifted at all. Concepts such as “minimum from an open attitude toward Asia to deterrence,” “limited deterrence,” the belie that only European society was “credible deterrence,” and “full-spectrum rational, dynamic, and just. That attitude deterrence” are tossed about with little then helped justify the colonialism o the clarity on what they mean. Add in the following century. near-total lack o dialogue among the three states, and the opportunities for miscommunication and miscalculation Africa proliferate. Nicolas van de Walle Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment’s Encounter With Asia BY JÜRGEN OSTERHAMMEL. TRANSLATED BY ROBERT SAVAGE . Shadow State: The Politics of State Capture Princeton University Press, 2018, 696 pp. BY IVOR CHIPKIN, MARK SWILLING, HAROON BHORAT, For Europe, the eighteenth century was MZUKISI QOBO, SIKHULEKILE a time o intense study o the lands to DUMA, AND LUMKILE MONDI . Wits the east. Intrepid travelers spent years University Press, 2018, 176 pp. and fortunes learning languages, regis- tering facts, and coming up with gener- Cyril Ramaphosa: The Path to Power in alizations that were as often wrong as South Africa right. The travelers’ images o the East, BY RAY HARTLEY. Hurst, 2018, 280 pp. Osterhammel writes in this learned and engrossing account, played “a key hese two excellent books provide rhetorical role in the domestic contro- some clues about the prospects versies o the era.” Montesquieu, who Tfor South African democracy. never visited Asia, used the idea o Chipkin and his co-authors analyze the Oriental despotism to expose the risks corruption scandals that helped bring o Bourbon absolutism; his less well- down President Jacob Zuma in early 2018. known royalist compatriot Abraham- They provide meticulous evidence that Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron defended Zuma and his associates, most notably the Bourbons by showing that Oriental the Gupta family and its business empire, monarchies ruled through law. Every captured state institutions for personal major philosophical dispute o the age gain. The book documents the inÊuence was inÊuenced by the work o scholars peddling, rent seeking, insider trading, o the East, on subjects as diverse as and corruption that helped turn the the nature o civilization, the forms o Guptas’ business into one o South government, the sources o national Africa’s largest corporate empires. In
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the end, the justice system, key elements Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the o the ruling African National Congress, Struggle for State Power in Nigeria and the press resisted capture and exposed BY EBENEZER OBADARE. Zed the scandal. The book describes an Books, 2018, 252 pp. alarming level o corruption inside the ¯¦ and the state bureaucracy, but that Academics have long understood such a book could be published at all in Nigerian politics as structured by the South Africa is a cause for optimism. division between northern Muslims I reform is going to happen, it will and southern Christians. This probing, come from Cyril Ramaphosa, who well-informed account from one o the replaced Zuma as president in 2018. In most astute observers o contemporary this fascinating portrait o Ramaphosa, Nigeria argues that since democracy Hartley, a veteran South African was restored in the country, in 1999, journalist, describes the new president’s the Christian side o Nigerian politics early years as a radical labor leader and has been marked by the rising power then as the ¯¦ wunderkind who led o Pentecostalism, a loose category that the negotiations that ended apartheid. encompasses as many as a third o After the party prevented him from Nigerians and is the country’s fastest- becoming Nelson Mandela’s heir, in growing religious group. Obadare favor oÈ Thabo Mbeki, Ramaphosa left shows how Pentecostal churches have politics for a successful business career, turned their numerical ascendancy into taking advantage o policies that fa- political inÊuence. Two o Nigeria’s vored new black entrepreneurs. He four presidents since 1999, Olusegun returned to politics in 2014 as deputy Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, were president. Ramaphosa is no ideologue; Pentecostals, and although the current Hartley describes him as a ruthless president, Muhammadu Buhari, is pragmatist. But he does seem genuinely Muslim, his administration contains animated by the original objectives o several prominent Pentecostals. Obadare the ¯¦: to create a modern and eec- sees Pentecostals as a force for stability tive state dedicated to democracy and but not democracy, as pastors typically the ¿ght against poverty. As president, use their pulpits to legitimate a corrupt Ramaphosa has moved to strengthen and ineectual elite. One consequence, anticorruption institutions and ensure he worries, has been growing Christian- that Zuma cannot engineer a comeback. Muslim polarization, as the Pentecostal Hartley is more circumspect about churches have proved less accommodat- Ramaphosa’s ability to reverse South ing o Muslims than have the establish- Africa’s long economic decline, worry- ment Christian churches. ing that the party bosses will sabotage any reforms that attack their power and limit their graft.
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African Exodus: Migration and the Future Global Governance and Local Peace: of Europe Accountability and Performance in BY ASFAÛWOSSEN ASSERATE. International Peacebuilding TRANSLATED BY PETER LEWIS . BY SUSANNA P. CAMPBELL . Haus, 2018, 226 pp. Cambridge University Press, 2018, 306 pp. In this short, snappy book, Asserate places the recent surge in Êows o Campbell examines the factors that migrants from Africa to Europe in the lead to the success or failure o interna- context o the centuries-long relation- tional peace-building operations. The ship between the two continents. most important one, she argues, is how Africans, he says, are trying to escape accountable peacemakers are to local their dysfunctional home countries. people. Unfortunately, she reports, ConÊict, bad governance, and stagnant most peace workers answer primarily economies leave many Africans with to the Western headquarters o the such dismal prospects that they are international agencies for which they willing to attempt the perilous journey. work. Rather than developing strong Asserate does not believe that it is relationships with locals who can inform possible to stop them—or ethical to try. them about conditions on the ground In his view, the only practical solution and help them get things done, they is the economic and political develop- spend most o their time ful¿lling ment o Africa, to which Europe should reporting requirements and other now dedicate itself. Since he blames bureaucratic tasks to keep their admin- the legacy o European colonialism for istrators happy. The book is steeped in much o what ails African countries, the language o public administration he believes the continent has a moral and organizational theory, and Camp- obligation to make a massive eort on bell is cautious in her conclusions, so behal o Africans. Even i one does it is easy to miss how devastating her not agree with his normative argument, account really is. She shows that the core Asserate is clearly right that in the long organizational logic o peace-building run, the only way to moderate illegal agencies undermines their ability to help migrant Êows from Africa is to improve the people they are trying to reach.∂ the welfare o Africans at home.
Foreign Aairs (ISSN 00157120), March/April 2019, Volume 98, Number 2. Published six times annually (January, March, May, July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at additional mailing oces. ¡¢£¡¤¥: Send address changes to Foreign Aairs, P.O. Box 324, Congers, NY 10920. From time to time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe will be o interest. I you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Congers, NY, address indicated above.
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FA.indb 191 1/18/19 7:57 PM