Thinking International Relations Differently 2011032739, 9780415781305, 9780415781312, 9780203129920

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Thinking International Relations Differently

A host of voices has risen to challenge Western core dominance of the field of International Relations (IR), and yet, intellectual production about world politics continues to be highly skewed. This book is the second volume in a trilogy of titles that tries to put the “international” back into IR by showing how knowledge is actually produced around the world. The book examines how concepts that are central to the analysis of international relations are conceived in diverse parts of the world, both within the disciplinary boundaries of IR and beyond them. Adopting a thematic structure, scholars from around the world explore issues that include security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, secularism and religion, and the “international” – an idea that is central to discourses about world politics but which, in given geocultural locations, does not necessarily look the same. By mapping global variation in the concepts used by scholars to think about international relations, the work brings to light important differences in non-Western approaches and the potential implications of such differences for the IR discipline and the study of world politics in general. This is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the history, development and future of International Relations. Arlene B. Tickner is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Her main areas of research include IR in non-core settings, Latin American security and Colombian foreign policy. She is the co-editor (with Ole Wæver) of Global Scholarship in International Relations (2009). David L. Blaney is James Wallace Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, USA. He works on the social and political theory of IR and IPE and questions of culture and identity. His recent books (both with Naeem Inayatullah) include International Relations and the Problem of Difference (2004) and Savage Economics: Wealth, Poverty and the Temporal Walls of Capitalism (2010).

Worlding Beyond the West Series editors: Arlene B. Tickner, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá

and Ole Wæver, University of Copenhagen

The Worlding Beyond the West series editorial board are: Naeem Inayatullah (Ithaca College, USA), Himadeep Muppidi (Vassar College, USA), Pinar Bilgin (Bilkent University, Turkey), Mustapha Kamal Pasha (University of Aberdeen, UK), Sanjay Seth (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK), Qin Yaqing (China Foreign Affairs University, China), Navnita Chandra Behera (Jamia Milia Islamia University, India) and David L. Blaney (Macalester College, USA). Historically, the field of International Relations (IR) has established its boundaries, issues and theories based upon Western experience. This series aims to explore the role of geocultural factors in setting the concepts and epistemologies through which IR knowledge is produced. In particular, it seeks to identify alternatives for thinking about the “international” that are more in tune with local concerns and traditions outside the West. 1. International Relations Scholarship Around the World Edited by Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver 2. Thinking International Relations Differently Edited by Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney

Thinking International Relations Differently

Edited by Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney

First published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 selection and editorial matter Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney; individual contributors, their contributions The right of Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Thinking international relations differently / edited by Arlene B. Tickner & David L. Blaney. p. cm. – (Worlding beyond the West ; 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. International relations – Cross-cultural studies. 2. Security, International – Cross-cultural studies. 3. Globalization – Cross-cultural studies. 4. International relations – Social aspects. 5. Security, International – Social aspects. 6. Globalization – Social aspects. I. Tickner, Arlene B., 1964- II. Blaney, David L. JZ1242.T55 2012 327.1–dc23 2011032739 ISBN: 978-0-415-78130-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-78131-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-12992-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by by Cenveo Publisher Services

Contents

List of contributors Acknowledgements 1

Introduction: thinking difference

vii ix 1

ARLENE B. TICKNER AND DAVID L. BLANEY

PART A

Security

25

2

27

Security in the Arab world and Turkey: differently different PINAR BILGIN

3

Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen: the Europeanness of new “schools” of security theory in an American field

48

OLE WÆVER

4

Security theorizing in China: culture, evolution and social practice

72

LIU YONGTAO

5

No place for theory? Security studies in Latin America

92

ARLENE B. TICKNER AND MÔNICA HERZ

PART B

State, sovereignty and authority 6

The state of the African state and politics: ghosts and phantoms in the heart of darkness

115

117

SIBA GROVOGUI

7

Contextualizing rule in South Asia SIDDHARTH MALLAVARAPU

139

vi

Contents

8 The Latin American nation-state and the international

161

FERNANDO LÓPEZ-ALVES

PART C

Globalization 9 Reading the global in the absence of Africa

181 183

ISAAC KAMOLA

10 Globalization: a Russian perspective

205

ANDREI P. TSYGANKOV

11 Arab scholars’ take on globalization

228

WAFAA HASAN AND BESSMA MOMANI

PART D

Secularism and religion

251

12 Religion, secularism and the state in Southeast Asia

253

AHMAD FAUZI ABDUL HAMID

13 Western secularisms: variation in a doctrine and its practice

275

MONA KANWAL SHEIKH AND OLE WÆVER

PART E

The international

299

14 Contrived boundaries, kinship and ubuntu: a (South) African view of “the international”

301

KAREN SMITH

15 Social science research and engagement in Pakistan

322

AYESHA KHAN

Index

342

Contributors

Pinar Bilgin is Associate Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. David L. Blaney is James Wallace Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. Siba Grovogui is Professor of Political Science and Director of International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States. Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid is Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. Wafaa Hasan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. Mônica Herz is Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil. Isaac Kamola is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for the Humanities at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, United States. Ayesha Khan is a senior researcher at the Collective for Social Science Research, Karachi, Pakistan. Fernando López-Alves is Professor of Sociology, Global, and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States. Siddharth Mallavarapu is Assistant Professor in the Centre for International Politics, Organization & Disarmament, School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Bessma Momani is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation, Waterloo, Canada.

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Contributors

Mona Kanwal Sheikh is a postdoctoral fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copenhagen, Denmark. Karen Smith is a senior lecturer in International Relations in the Political Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Arlene B. Tickner is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor of International Relations and Political Science at San Francisco State University, United States. Ole Wæver is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department and Director of the Centre for Advanced Security Theory at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Liu Yongtao is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Acknowledgements

This book, the second of a trilogy originally envisioned by Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver, has been a long time coming. A number of its chapters were presented and debated at the 2004 International Studies Association (ISA) meeting in Montreal, where the “geocultural epistemologies and IR” project convened for the first time at a one-day workshop. Ever since, we have organized panels annually at ISA in order to discuss drafts for all three edited volumes, the first of which, International Relations Scholarship around the World, was published in 2009 and edited by Tickner and Wæver. The project has faced uncountable challenges during its eight-year existence. Early on we came to realize that gathering scholars from distant corners of the world, convincing them of the worth of an initiative such as this one, and persuading them to write chapters and to revise them based upon an idea—the geocultural workings of knowledge production that has few precedents in the field of International Relations (IR)—was a colossal and time-consuming task. Understandably, some of our initial contributors became busied by more pressing commitments or simply slipped away from us, notwithstanding our best efforts to keep them in the project. Still others grew tired of the delays in our “production process” and published their texts elsewhere. Fortuitously, many new participants have also appeared. Ole Wæver, who has been a driving force behind the project, became unhealthily busy and made the difficult but gracious decision to withdraw as co-editor of this book and our subsequent one, Claiming the International. However, he remains the co-editor (with Arlene B. Tickner) of the Routledge book series, “Worlding Beyond the West.” David L. Blaney, a key member of the “geocultural epistemologies and IR” group from its inception, stepped in to replace him. We appreciate the patience, faith, kindness and zeal with which our colleagues continue to embrace this project: those who helped give birth to it, who have written chapters (or will) and many others who have provided us with needed encouragement. Also, we are grateful to ISA for helping us not only start it but keep it alive. Our editor at Routledge, Craig Fowlie, has

x

Acknowledgements

been an invaluable source of support, displaying extraordinary indulgence with our ups and downs. Arlene’s undergraduate assistant, José Luis Bernal, has been of tremendous help in the tedious formatting and referencing operations that inevitably accompany edited volumes such as this one. We thank the Political Science Department at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, for funding both his work and Arlene’s one semester sabbatical, which allowed us to expedite our writing and editing process considerably. David extends his gratitude to Naeem Inayatullah for being a faithful intellectual partner, and to Arlene for sharing this project with him. And, as always, thanks to Sherry. Arlene expresses her heartfelt appreciation to David for joining forces with her. She also thanks her sons, Benjamin and Samuel Mejia Tickner, who make her think about how to engage fruitfully with “difference” on a daily basis, and her husband, Oscar Mejia Quintana, for his companionship and loving tolerance. We are indebted to photo journalist and colleague Adam Jones for the striking cover image that appears on the paperback edition of this book.

