The good state: In praise of 'classical' internationalism

Review of International Studies

Volumn 31, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 427-449

  Lawler, Peter ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 22144459849     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210505006571     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. 〈http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/0050120-l. html〉 (accessed 21 January 2005).
2. Although I confess from the outset to being seduced at times by the simple idea that a world of, say, many Swedens, would be infinitely preferable to the world we have now.
3. Peter Sutch, 'Human Rights as Settled Norms: Mervyn Frost and Hegelian Theory', Review of International Studies, 26:2 (2000), p. 216, fn. 8.
4. Key examples include: Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979);
5. Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).
6. The distinction is borrowed from Alex J. Bellamy, Paul Williams and Stuart Griffin, Understanding Peacekeeping (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), pp. 12-33.
7. Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (New York: Vintage, 2003).
8. See for example, Tony Blair, 'Why we must never abandon this historic struggle in Iraq', The Observer, 11 April 2004.
9. and Jack Straw, 'We are at a pivotal time for international policy', Speech by the Foreign Secretary to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 12 February 2004.
10. Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).
11. See, for example, David Held and Daniele Archibugi (eds.), Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge: Polity, 1995);
12. Daniele Archibugi, David Held and Martin Köhler (eds.), Re-imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1998).
13. On this, see also Peter Lawler, 'The Good War after September 11', Government and Opposition, 37 (2002), pp. 151-72. I'm grateful to Helen Dexter for the term 'life-saving'.
14. For examples of internationally-focused communitarian responses to cosmopolitanism, see: Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame, Ontario: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994);
15. Chris Brown, 'Cultural Diversity and International Political Theory', Review of International Studies, 26:2 (2000), pp. 199-214.
16. and David Miller, 'Bounded Citzenship', in Kinberley Hutchins and Roland Danreuther (eds.), Cosmopolitan Citizenship (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
17. Although Mervyn Frost also rejects orthodox cosmopolitanism, his unusual trek to the notion of 'settled norms', via Hegel and Dworkin, does not seem to warrant the label of communitarianism. See Mervyn Frost, Ethics and International Relations: A Constitutive Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). In taking states and their morally constitutive effects seriously, however, Frost's approach does resonate somewhat with the argument being put here.
18. Michael J. Smith, 'Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues', Ethics and International Affairs, 12 (1998), p. 70.
19. The most cogent example of this being Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community.
20. Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community, pp. 48-9.
21. On Linklater's 'thin cosmopolitanism' in particular, see R. B. J. Walker, 'The Hierarchalization of Political Theory', Review of International Studies, 25:1 (1999), pp. 151-156.
22. More generally, see. R. B. J. Walker, 'Citzenship after the Modern Subject', in Hutchins and Danreuther, Cosmopolitan Citzenship.
23. David Campbell and Michael J. Shapiro, 'Introduction: From Ethical Theory to the Ethical Relations', in David Campbell and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and World Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999);
24. David Campbell, 'Why Fight?', Millennium: Journal of International Politics, 27 (1998), pp. 497-521.
25. Campbell, 'Why Fight?', pp. 521 and 501.
26. For example, see Campbell, 'Why Fight?', p. 499
27. and Michael Dillon, 'Criminalising Violence Internationally', Millennium: Journal of International Politics, 27 (1998), pp. 543-67.
28. This point is very well made in Ramesh Thakur, 'Global Norms and International Humanitarian Law: An Asian Perspective', International Review of the Red Cross, no. 841 (2001), pp. 19-44.
29. For a summary of the concept of 'civilian power', see 'Introduction' in Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns W. Maull (eds.), Germany as a Civilian Power? The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).
30. Andrew Linklater, 'What is a Good International Citizen?', in Paul Keal (ed.), Ethics and Foreign Policy (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1992).
31. See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society of States (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1977);
32. Hedley Bull, Justice in International Relations, The Hagey Lectures 1993 (Waterloo, Ontario: University of Waterloo, 1993);
33. Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the English School (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998).
34. Bull, Justice in International Relations, p. 14.
35. Robert Kagan, 'Power and Weakness', Policy Review, 113 (2002).
36. See also Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003). Kagan does not appear to be concerned with European states as such, since some European states have overtly aligned themselves with a 'Martian' US, and more with Europe in itself, although quite what he means by Europe is unclear. Nonetheless his account of Venusian 'European' sensibilities chimes very strongly with those of the more overtly internationalist European states. I am grateful to Felix Ciuta for his thoughts on this.
