The Constructivist Thesis Chapter 3
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Notes Chapter One – Introduction 1. The historical and sociological aspects of the inter-state system were the focus of the English School thinkers during the Cold War but have recently been developed in postmodernist accounts and those of historical sociolo- gists. For the English School, see, for example, Bull 1995, Bull and Watson 1984; for postmodernist accounts, see for example, Ashley 1988; Walker 1994; 1995; for historical sociological accounts see, for example, Mann 1988; Tilly 1990; Hobden and Hobson 2002. 2. Because this book deals with the construction of global civil society as a nor- mative and empirical project it gives little consideration to neo-Gramscian or traditional Marxist approaches to global civil society. These commentators use the concept in an analogous way to domestic civil society, in line with classical political thought, as the private sphere of autonomy in contrast to the public sphere of the state. In these readings, global civil society is a sphere of ideological contestation between the forces of hegemony and those of progress but no particular moral significance is attached to the concept of global civil society itself, and it is not seen as being independent of power relations that characterise the state or the market (see Colás 2002:42–3). Chapter 2 – The Constructivist Thesis 1. As Alexander Wendt suggests, constructivism is an approach to international relations which focuses on how actors are socially constructed, rather than a theory which tells us which actors are important: ‘Constructivism is not a theory of international politics.’ (Wendt 1999:7) 2. The question of the ‘reinterpretation’ of the ‘national interest’, central to the constructivist approach, will be the focus of the following chapter. Chapter 3 – The Decline of ‘National Interests’ 1. This chapter concerns the shift in government emphasis and public percep- tions. As Chris Brown notes, foreign policy-making has always been shaped by broader concerns than those of narrow self-interest. The framework of international law and diplomacy, for example, depend on states upholding shared international norms and values (Brown 2001:24–26). 2. As Hedley Bull noted, international law and the system of the reciprocal rights of state sovereignty ‘assume a situation in which no one power is pre- ponderant in strength’; otherwise international law and sovereign rights could be disregarded with impunity (Bull 1995:112; see also Holbrook 2002:140). 210 Notes 211 3. One exception is David Campbell’s Writing Security (1998a) which uses Foucault’s insights on regulation to focus on the regulatory subject rather than the object of regulation. Whereas realist and liberal approaches often read-off the interests of states from the object being regulated – territories which have oil or other natural resources or human rights victims, for example – Foucault insisted that it was the regulatory practices themselves which were of primary importance (Foucault 2003:30–33). By focusing on the regulatory body rather than the object of regulation, Campbell brings domestic politics to the centre of international policy-making: In reorienting analysis from the concern with the intentional acts of pre- given subjects to the problematic of subjectivity, this argument proposes that United States foreign policy be understood as a political practice central to the constitution, production, and maintenance of American political identity. (Campbell 1998a:8) 4. David P. Forsythe notes that: ‘Analysts concluded that there was consider- able American popular support for pragmatic internationalism, but not a great deal of support for moral internationalism’ (Forsythe 2000:143). See further, Holsti (2000). 5. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty rec- ommends rejecting the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ on the basis that success is easier to achieve if military action is legitimised for ‘protec- tion’ rather than humanitarian purposes. Otherwise intervention can easily be discredited through the ‘tough choices’ and ‘short- and long-term trade offs’ which have to be made between effective military action and humani- tarian assistance (see, for example, ICISS 2001a:61; ICISS 2001b:368). For an example of the disillusionment of humanitarian agencies see Vaux (2001:202). 