1

Introduction Thinking difference Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney

A host of voices has risen to challenge Western or core dominance of the field of International Relations (IR). Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s (2007: 288) assertion that it is principally “produced by and for the West” is typical of this discontent (see also Ikeda 2010; Mgonja and Makombe 2009; Qin 2007), as is swelling critique of IR’s colonial character (Inayatullah and Blaney 2004; Jones 2006; Shilliam 2011). That the field is indifferent to scholarly practices and policy issues outside the core and even dismissive of them, and that its primary conceptual tools, analytical categories, and concepts are ill-equipped for understanding many of today’s key global problems, is disputed by shockingly few scholars, even those that represent the “mainstream.” And yet, the core-periphery structure that governs the apparatus of intellectual production in IR has proven relatively immune to these charges (Tickner 2003; Tickner and Waever 2009a). Such concerns have motivated recent efforts to create recognition for contributions from the non-core as legitimate sources of IR knowledge. Much of the literature that purports to deal with International Relations elsewhere than in the United States and Europe is authored by Western, core scholars or, in rare cases, non-core scholars residing and working in the core. However, attempts to correct this imbalance, making strides towards expanding the discipline’s geographical boundaries by showcasing academic production and activity in distinct parts of the globe, are slowly gaining speed. A comprehensive study led by Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (2009a), International Relations Scholarship around the World, and likeminded works by Acharya and Buzan (2007, 2010), Branwen Gruffydd Jones (2006a), and Robbie Shillam (2011), bring to light scholarship not just about the non-core but actually produced by academics from or located in it.1 Notwithstanding key differences and limitations, all of these share a concern for the development of IR theory, widely understood (Acharya and Buzan 2007: 292) in the non-West and non-core and the potential of local knowledges to become a general framework for analyzing global problems. The “geocultural epistemologies and IR” project, launched in 2004, was premised too on the idea that presenting studies authored by a wider array of academics located in diverse countries and regions would both expose the

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provincialism of what now passes for proper IR (see Chakrabarty 2000) and give way to a process of decentralizing scholarship from its base in the West (Ikeda 2010: 30). However valuable this activity—and we have devoted much energy to it over the past several years—we now recognize that the entrenched asymmetries that continue to characterize the production of knowledge in International Relations seem to point to deeper issues rooted in the epistemological and historical narrowness of the field. Jones (2006b: 2–3) notes that IR “traces its modern origins without embarrassment to a place and moment at the heart and height of imperialism.” It is unsurprising, then, that the process of decolonization has been largely obscured by taking the existence of the state-system for granted. Similarly, Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney (2004) suggest that the colonial origins of International Relations leave it hamstrung in its capacity to speak about issues central to the third world (see also Barkawi and Laffey 2006). More recently, Meghana Nayak and Eric Selbin (2010) have argued that the centering of critical thinking about IR around IR hinders our capacity to see all that it excludes. Thus, their goal is not just to “provincialize” or expand its boundaries but also to “decenter” IR itself. We hear them to be saying that currently invisible voices may resist being made IR even as they illuminate world affairs. Stated differently, the task at hand may be to question not only Western dominance of IR, but also the field’s claim to authority as producer of knowledge about world politics. The present volume takes up this challenge by exploring how knowledge of the “international” is produced around the world. Rather than simply point to the failures and hegemonic liability of IR, we interrogate nonWestern, non-core knowledge’s potential to become it. In doing so, we also suggest that the definition of what counts as International Relations should be both expanded and decentered.

On difference and power in IR Much of the work done to recover a voice beyond the West is premised on the assumption that academic analyses of world affairs outside the United States and Europe are “different” and that exposing and interrogating such difference constitutes an important step towards a more inclusive and healthy discipline that is also true to its international name. The distinct nature of the global challenges faced by non-core countries, the varied social conditions under which scholarship takes place, and lived experience itself figure most prominently in explaining the potential fruits of greater pluralism (Acharya and Buzan 2007, 2010; Tickner and Waever 2009a). The promise of such projects to pluralize or democratize IR seems great. John Agnew (2007) suggests a “geography of knowledge” to reveal the way particular countries and regions claim to produce a “singular” understanding of the world that excludes other “bases of knowing.” In consequence, if the story of modernity as European were retold instead as a

Introduction: thinking difference

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hegemonic project, this would potentially open space for alternative histories (Halperin 2006: 57–8; see also Harding 2008). Attention to narratives emerging from areas beyond Europe and North America would similarly suggest alternative understandings of key analytical concepts of world politics and new bases for world order (Chekuri and Muppidi 2003; Saurin 2006: 25–6). Hence, instead of dividing “up the world into a series of discrete spaces and locat[ing] the causes of events and processes in one site or another,” we might also consider adopting a more global view based on an understanding of the “mutually constitutive character of world politics” (Barkawi and Laffey 2006: 348; see also Grovogui this volume). Whether revealing one world or many, our point is that exposing the provincialism of (Western) IR undercuts its hegemony and opens space for a plurality of views. Not enough difference? Although the underlying rationale of the earlier volume, International Relations Scholarship, was based to a large degree on a similar hunch, the global tour conducted in that book highlighted the need to refine and qualify the promise of alternative conceptions and histories. Throughout the world the discipline shares a surprising number of common traits that could hardly be considered “alternative.” Globally, IR tends to be state-centric, emphasizes security concerns, lacks normative theory or attempts at theorization in general, and largely follows state cues, especially related to foreign policy (even though its influence over the state is usually minimal). Although International Relations is arguably different in distinct places, its difference does not reflect what we might have originally expected in terms of variation and “local” flavor. In International Relations Scholarship this led Tickner and Wæver (2009b: 338) to conclude that the “[p]revalent notion that non-core, non-Western readings of International Relations are essentially ‘different’ needs to be thought through.” This finding was somewhat unexpected and a bit disappointing, at least for some of us, given that the aforementioned volume was conceived largely with the hope that more distinctive visions of the world would emerge. Though the present book continues the examination of what IR as a field of study does around the world, emphasizing in this case scholarly production outside the core on key concepts, we mean to proceed with greater caution and more insight about the nature of difference within and beyond IR. In particular, three observations on the finding of limited difference in the previous volume inform this one. First, it is to be expected that certain disciplinary mechanisms work against diversity. Edward Said (1983a: 141–2) points to the “role of social convention,” “rules of accreditation,” “techniques of analysis, disciplinary attitudes and commonly held views” that construct disciplines as relatively closed spaces. The danger, Said (1983a: 143) warns, is that disciplines slide into a “quasi-religious,” “universalizing habit.” IR is particularly prone to