37. At the beginning of the war in March 2003 the US State Department named the 46 states who had formally declared support for the 'coalition of the willing'. See: (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030320-11. html) (accessed 25 January 2005). Of these there were ten that could be identified as belonging to what is usually understood as the West in geopolitical terms: Australia Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US. Spain effectively opted out of the coalition after the general election in March 2004 following the Madrid bombings. The vast bulk of ground forces were provided by the US (250,000) and UK (45,000) with minor contributions from Australia (2,000) and Poland (200) and minor naval support from Spain and Denmark. There were 11 similarly Western states that were absent: Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Note that Austria, Ireland, and Switzerland are formally neutral states and Sweden these days is more ambiguously so, although the latter's absence clearly also reflected real disagreement with the US. The post-communist Central and Eastern European states have not been included here because of the various ambiguities surrounding their inclusion such as the pursuit of NATO membership and /or US economic and military development assistance.
38. See Ken Roth, 'War in Iraq: Not an Humanitarian Intervention', Human Rights Watch World Report 2004: Human Rights and Armed Conflict (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, 2004), p. 34.
39. In this respect Hedley Bull's remark, made some twenty five years ago, that 'Among the Third World countries the idea that we must all bend our efforts to get 'beyond the state' is so alien to recent experience as to be unintelligible', arguably retains its force. See Hedley Bull, 'The State's Positive Role in World Affairs', Daedalus, 108 (1979), p. 121.
40. See: Cranford Pratt (ed.), Internationalism Under Strain: The North-South Policies of Canada, Norway, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (Toronto: The University of Toronto, 1989);
41. Cranford Pratt (ed.), Middle Power Internationalism (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990);
42. Olav Stokke (ed.), Western Middle Powers and Global Poverty (Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies/Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 1989).
43. See also Anthony J. Dolman, 'The Like-Minded Countries and the New International Order: Past, Present and Future Prospects', Cooperation and Conflict, XIV (1979).
44. The top contributors of net ODA as a percentage of GNI in 2002 were: Denmark, 0.96, Norway 0.89, Sweden 0.83, and the Netherlands 0.81. The average among the 22 member states of the DAC was 0.41 and the bottom of the table was occupied by the US at 0.13 ODA/GNI. See 〈http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/ 27/25838008.xls〉 (accessed 22 May 2004).
45. Pratt, Internationalism Under Strain, p. 19.
46. See J. J. C. Verhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles: A Study of Dutch Foreign Policy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979).
47. On Pluralism and Solidarism in the English School, see especially Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, 'Hedley Bull's Pluralism of the Intellect and Solidarism of the Will', International Affairs, 72 (1996), pp. 91-107.
48. But note here recent shifts in Danish foreign policy discussed below.
49. Erb's analysis of contemporary German foreign policy suggests that it could also lay claim to being included among this group. See Scott Erb, German Foreign Policy: Navigating a New Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1994). I return to this point later.
50. Gareth Evans is now President of the Brussels-based NGO the International Crisis Group. On the Australian commitment to good international citizenship, see Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations: In the World of the 1990s (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1991), pp. 8-12, 34.
51. On the foreign policy outlook of subsequent conservative coalition governments, see Advancing the National Interest: Australia's Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2003).
52. This is the successor to the 1997 White Paper of the same name. In both cases references to good international citizenship are entirely absent. It is worth noting that the Australian Labor Party has retained a commitment to 'be and been seen to be. . . willing to pursue wider good international citizenship objectives'. The commitment is, however, more guarded than that of the previous Labor administration. See 〈http://www.alp.org.au/about/values.html〉 (accessed 22 May 2004).
53. The shift can be illustrated through comparison of the 1998 FCO Annual Report, especially its 'mission statement' and the recent first foreign policy White Paper, UK International Priorities: A Strategy for the FCO, Cmnd 6052, HMSO (2003).
54. For a critical analysis of the current state of UK internationalism, see Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, Moral Britannia? Evaluating the Ethical Dimension of Labour's Foreign Policy (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004).
55. Again, I am grateful to Felix Ciuta for clarifying my thoughts here.
56. Tony Blair, 'Doctrine of the International Community', Speech by the Prime Minister to the Economic Club of Chicago, Chicago, 22 April 1999.
57. On public attitudes in the US to the role of the UN just prior to the Invasion of Iraq, see 'Public Wants Proof of Iraqi Weapons Programs', Survey Report released 16 January 2003, Pew Research Center for People & The Press, 〈http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=170〉 (accessed 22 January 2005).
58. See also the nine nation survey 'America's Image Further Erodes, Europeans Want Weaker Ties' Survey Report, released 18 March 2003, Pew Research Center for People & The Press, 〈http://people-press.org/reports/ display.php3?ReportID = 175〉 (accessed 22 January 2005).
59. On attitudes in EU member states, see also 'Iraq and Peace in the World', Flash Eurobarometer 151 Final Report, European Commission, November 2003.