6. In relation to the ‘war on terror’ this was highlighted again by the shifting responses of Washington to North Korea. In January 2002, in his State of the Union address President Bush named North Korea as part of the ‘axis of evil’ and a ‘threat to world peace’ alongside Iran and Iraq (Bush 2002a). The US cut fuel aid that had been promised to ease the North’s energy needs and, in response, North Korea defended its right to restart its nuclear weapons pro- gramme, making the focus on Iraq as the main danger of supplying weapons of mass destruction appear increasingly irrational. Washington could not sustain its hard line and in January 2003 was forced to publicly back down, offering food and energy aid to North Korea as an incentive to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme (Goldenberg and Watts 2003). Chapter 4 – Morality and Power 1. The global civil society thesis’ emphasis on shared international moral norms is often traced back to the Enlightenment and Immanuel Kant’s essay Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (Kant 1795). Kant argued that as democratic consciousness developed liberal states would emerge and band together to form a ‘league of peace’ to protect their own security and also to 212 Notes encourage the spread of liberal ideas and promote individual rights interna- tionally (see further, Waltz 1962; Doyle 1983; Brown, Nardin and Rengger 2002:428–455). 2. The Commission was launched on 14 September 2002. The Canadian Government invited the Honourable Gareth Evans, AO QC, President of the International Crisis Group and former Australian Foreign Minister, and His Excellency Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and formerly his Special Representative (SRSG) for Somalia and the Great Lakes Region of Africa to jointly head the ICISS. In consultation with the Co-Chairs, 10 other distinguished Commissioners were appointed: Gisèle Côté-Harper; Lee Hamilton; Michael Ignatieff; Vladimir Lukin; Klaus Naumann; Cyril Ramaphosa; Fidel Ramos; Cornelio Somaruga; Eduardo Stein; and Ramesh Thakur. Canada’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Honourable John Manley, also appointed an interna- tional Advisory Board of serving and former foreign ministers from Canada, Chile, the Palestinian National Authority, the UK, Poland, Mexico, the US, Egypt, Greece, Thailand, South Africa and Argentina, as well as other eminent individuals, to help ground the report in current political realities and to assist in building up political momentum and public engagement to follow up its recommendations. As well as meetings with the Advisory Board the Commissioners held five full meetings and eleven regional roundtables and national consultations were held around the world at Ottawa, Geneva, London, Maputo, Washington, Santiago, Cairo, Paris, New Delhi, Beijing and St. Petersburg. At these meetings a variety of national and regional officials, representatives of civil society, academic institutions and think tanks joined some of the Commissioners and one, but usually both, of the Co-Chairs in deliberations. The Commission also met with interested governments, representatives of Permanent Missions, heads or senior representatives of major international organisations and UN agencies and with the Secretary-General Kofi Annan and key members of the UN Secretariat. Alongside this process, an extensive research programme was organised in support of ICISS’s work and an international research team created, led jointly by Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor at The CUNY Graduate Centre, and Stanlake J. T. M. Samkange, a lawyer and former speechwriter to UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. 3. The Report notes: ‘There is little reason to invest much hope that global civil society can systematically ensure human security.’ NGOs can play important roles in standard-setting and monitoring but states remain the only actors with the resources and power to ensure human protection mea- sures are enforced (see ICISS 2001b:136). 4. Participants at the Maputo regional roundtable, for example, believed that Africa had been marginalised by the Security Council, comparing the bil- lions of dollars expended on the Balkans with the case of Liberia where UN members failed to meet pledges of $150 million in support of subregional efforts. The discussion stressed the ‘strong nexus between poverty and conflict’ and complained that in relation to poverty international responses have ranged from inadequate to entirely absent. Of particular concern was the increasing deterioration in the terms of trade and the sharp reduction in the disbursement of bilateral aid (see ICISS 2001b:363). Notes 213 5. The Report itself states that: ‘the “responsibility to protect” is more of a linking concept that bridges the divide between intervention and sover- eignty; the language of the “right or duty to intervene” is intrinsically more confrontational’ (ICISS 2001a:17). Whereas the language of the ‘right of intervention’ highlights the challenge to established rights of sovereign equality, the language of the ‘responsibility to protect’ attempts to min- imise the importance of this proposed shift in legal perspective. 6. For example, the majority of participants at the Cairo regional