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this risk since it claims to speak about the world. As Agnew (2007: 139) puts it, the “typical positivism” of IR presumes “conceptions of knowledge that implicitly or explicitly assume their own self-evident universality,” and thus appear as the result of “an evolutionary competition based around the professionalization of knowledge accumulation in universities and research institutes.” In this context, a “sociology of knowledge” is hardly relevant, even less so a “geography of knowledge,” given that a global “marketplace of ideas” is seen to produce, eventually at least, a convergence of disciplinary practice and knowledge around the world. Conversely, knowledge production that steps beyond or challenges these boundaries is placed outside the pale of acceptable scholarship. As Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (2011: 188–91) has observed, the exclusionary move is normally made in the name of “science,” uttered in almost religious tones. To extend the argument, that which is “too different” is coded as “unscientific” or ideological. The reception of Latin American dependency theory in the U.S. academy is a case in point. Work on dependency was treated either as empirically inadequate (subject to improvement by core scholars with better scientific credentials) or stereotyped as irredeemably political (Blaney and Inayatullah 2008: 664–7; Cardoso 1977). A similar fate greeted African theorists of underdevelopment who challenged North American and European accounts of the global order (see Grovogui this volume). Past experience thus operates as a warning to others of the need to “fit in” if they are to be considered “serious” scholars. As Chen (2011: 12) suggests, not being different can be a “self-empowering” strategy too. Second, the globally state-centric character of IR should not surprise us. The state remains the nearly singular legitimate form of political organization worldwide and much IR production globally is linked to it via factors such as obedience to state directives for knowledge production and attempts to mirror its foreign policy needs (Tickner and Wæver 2009b). Although true that the state model proffered by traditional IR theories may not adhere especially well in non-core settings (see Ayoob 1995; and chapters on the state in this volume), even if we assume that it does in the core, the centrality of this actor in everyday political life and the social sciences throughout the globe makes state-centric readings of international relations especially appealing. This tendency may reinforce the dominance of (Western) IR in understanding the shape of world politics (see Mallavarapu this volume; Walker 2010). As Rob Walker (1993) argues, IR turns on a particular understanding of political space: a settled political community on the one side; a dangerous international space beyond states. Thus, IR is not simply a description of state practices that may or may not be universal; it is a project connected to a particular political imagination of the world as states. Third, it is worth reiterating the recurrent lament about the dominance of U.S. IR (Breuning et al. 2005; Crawford and Jarvis 2001; Hoffmann 1977; Smith 2000; Wæver 1998), but there are limits to this claim. In qualifying the argument about the intellectual hegemony of the United States our

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intention is not to step back from the point that disciplinary power operates spatially. Along with Agnew (2007: 139), we believe that “what knowledge becomes ‘normalized’ or dominant has something to do with who is doing the proposing and where they are located.” The sheer muscle of the academic community in U.S. IR, as measured in numbers of scholars, Ph.D. programs, conferences and publications is palpable (Biersteker 2009). Not only does size matter in a numeric sense, but education and publication venues also constitute an important source of influence to the degree that many scholars living and working outside the United States receive their degrees there and seek to publish in English-language journals, which are largely what “count” in terms of scholarly recognition in IR worldwide (Tickner and Wæver 2009b). However, the reach of “American” intellectual production in IR is limited by its own parochialism. As Thomas Biersteker (2009) shows, the United States constitutes an extreme case of parochialism, even more so today than it did 25 years ago when Biersteker and Hayward Alker (1984) wrote their famous article on the subject. Parochialism is apparent not only in excessive reliance on English-language texts, American (male) scholars, and global issues of mainly U.S. concern, but more significantly in the dominance of “rationalist” meta-theoretical models (Biersteker 2009). According to authors such as Wæver (1998), and Wayne Cox and Kim Richard Nossal (2009), this latter factor in particular has undermined U.S. IR’s global influence. Admittedly, domination is still exercised via the analytical categories used in other parts of the world, among which the state and security figure prominently, as this very book attests. But theories themselves are employed in a piecemeal and amalgamous fashion through which they are “vernacularized,” diluting their power-potential considerably (Tickner and Wæver 2009b). Therefore, IR scholarly communities outside the core may in many ways be relatively independent and operate more or less as a result of local conditions and needs, largely related to the foreign policies of their respective states more than relations with the core. Signs of awareness concerning decline in the dominance of U.S. IR are increasingly visible. At the 2011 meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Montreal, for example, Amitav Acharya organized a fascinating roundtable, “Why is IR a Decreasingly American Social Science?” in which a number of comments echoed this intuition. Pinar Bilgin, a contributor to this volume and an invaluable member of our larger project, noted that there may be an underlying connection between waning U.S. influence in the field, the hunt for “other” readings of international relations and recent growth in “national” schools of IR. In particular, we might point to recent interest in identifying a Chinese school of IR (Liu in this volume; Qin 2007; Wang 2009), that in turn reflects mounting confidence of China and Chinese scholars relative to the United States. Though undoubtedly an important trend in the global field of IR scholarship, new nationally marked schools such as this one often feel the need to reference U.S. or English-language

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scholarship in order to gain legitimacy both locally and internationally. This suggests to us that IR’s social power may be reinforced not through direct replication but to the degree that “authoritative” texts and authors are invoked, thus shaping (at least in part) the identity and possibilities of local variants. Therefore, steps made to pluralize the field might actually be a means to shore up the declining hegemony of IR itself, as inferred by critical scholar James Mittelman at the same roundtable. It is notable that we have slipped into talking about the United States as if it were the West and as if U.S. IR were homogeneous. We noted above that much ink has been spilt counterpoising “American” IR against European alternatives. Recently, Benjamin Cohen (2008) staged the same debate among international political economists in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding significant differences between these academies, it is essential not to over-state the uniformity of scholarly practice in the United States as if there were a single “national” school of thought (Blaney 2008), or to confuse the pluralization of the discipline within the Western core with welcoming voices from the non-core into the conversation. In short, a critical European stance does not necessarily open IR to peripheral readings of the global order (Chen 2011; Hobson 2007; Holden 2002). The problem of seeing difference We now find the results of International Relations Scholarship in this ongoing exercise in “revealing” difference somewhat disappointing. The ending statement of the book that, even though it looks basically the same outside the West, “[r]eal existing IR in non-privileged parts of the world is a purposeful, meaningful and socially relevant activity, only under conditions different from those in the core” (Tickner and Wæver 2009b: 339) seems in retrospect incomplete. A potentially more helpful attempt to speak about limited geocultural difference is offered by Bilgin. She invokes Homi Bhabha in arguing that given inevitable processes of Westernization, “the effects of the historical relationship between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’ in the emergence of thinking and doing that are ‘almost the same but not quite’ should be examined” (2008: 6). In other words, although it is possible that “what” non-core scholars say— even “mimicry”—seems strangely familiar and thus uninteresting to critical Western scholarship, the study of “how” Western concepts and categories are adopted and “why” is a meaningful exercise. In her chapter for this volume on security studies in the Arab world and Turkey, Bilgin does exactly this by showing that “difference” adopts distinct forms in both locales, given the political and scholarly contexts that are prevalent in each. For her, exploring how IR is “differently different” constitutes a crucial step in understanding and dialoguing with the discipline outside the core. Bilgin implicitly gestures towards the notion of hybridity and indeed the implications of invoking the term seem worth exploring. As Cheah