60. On British attitudes, see: 'Blair Losing Public Support on Iraq', MORI, 21 January 2003, 〈http://www.mori.com/polls/2003/iraq.shtml〉 (accessed 22 January 2005);
61. 'War With Iraq', MORI, 5 March 2003, 〈http://www.mori.com/polls/ 2003/iraq2.shtml〉 (accessed 22 January 2005).
62. L. Elliott and G. Cheeseman, 'Cosmopolitan Theory, Militaries and the Deployment of Force', Working Paper 2002/8, Department of International Relations, Australian National University (2002), p. 14.
63. R. J. Barry-Jones, The World Turned Upside Down? Globalization and the Future of the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 270.
64. Similarly, as Felix Ciuta has pointed out to me, in invoking notions of 'broad' or 'human' security, contemporary critical discourses about security more often than not are making clandestine claims for more, albeit qualitatively different, state agency.
65. The reaction of the Spanish electorate in their general election (in which the centre-right Aznar government was unexpectedly soundly defeated) held just days after the terrorist bombings in Madrid on 11 March 2004, provides a stark case in point.
66. Robert Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium, 10 (1981), pp. 126-55.
67. Toni Erskine, 'Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and Quasi-States', Ethics and International Affairs, 15 (2001), p. 72.
68. Erskine, 'Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents', p. 76.
69. Ibid., p. 85.
70. Some of these themes in Scandinavian internationalism are explored further in Peter Lawler, 'Scandinavian Exceptionalism and European Union', Journal of Common Market Studies, 35 (1997), pp. 564-94.
71. 〈http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/aussenpolitik/ friedenspolitik/〉 (accessed 22 January 2005).
72. Erb, German Foreign Policy, especially chs. 1 and 7.
73. Peter Katzenstein 'United Germany in an Integrating Europe', in Katzenstein (ed.), Tamed Power: Germany in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 2 and 9.
74. On Germany as a 'reflexive multilateralist', see Simon Bulmer 'Shaping the Rules? The Constitutive Politics of the European Union and German Power', in Peter Katzenstein (ed.), Tamed Power, as a 'Civilian Power' see the references in fn.19 above; as a semi-sovereign state.
75. see Peter Katzenstein 'United Germany in an Integrating Europe', in Katzenstein (ed.), Tamed Power, and on Germany's 'semi-sovereign foreign policy identity'
76. see Erb, German Foreign Policy.
77. Of course there is an extensive literature outside of the IR discipline which look at domestic variations within the general category of developed capitalist states as well as an extensive historical sociology literature. One body of scholarship where sensitivity to the normative dimensions of different types of Western state is evident is the work of some constructivists, notably Peter Katzenstein. I would claim, however, that this literature has had little discernible impact upon the bulk of critical IR scholarship.
78. On Denmark's rightward shift, see especially Tonny Brems Knudsen, 'Denmark and the War Against Iraq: Losing Sight of Internationalism?', in Per Carlsen and Hans Mourtizen (eds.), Danish Foreign Yearbook 2004 (Copenhagen: DUS, 2004);
79. Eva Østergaard-Nielsen, 'Counting the Cost: Denmark's Changing Migration Policies', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27 (2003), pp. 448-54.
80. See also Peter Lawler, 'Loyalty to the Folkhem? Scandinavian Scepticism and the European Project', in A. Linklater and M. Waller (eds.), Political Loyalty and the Nation State (London: Routledge, 2003).
81. Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community, pp. 44-5.
82. This variation was recently brought home to me as a participant in a UK Department of International Development (DFID) future scenarios exercise focused on the global 'very poor', which brought together representatives of DFID, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK academics, development NGOs and the private sector. The range of worldviews that emerged in the exercise mapped onto a wide part of the spectrum of international ethical thinking, from moderate realist scepticism to full-blown cosmopolitanism.
83. I am thinking here primarily of intersubjectivity as a process largely internal to the state. A more difficult issue is whether the international constitutes a kind of social space within which intersubjective understandings of the internationalist state can proliferate, that is, be considered both possible and legitimate. My hunch is this is currently only partially the case. Many, perhaps most, states might acknowledge that Sweden perceives itself to be an internationalist actor, but whether they think Sweden's internationalism is what Sweden thinks it is or I think it is (rather than, say, merely self-interested free riding or posturing) is another matter. I'm of the view, however, that the greater proliferation of the right kind of internationalist practices cannot but increase the social density, so to speak, of the international and open up the possibility that 'intersubjective constitution' might become a transboundary phenomenon. Again, I'm grateful to Felix Ciuta for pressing me on this point.