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(1998: 292–4) argues, hybridity points simultaneously to the “factual universality” of a global project and to its incomplete realization in local areas, where universalizing ambitions are inflected with autochthonous elements. Hybrid space is always contested—a push and pull between uniformity and difference. In this respect, hybridity might be celebrated in that it preserves diversity in the face of homogenizing practices. To wit, Walter Mignolo’s idea of “border thinking” points to rather expansive possibilities. For this author (Mignolo 2000: 722–5), modernity’s “global designs” for salvation or emancipation are conjoined with “local histories” of reception and resistance that create hybrid spaces of “border thinking.” It is in these subaltern spaces where the fruits of modernity are both demanded and resisted that creative, alternative, cosmopolitan projects emerge. It is worth noting that such zones of resistance or critical cosmopolitan projects are unlikely to be received sympathetically. One of the obvious dangers is that these “differently different” differences can easily be dismissed as “mimicry” and thus coded as a “bad” or second-class version of “good” and “serious” core scholarship. However, we believe it is worthwhile to begin to discern and value even the subtle differences offered by International Relations scholars around the world. This appreciation requires exercising a geocultural sensibility that avoids the imperative to translate hybrid forms into inferior or immature work. International Relations Scholarship and this book are in part attempts to engage this kind of “similar but not quite” evidenced by IR around the world. A less sanguine reading of hybridity is possible, however. Relations of power are executed within fields of study such as IR by means of an intellectual division of labor that largely mirrors that of global capitalism (Grosfoguel 2002: 208; Mignolo 1998: 47). Born out of modern imperialism and colonialism, and perfected after World War II in correlation with the social construction of the first, second, and third worlds, the first world, North or core has been construed as the primary producer of “finished goods” or scientific theory, while third world, Southern or non-core academics are deemed incapable of theoretically-based thinking and thus specialize in the production of “raw materials.” Therefore, local third world sites are generally considered as sources of “data” or in the best of cases, local expertise, while interpretation—a decisive stage in theory-building—is concentrated in the North, where knowledge is produced and circulated in order to be consumed worldwide (Harding 1998, 2008; Nabudere 2005). Tickner and Wæver (2009b: 333) assert that non-Western variants of IR occupy a distinct role too in the division of labor and therefore perform different functions.2 Namely, scholarly communities outside the core operate largely in the shadow of an already-existing IR dominated by the West that occupies the top of the disciplinary ladder in terms of the creation of academic standards of regulation of scholarly work, including but not limited to theorization. This idea is echoed on a macro-level by Acharya and Buzan (2007, 2010), who blame Western hegemony for blocking local theory

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building, even though the mechanics involved are somewhat sketchy. The fact that we find efforts to create local schools of IR thought only in those countries that exercise substantial or rising international influence, i.e., China and Russia (and to a lesser extent, Japan), seems to support this view. The discipline’s division of labor between diverse locations might also be understood in analogy with the role of area studies. More precisely, it may well be that non-Western, local, or national variants are to global IR what area studies are to traditional disciplines (Cheah 2000: 8–9). For Cheah, area studies differ from disciplines in several ways that reinforce their epistemological inferiority: they are involved in empirical description and not theory-building; they derive their theoretical frameworks and framing questions from the disciplines, albeit creatively; and they answer to the “particular” instead of the “universal,” given their rootedness in local experience. The shape adopted by IR around the world largely mirrors these same characteristics. As we report later in this introduction and was found in International Relations Scholarship, much of non-core IR tends to be descriptions of local or regional events and problems instead of theory (or conceptualization of the world). At best, it serves as “native informant” for the grand narrative constructed by theorists of the core. At worst, it is regarded as irrelevant to producing IR knowledge. In other words, although we take seriously Bilgin’s call to attend to scholarship similar but not quite, we also want to emphasize that the differences offered by non-core hybridity may reflect a scholarly division of labor that is hard to describe as anything but neo-colonial. Navigating the universal and the particular in IR In the middle of work on this book, we received two insightful commentaries on International Relations Scholarship that began to pull us in separate but complementary directions. One calls for resisting the tendency to pit the particularity of non-core IR scholarship against a more universal (Western) IR, while the other challenges the relevance of the discipline itself. Together, they have helped us to rethink the meaning of difference both within and beyond IR. First, in an email dated October 21, 2010, Beirut-based scholar Inanna Hamati-Ataya gently protested the treatment of non-Western scholars as representative of the non-West or some other, narrower, geocultural space. She wrote: I would like to urge you, in the following volumes of this series, to give a voice to those non-Western scholars whose “identity” is not revealed in the “identity” of their subject-matter, but rather in the underlying— and perhaps imperceptible—perspective that motivates their scholarly production. “Western” IR does not necessarily talk, write, or comment about “Western international relations.” It simply produces a knowledge

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that feels authorized and competent to address any aspect of the social world (and of knowledge of the world), and that is informed by its sociopolitical locus, its constructed system of cognitive and moral values, and its theoretical and practical concerns. Why should non-Western IR scholarship be identified in any other way? Why should it be expected to speak of itself rather than of the world and our knowledge of it, and can it not be “authorized” to do so—if at all—without having to reveal its identity or being wrongly identified or labeled as “Western”? Along with Cheah (2000) and Grovogui (this volume), we have begun to think about the way the global scholarly division of labor not only creates peripheral sites of production but also constitutes them as particular in relation to the ostensive universality of (Western) IR. That is, even though we see our task as partly to provincialize IR, we are wary of the dangers of provincializing non-Western scholars who represent not just their countries or regions but also share in the project of imagining the world. Second, a recent book by Nayak and Selbin (2010) positively invokes International Relations Scholarship, but also challenges critical work that continues to center on or within IR. Tickner and Wæver (2009a), to quote the authors (Nayak and Selbin 2010: 2), focus on IR “as a body of knowledge and set of discourses, as a discipline/field of study in which we participate as scholars, theorists and students, and as a field of ‘practical’ political decisions and structures.” However, by beginning with “the story of IR,” these and other critical thinkers inadvertently reproduce the centrality of the U.S./North American discipline (Nayak and Selbin 2010: 4–8). The authors, in contrast, call for a decentering of IR. Though they use language such as “interrogating,” “disturbing,” and “mocking,” they concede that decentering also entails “engaging” and “reframing” (Nayak and Selbin 2010: 8). If part of their quest entails, as ours does, asking “how scholars activists, practitioners, and theorists in multiple locations both critique and use … [recognizable] concepts to ‘do’ IR in a different way,” it also requires exploring “other places to start” that may no longer be enclosable within IR (Nayak and Selbin 2010: 9). At first glance, the two commentaries seem to suggest divergent strategies. Hamati-Ataya pushes for an expanded politics of recognition within IR by claiming that the core-periphery critical depiction of the discipline, though not without merit, should avoid becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy for scholars outside of the Western core. Redress of this global division of labor requires not only greater resources for university and think-tank systems and a more a pluralistic disciplinary sensibility (see Jackson 2011: Chapter 7), but also resistance to a representation of non-core scholars as embodiments of a particularized identity and consequent second-class citizenship. The vision is of a more inclusive IR. Nayak and Selbin seem to lead us away from IR altogether as an arbiter of global political imagination. The argument here is for a more diverse, even epistemologically unruly and politically

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charged arena of debate about the state of the world and its future. In such a scenario, International Relations is only one guest at the dinner table and perhaps not a favored one, meaning that the burden falls not only on those beyond IR to justify their place in a global discussion but on those within it too (Chen 2011: 18). These ostensibly opposite visions might converge, nonetheless. Inayatullah and Blaney (2004) argue that the search for the “other” beyond IR is also a search for the repressed “other” within. It is not simply that the world needs a broader range of vision than that allowed by a provincial (Western) IR, though this is certainly true. Indeed, (Western) IR privileges itself by policing boundaries that restrict what counts as legitimate knowledge, and in so doing, repress difference both inside and outside the West (see also the chapters by Sheikh and Wæver, Kamola, and Grovogui in this volume). Therefore, International Relations itself needs the “others” within that it has repressed—that it has declared beyond the pale of science and civilization— to heal itself. This formulation begins to shift our spatial coordinates in a fundamental way. The West also exists in the “other” (as Hamati-Ataya emphasizes), just as the non-West is also within. And, by extension, IR may find its “other” within and not only beyond. If so, the decentering promoted by Nayak and Selbin might begin with an attempt to locate the “repressed other” within the field, to claim the post-hegemonic or post-imperial resources within (Western) IR that allow us simultaneously to engage and be engaged by the “other” beyond. That is, the tough conversation about world politics that authors such as these call for must occur both within and beyond IR simultaneously. The red flags have now gone up. Epistemological unruliness and political charge surely threaten the order of IR with that perpetual danger—anarchy. Without settled rules and norms, science and civilization are not possible, which means, in this case, the conventions of (Western) IR. Of course, adopting such a relativist position is tantamount to disavowing any particular order as universal. Although our sense is that we cannot give up on universalism so readily, skepticism of post-Enlightenment or post-modern critiques of this idea should not be mistaken for a defense of scientific positivism or liberal global governance (in its more Lockean or Kantian versions) either. We agree with Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000: 255) that universals play a necessary role in discussions of liberation and social justice in human society, but we share this author’s concern with their duality: although their appropriation is potentially empowering they have also been deployed to legitimate domination and “produce forms of thought that ultimately evacuate the place of the local.” A discussion of difference must take claims to universality very seriously. To propose that the modern/colonial world, to follow Mignolo’s (2000) designation, actively suppresses alternative views and visions whose richness might be recovered, is not to descend into a spiral of epistemological relativism, but to convict a false claimant to the throne of universalism.

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For Mignolo, occupying this global/local space of both recovery and resistance does not translate into privileging local histories but invoking a critical cosmopolitanism. Similarly, Cheah (2000) stresses that insisting on the presence of an alternative is neither to negate the universal nor vindicate the relative or the local. Rather it is to defend the idea that the non-West is “part of the universal” and “not just as a check to a pre-formulated universal, but as something that actively shares and partakes of the universal in a specific way” (2000: 22). In other words, difference is always a particular engagement with the universal.3 Sandra Harding (1998, 2008) and Enrique Dussel (2009) make this argument more expansively. Both authors remind us that human thought, wherever it has flourished, has necessarily engaged universal problems of the nature of reality and human community. Recognizing this fact leads us precisely to challenge the modern Western claim to embody an “exclusive” universality. Instead, we are led to acknowledge it in all particular efforts to grapple with “problems that are ultimately human and thus universal in character” (Dussel 2009: 510). As a result, Dussel (2009: 512, 514) calls for “a complete reformulation of the history of philosophy,” involving a story of multiple traditions, as a necessary step towards a global dialogue that justifies the moniker “universal,” though he prefers to speak of this as a “trans-modern pluriverse.” In keeping with Dussel’s wariness of the term, given its “historically and conceptually misleading” nature, Harding (1998: 182) proposes that claims to knowledge be located on a continuum of two poles, local and global, with the “universality ideal” being thrown out altogether. For her, strengthening our understanding of the world entails both debunking Western science’s purported exceptionalism and using feminist and postcolonial standpoints to provide more expansive standards of knowing based upon the lives of marginalized peoples (Harding 1998: 18–19). Our point is that an engagement with difference does not relativism make, nor does it leave us with only a cacophony of particularized voices. Rather, it places us back in a world or, at least, multiple worlds in dialogue. But what “universal” status the world entails is much debated. Some, like Andrew Linklater (2010: 10–12), propose a more conventional notion—an inclusive and ethically encompassing theory and practice of international society. We might instead imagine a world of worlds that reflects Dussel’s “trans-modern pluriverse”—a kind of cosmopolitanism in which diversity flourishes.4

Structure and rationale Building on the aforementioned discussion, in this book we begin to explore what it means to be “different” in a way that transcends International Relations Scholarship by examining both how key concepts and categories are conceived in distinct geocultural settings in which IR knowledge is produced, and what these concepts might look like when explored at the boundaries of and beyond the field. These include security, authority and

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the state, globalization, secularism and religion, and the “international.” Although our instructions to contributors centered on International Relations as a discipline (as will be explained subsequently) our search for authors led us increasingly to scholarly production in particular countries or regions that speaks from a distinct place, and one not fully encompassed by it. By asking how these concepts are experienced and problematized in distinct locales, IR becomes a secondary or at best competing consideration. As they blur the lines between an examination of difference within and beyond the discipline, the chapters themselves thus move us into the terrain of decentering. The basic rationale of this volume, then, is that it is not only insufficient but potentially harmful and ironically Western-centric to argue that core concepts “don’t fit” in non-core settings and replacements that work better “there” must be found. This idea, salient in a considerable portion of the literature on IR and the third world, risks portraying the “non-West” exclusively in terms of “particularities” and “experiences” that are contrasted to the Western concepts (that don’t fit). As we argued above, this simply reinforces the notion that only Westerners conceptualize and are capable of “universal” thought. Non-Westerners remain defined in purely negative terms as non-universal, unique, or worse as perverse. Therefore, we feel that a more fitting and significant question to be addressed is “how do concepts get rearticulated in different parts of the world?”5 Undoubtedly, certain concepts are Eurocentric (“sovereignty”) or U.S.-defined (“national security”) in their roots, but they have been reworked in different ways in distinct places, thus acquiring varied meanings. Everything gets inflected locally. As argued by authors such as Edward Said (1983b), Pierre Bourdieu (1999), and Arjun Appadurai (1996), knowledge changes as it travels to different places, mainly because it circulates divorced from the respective social context from which it originally emerged. Theory is always a response, therefore, to specific social and historical situations. In today’s global order, characterized by more complex and accelerated patterns of exchange, ideas mutate and feed into each other in even more challenging ways. There is neither a stable constellation of theories that simply “exist” (in abstraction or just in the core) and are responded to (in the non-core), nor can this situation be captured solely by a picture of local, independent realities. Rather, the distinct inflections of theories that connect and interact have to be understood in some intermediate manner that considers both local and global factors. Our purpose in this book is twofold. Similar to the case of International Relations Scholarship, which offers a mapping of IR and an overview of its development in distinct portions of the globe, we hope to illustrate the field’s diversity and variation. However, instead of the strict and comprehensive geographic format adopted in the previous volume, here we adopt a thematic structure, in which four concepts or conceptual bundles (security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, and secularism and

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religion), chosen with the purpose of providing wide coverage across political, economic, military, cultural and religious concerns, are examined in chapters written from different parts of the world or with different parts of the world in mind. Although it would be impossible to aim at total coverage for each, we have attempted to select structurally different situations that shed light on distinct ways of looking at the same concept and the factors accounting for such variance. In addition to the four conceptual bundles, the book includes an “open” section in which authors write about the “international,” an idea that is central to discourses about world politics but that comes out in given places as something the IR discipline might never have considered important.6 Our second aim is to delve further into the contributions and conceptualizations that emerge in different parts of the world about world politics. Therefore, the volume is meant to make significant progress in bringing to light non-Western thinking and to force an expansion or decentering of the definition of IR, as Nayak and Selbin (2010) suggest. This links closely to the main concern of our forthcoming book, Claiming the International, the last of a trilogy originally envisioned with Ole Wæver, which will explore the role of the dominant Western discipline of IR as a set of boundary-drawing practices informing a particular mode of worlding and analyze promising alternative avenues for claiming the world that transgress the boundary-drawing practices of IR in its more conventional forms.

The case studies Each of the chapters in this book addresses three types of questions: What does “x” look like in “y” part of the world? Why? And what are the implications of this particular way of thinking about “x” for the global IR discipline or the study of world politics? Our goal here is not to summarize the contents of the fourteen case studies, as their diversity and analytical depth make this an impossible feat. Instead, we give an initial reading of the chapters organized in both conceptual clusters and themes that cross-cut them. In particular, we highlight a number of recurring ideas posed by the contributors that strike us as especially pertinent to the objectives of our project. Other readers, based upon their own knowledge and experience, will undoubtedly identify other trends and points of interest that we have either overlooked or decided to skip over. What does “x” concept look like in particular geocultural and academic settings? The common ground for the contributions to this volume is the question “What does thinking on key IR concepts and categories look like in different parts of the world?” However, the ways in which each author conducts this inquiry is quite wide-ranging, ensuring a plurality of approaches and

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perspectives that will hopefully provide ideas and incentives for others attracted to similar endeavors. The range of disciplines from which the chapters develop their analyses constitutes another form of diversity that distinguishes this volume from International Relations Scholarship. Whereas that book is largely situated within the disciplinary boundaries of IR, mainly because its key concern is with interrogating the state of the field in distinct locales, our central objective here is to look at bundles of concepts and categories that have been crucial not only to International Relations but also to other areas of the social sciences and perhaps beyond. Moreover, what many of the chapters show is that pushing beyond the frontiers of IR sometimes lends itself to more innovative and creative thinking about many of these concepts. Each case study offers a survey of the academic literature that exists on security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, secularism and religion, and the “international” in distinct countries and regions. In itself, we consider these fourteen snapshots of scholarly production invaluable, given the limited familiarity of most scholars and students of international relations with knowledge produced outside of the Western core. Although all of the authors illustrate quite forcefully how “pure” or “unadulterated” (Western) IR concepts do not correspond with many local realities, the case studies’ main task is to trace how they are adapted and problematized in distinct geocultural settings. Even in the case of security, the “hard-core” of traditional approaches to IR in which one might expect to find the least amount of variation, the four chapters on China, Europe, Latin America, and Turkey and the Arab world, all point to the context-boundedness of local thinking. Admittedly, the ways in which countries experience specific problems (such as security) explains to a certain degree how scholarship evolves. However, as Pinar Bilgin’s comparison of Turkey and the Arab world suggests, fairly similar experiences can also lead to distinct readings of the same issue, highlighting the importance of sociology of knowledge or geocultural epistemology based explanations (as suggested by the second question posed to our contributors, “why is this the case?”). By exploring the five concepts mentioned in a single publication the case studies provide a dual comparative set-up: both thematic and geocultural. Therefore, the book transcends the study of each individual conceptual package and progresses to a more general understanding of the formation of different types of knowledge of “the international” in diverse parts of the world. First and most simply, we spot variation in the meaning and usage of concepts across geocultural locations. The four chapters on security—Liu Yongtao (China, Chapter 4), Ole Wæver (Europe, Chapter 3), Pinar Bilgin (Turkey and the Arab world, Chapter 2), and Arlene B. Tickner and Mônica Herz (Latin America, Chapter 5)—and those on globalization in Russia (Andrei Tsygankov, Chapter 10) and the Western core (Isaac Kamola, Chapter 9) all focus on how variants of these recognized concepts within the field of International Relations have developed in the distinct

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places analyzed. Conversely, the three chapters on the state, written by Siba Grovogui (Africa, Chapter 6), Siddharth Mallavarapu (South Asia, Chapter 7) and Fernando López-Alves (Latin America, Chapter 8), Wafaa Hasan and Bessma Momani’s analysis of globalization in the Arab Middle East (Chapter 11), and Karen Smith and Ayesha Khan’s analyses of the “international” in (Southern) Africa (Chapter 14) and Pakistan (Chapter 15), respectively, provide crucial insights into alternative readings of concepts that are located either outside or at the edges of IR. By their very nature the two chapters on secularism and religion, authored by Mona Kanwal Sheikh and Ole Wæver (Europe and the United States, Chapter 13) and Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid (South East Asia, Chapter 12), also make use of fields such as political theory and anthropology, given that discussions of religion in specific countries and regions has rarely been connected to disciplinary questions and debates in International Relations. Second, as a general rule and in keeping with the conclusions of Tickner and Wæver (2009a) and Acharya and Buzan (2010), the case studies point to a relative absence of theoretical discussion on security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, secularism and religion, and the “international.” In particular, as suggested by Tickner and Herz in their analysis of Latin American security, scholars engage only infrequently with the conceptual limitations of imported theories for analyzing their subject matter nor do they participate in theory-building, even when novel concepts (such as “democratic security”) seem to appear. This is especially apparent in those chapters that operate within IR, but is also observable in globalization studies in the Arab Middle East and in reflections on the “international” in Pakistan. As we will suggest in the following subsection, and as argued in the chapters mentioned, the explanations for this theory “deficit” are varied. However, important exceptions include security thinking in China and Europe, and work on globalization in Russia. The chapters that make use of literatures originating from outside the discipline, in particular on the state, but also on the “international” in Africa, point to the existence of a substantial amount of local theorizing on these concepts as well. Third, a marked state-centrism is apparent throughout the volume, reflecting the omnipresence of this actor as a key referent of IR throughout the world and the idea of the state as constitutive of IR and arguably much of the social sciences. As would be expected, many of the chapters address the myriad ways in which the state does not conform to a Eurocentric, modern, secular ideal. However, several authors also highlight the existence of competing or alternative geographical constructs. For example, in her comparative analysis of security studies in the Arab world and Turkey, Bilgin argues that a key difference of the former is that the distinction between Arabs and non-Arabs is vital to understanding security discourses there, more than physical, state borders. This idea is echoed in Ahmad’s treatment of secularism in South East Asia, where competing forms of

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identity coexist, one nationalistic and state-based, and the other borderless, “ummatic,” and rooted in the global Muslim community. In this case, as in Sheikh and Wæver, the relation between secular and religious in state/ society varies and the meaning of both concepts is not fixed but rather always in process of negotiation. Mallavarapu too explores the variation in spatial imaginaries and the bases of rule and authority in the Indian context from the pre-colonial to the postcolonial period. The case of the Indian Ocean, which he discusses in depth, underscores one of the ways in which authority is linked to complex territorialities quite unlike the Westphalian model. In the cases of Pakistan and Africa, Ayesha Khan and Karen Smith also highlight the ways in which the complex interaction between local and international relations and flows gives new meaning to the term “transnational” and forces us to rethink the fixedness of the nation-state and of territorial borders. Why is this the case? The next question that each case study should address is “why?” Important factors that might shape thinking in distinct parts of the world include: (a) local political, economic and social realities; (b) the nature of the state; (c) policy needs and/or foreign policy; (d) the nature of the social sciences; (e) local cultural, religious and/or philosophical traditions distinct from the modern West; and (f) funding opportunities (Wæver 1998; Tickner and Wæver 2009a). With few exceptions, we find IR scholars around the globe more interested in writing about their country, region or the world than producing a sociology/geography of knowledge, although this happens to be one of the main goals of our project. Given the paucity of existing intellectual production on this issue, the way in which each contributor chooses to navigate in these mostly uncharted waters of sociology of knowledge explanations is largely the product of his/her creativity. A common pattern that is observable across nearly all of the case studies is that scholarship on international relations regularly follows on the heels of state action and discourse. China constitutes perhaps an extreme case where ideas about security have originated primarily in the state and not academia, whose role, according to Liu, is often limited to absorbing and reflecting upon official discourse. In Russia too, Tsygankov analyzes the ways in which dominant scholarly analyses of globalization have been largely in tune with the Russian state’s shifting perceptions following the country’s highly negative experience with neoliberal reform in the 1990s. However, as Khan points out in the case of Pakistan, empirical research conducted by nongovernmental organizations sometimes coaxes the state into reframing local problems. Wæver notes that security studies, be they of the Copenhagen, Aberystwyth, or Paris brand, by lieu of their more detached view of scholarstate interaction, have also influenced state policy by reflecting upon it critically. Latin America offers an intermediate case in which security

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scholars have not only followed the state’s lead but have also contributed to a civilian-based body of knowledge on this subject, in particular following the transition to democracy and the end of the Cold War. The local political, economic, and social context constitutes a second factor identified frequently by the volume’s authors as affecting scholarship on and lived experiences with security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, secularism and religion, and the “international.” Hasan and Momani, for example, show that in the Arab Middle East reflections on globalization are largely the result of the negative (and positive) impacts of neoliberal reform upon Arab society, and censorship and political repression. Contrary to assertions of the decline of the state, López-Alves claims that the historic and continuing weight of the state in Latin American societies helps explain its centrality in the social sciences in the region. Grovogui points to the decimation of African universities with the advent of structural adjustment and prolonged conflict in some areas as explanations for the paucity of scholarly production on the continent, though he sees this less as a local reality than the product of Africa’s constitution in the social relations of a neo-colonial global order. The fact that scholarly activity is considered personal and political, not detached and neutral, points to a third explanation for international relations thinking in the non-West and non-core. Khan’s portrayal of “socially committed” social science in the context of Pakistan constitutes perhaps the most explicit acknowledgment of the engaged nature of academic work. However, several other chapters suggest that the study of globalization in the Arab Middle East, and of security in Latin America and Europe, has been markedly political in its origins as well. In the case of the former, Hasan and Momani trace this to scholars’ strong connection to the everyday struggles of Arab society with the socio-political and economic costs of globalization. According to Tickner and Herz, and Wæver, active participation by scholars in public discussions about democracy, in the case of Latin America, and security, in that of Europe, account for the political roots of scholarship. Grovogui discusses the anti-colonial quality of African scholarship on global order, but also sees this as key to its dismissal by the core academy, echoing a concern aired earlier in this introduction about the ways in which difference is interpreted by the West. Kamola, by contrast, suggests that the very notion of globalization performs a kind of political exclusion. Namely, with its global communications and transnational values, globalization is constituted in and through the erasure of African realities. A fourth account revolves around the role of foreign monies, including private foundations and multilateral organizations, in conditioning and/or enabling scholarship on global issues. Tickner and Herz focus on the role played by international funders in establishing the security research agenda in Latin America and the type of intellectual production considered valuable, namely, applied knowledge of use to the regional states and thus

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capable of influencing security policies. Conversely, Khan argues that given the political context in Pakistan, donor agencies exercise a crucial positive function. Although she concedes that they may indeed influence and constrict local research agendas, not only are they less opprobrious than the authoritarian regime but they are also the “only game in town” in terms of providing sorely needed funding for research. A similar argument could be made in the case of the Arab Middle East and Africa. Neither Hasan and Momani, nor Grovogui address the issue explicitly, but both of their chapters make clear that in order for scholarly life to flourish universities require rebuilding after an era of dismantling in the name of structural adjustment. The fact that the university is not always the main source of knowledge production, given its (induced) weakness in regions such as these, also highlights the need to look outside of academic practice conventionally understood and to consider research activities conducted by NGOs and think tanks, among others.7 Finally, the three chapters that focus mainly on thinking in core locales (Sheikh and Wæver, Grovogui, and Kamola) point powerfully to what is excluded from consideration by the disciplinary routines of IR. Sheikh and Wæver note that secularism is not only a concept used by social scientists but is assumed as foundational to scholarly practice in International Relations. Religion appears, then, as an excluded category that might be seen to pollute what are essentially secular activities of statecraft and intellectual objectivity. Ahmad points to a similar problem with Western scholarship, which fails to see beyond its own dichotomy of secular/religious states and thus ignores the nuanced forms of Islamic statehood that exist in Indonesia and Malaysia. Grovogui and Kamola are even more damning of IR. For Grovogui, contemporary social scientists construct African malfeasance as a particular that parcels out blame to African leaders and peoples, and excludes colonial and neocolonial practices even as legitimate objects of inquiry. Similarly, Kamola explains how globalization as a challenging but ultimately progressive set of forces is imagined only in relation to either Africa as a particular problem or by excluding African realities. The condition of globalization as an academic object of study, he claims, is precisely the absence of Africa. Implications for global IR The chapters in this volume posit a series of arguments that advance a preliminary agenda for decentering IR that the discipline at large would be well advised to consider. A number of authors highlight the importance of historicizing the evolution of specific concepts in diverse geocultural settings. Grovogui, Mallavarapu, and López-Alves argue this issue most forcefully in the case of the state, authority and sovereignty, in Africa, India, and Latin America, suggesting that disciplinary understandings rarely conform to political events as experienced by their participants, largely because

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“history” is missing or the history provided writes away other possible stories. Alternative histories provide a different set of political judgments about current African states, the nature and future of authority in South Asia, and the resilience of the state in Latin America. A similar point is made by Sheikh and Wæver, and Ahmad, in their respective analyses of how a story about the suppression of religion by secularism obscures the varying ways that states—in France, the United States, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia, and Indonesia—are both secular and religious in complex ways. Another way in which history comes into play in the case studies is through collective memory. For Hasan and Momani, readings of globalization in the Arab Middle East need to be placed against the backdrop of the communal memory of colonialism and collective suffering. Conversely, Tsygankov argues that cultural essentialist readings are rooted in a nineteenth century view of Russia as a self-sufficient Eurasian orthodox empire, and thus call for resistance to imperialistic globalization. In the case of Latin America, the region’s common authoritarian past and its commitment to establishing democracy has exercised a strong influence on scholarship in all areas of the social sciences. Mallavarapu also explores the role of historical memory in South Asia, although in this case as myth, where the story of the loss of the continent of Lemuria informs contemporary desires for a Tamil homeland. Several authors suggest that indigenous worldviews are potentially translatable into IR or deployable as alternative conceptions of the “international” or “transnational.” Smith points to ubuntu, an African philosophy of humanism used in other areas of the social and human sciences and in political practice itself in South Africa that could erase dichotomies of friend and enemy and inform an alternative view of the international community and the responsibility of states and peoples towards each other. According to Liu, Confucianism, prevalent in China’s attempts to build its own international thinking on issues such as security, also constitutes the basis for a different kind of global interaction, characterized by concepts such as “goodwill,” “lofty morality,” and “harmony.” In turn, the lived experiences of Afghans in Pakistan, as examined by Khan, give new meaning to the term “transnational” and force us to rethink categories such as refugee, the nation-state and national borders. We are also intrigued by Ahmad’s discussion of how Southeast Asia’s uniqueness (or difference) lies in the ability to subsume Western categories such as modernism and secularism in Islamic terms, showing that Islam and modern society are not antithetical. In a similar vein, Kamola suggests that Africans themselves are beginning to mobilize the language of globalization to politicize and fundamentally challenge the existing world order. Both examples highlight the complex processes of negotiation and engagement that take place between the local and the global, and suggest more nuanced readings of how concepts spread and are transformed as they move across the globe.

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Finally, many of the fourteen chapters, in particular those that unfold outside of the disciplinary space offered by International Relations, underscore the value of distinct views of the “international” and their tremendous potential for enriching existing debates. The effect might be both to enlarge the boundaries of IR by allowing difference—in its multiple guises—to be heard but also to decenter it as the arbiter of knowledge about world politics. In this respect, at least, we hope that the volume serves as a welcome and healthy counterpoint to existing surveys of the field.

Notes 1 The 2008 version of the Teaching, Research and International Policy (TRIP) survey shares a similar interest in visibilizing scholarly readings of the discipline from throughout the globe. See Jordan, et al. (2009), in which IR professors in ten different countries are surveyed. The 2011 survey will include an even larger number of countries. 2 Anna M. Agathangelou and Lily Ling’s (2004) likening of International Relations to a colonial household constitutes another insightful way of envisioning the assignment of varied social roles within the field. 3 Anna Tsing (2005: 1–11) refers to this “engaged” or “practically effective” nature of universals as “friction,” conceived by her as the key enabling condition for interconnection across difference. While friction allows universals to travel across time and space, it also curtails their local reach by adding new meaning to and transforming them. 4 In the field of physics the problem of dialogue amidst disunity has been addressed by authors such as Peter Galison (1996: 2), who asserts that the world of science looks “more like a quilt than a pyramid,” notwithstanding modern attempts to project an image of unity and thus authority. According to him, scientists in disunity develop “trading zones” or intermediate languages that exercise a mediating function, thus allowing new ideas and concepts to emerge that are exclusive to none of them (Galison 1996: 14–15). 5 For an earlier attempt at answering this question, see Tickner (2003). 6 The structure of the book enables it to be read in various ways. For each separate concept, one can focus on the comparative perspective supplied by the parallel chapters and thereby gain an in-depth reflection on its variable meanings and usages. It is also possible to compare developments across the different concepts in terms of, for example, their varying relation to conceptualizations in the core. A preliminary inventory of new conceptualizations and emerging theory emerging from distinct fields and parts of the globe is also offered, pointing to the richness of understandings of world politics when eyes are allowed to search beyond the usual parameters. The book thus presents potentially alternative visions for the global agenda in terms of how major concerns are conceived and approached around the world. Finally, each chapter provides general “sociology” or “geography of knowledge” insights about the workings of knowledge production under different social and geocultural conditions. 7 This point is made quite forcefully in Khan’s chapter on Pakistan, and in a review of International Relations Scholarship authored by Itty Abraham (2010). Abraham argues that a comprehensive approach to IR needs to take into account the role of “new discourses of the international” emerging from diverse nonacademic actors, as well as the “[ … ] ongoing struggle over the authority to speak for and about the international,” and that necessarily transcends scholarly life (2010: 372).

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References Abraham, Itty (2010) “The International Study of IR,” International Studies Review, 12(3): 470–2. Acharya, Amitav and Barry Buzan (2007) “Why is There no Non-Western International Relations Theory? An Introduction,” International Relations of the AsiaPacific, 7(3): 287–312. Acharya, Amitav and Barry Buzan (eds) (2010) Non-Western International Relations Theory, London: Routledge. Agathangelou, Anna M. and L.H.M. Ling (2004) “The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism,” International Studies Review, 6(4): 21–49. Agnew, John (2007) “Know-where: Geographies of Knowledge of World Politics,” International Political Sociology, 1(2): 138–48. Alker Jr., Hayward R. and Thomas J. Biersteker (1984) “The Dialectics of World Order: Notes for a Future Archeologist of International Savoir Faire,” International Studies Quarterly, 28(2): 121–42. Appadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ayoob, Mohammed (1995) The Third World Security Predicament, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Barkawi, Tarak and Mark Laffey (2006) “The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies,” Review of International Studies, 32(2): 329–52. Biersteker, Thomas J. (2009) “The Parochialism of Hegemony: Challenges for ‘American’ International Relations,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 308–27. Bilgin, Pinar (2008) “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR,” Third World Quarterly, 29(1): 5–23. Blaney, David L. (2008) “An American IR?” Wuhan Journal of Science and Technology, 10(5): 45–9. Blaney, David L. and Naeem Inayatullah (2008) “International Relations from Below,” in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 663–74. Bourdieu, Pierre (1999) “The Social Conditions of the International Circulation of Ideas,” in Richard Shusterman (ed), Bourdieu. A Critical Reader, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 220–8. Breuning, Marijke, Joseph Bredehoft and Eugene Walton (2005) “Promise and Performance: An Evaluation of Journals in International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives, 16(1): 447–61. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique (1977) “The Consumption of Dependency Theory in the United States,” Latin American Research Review, 12(2): 7–24. Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Cheah, Pheng (1998) “Given Culture: Rethinking Cosmopolitan Freedom in Transnationalism,” in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins (eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, pp. 290–328.

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—— (2000) “Universal Areas: Asian Studies in a World in Motion,” paper presented at the “Place, Locality and Globalization” conference, Center for Global International and Regional Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, October 28. Chekuri, Christopher and Himadeep Muppidi (2003) “Diasporas before and after the Nation: Displacing the Modern,” Interventions, 5(1): 45–57. Chen, Ching-Chang (2011) “The Absence of Non-Western IR Theory in Asia Reconsidered,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 11(1): 1–23. Cohen, Benjamin J. (2008) International Political Economy: An Intellectual History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cox, Wayne S. and Kim Richard Nossal (2009), “The ‘Crimson World’: The Anglo Core, the post-Imperial Non-Core, and the Hegemony of American IR,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 287–307. Crawford, Robert M.A. and Darryl S. Jarvis (eds) (2001) International Relations— Still and American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Dussel, Enrique (2009) “A New Age in the History of Philosophy: The World Dialogue between Philosophical Traditions,” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 35(5): 499–516. Galison, Peter (1996) “Introduction: The Context of Disunity,” in Peter Galison and David Stump (eds), The Disunity of Science. Boundaries, Contexts, and Power, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 1–33. Grosfoguel, Ramón (2002) “Colonial Differences, Geopolitics of Knowledge, and Global Coloniality in the Modern/Colonial Capitalist World System,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 25(3): 203–24. Halperin, Sandra (2006) “International Relations Theory and the Hegemony of Western Conceptions of Modernity,” in Branwen Gruffydd Jones (ed), Decolonizing International Relations, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 43–63. Harding, Sandra (1998) Is Science Multicultural? Postcololialisms, Feminisms and Epistemologies, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. —— (2008) Sciences from Below. Feminisms, Postcolonialisms and Modernities, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hobson, John M. (2007) “Is Critical Theory always for the White West and for Western Imperialism? Beyond Westphalian towards a Post-Racist IR,” Review of International Studies, 33(Supplement S1): 91–116. Hoffmann, Stanley (1977) “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Daedalus, 106(3): 41–60. Holden, Gerard (2002) “Who Contextualizes the Contextualizers? Disciplinary History and the Discourse about IR Discourse,” Review of International Studies 28(2): 253–70. Ikeda, Josuke (2010) “The Post-Western Turn in International Theory and the English School,” Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, 9: 29–44. Inayatullah, Naeem and David L. Blaney (2004) International Relations and the Problem of Difference, New York: Routledge. Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus (2011) Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and its Implications for the Study of World Politics, London: Routledge.

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Jones, Branwen Gruffydd (ed) (2006a) Decolonizing International Relations, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. —— (2006b) “Introduction: International Relations, Eurocentrism, and Imperialism,” in Branwen Gruffydd Jones (ed), Decolonizing International Relations, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 1–19. Jordan, Richard, Daniel Maliniak, Amy Oaks, Susan Peterson, and Michael Tierney (2009) “One Discipline or Many? 2008 TRIP Survey of International Relations Faculty in Ten Countries,” Williamsburg, VA, The College of William and Mary, February. Linklater, Andrew (2010) “The English School Conception of International Society: Reflections on Western and non-Western Perspectives,” Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, 9: 1–13. Martin, Lenore (ed) (1998) New Frontiers in Middle East Security, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mgonja, Boniface E.S. and Iddi A.M. Makombe (2009) “Debating International Relations and it Relevance for the Third World,” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, 3(1): 27–34. Mignolo, Walter (1998) “Globalization, Civilization Processes and the Relocation of Languages and Cultures,” in Frederic Jameson and Masao Miyoshi (eds), Cultures of Globalization, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 32–53. —— (2000) “Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism,” Public Culture, 12(3): 721–48. Nabudere, Dani W. (2005) “Imperialism, Knowledge Production and its Use in Africa,” GSC Quarterly, 14, Winter/Spring. Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.ssrc.org/programmes/gsc/publications/quarterly14/nabudere (accessed May 1, 2011). Nayak, Meghana and Eric Selbin (2010) Decentering International Relations, London and New York: Zed Press. Qin, Yaqing (2007) “Why is There no Chinese International Relations Theory?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 7(3): 313–40. Said, Edward W. (1983a) “Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies and Community,” in Hal Fesler (ed), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays in Post-Modern Culture, Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, pp. 135–59. —— (1983b) The World, the Text, and the Critic, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Saurin, Julian (2006) “International Relations as the Imperial Illusion; or, the Need to Decolonize IR,” in Branwen Gruffydd Jones (ed), Decolonizing International Relations, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 23–42. Shilliam, Robbie (ed) (2011) International Relations and Non-Western Thought, London: Routledge. Smith, Steve (1995) “The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations Theory,” in Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds), International Relations Theory Today, University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania, pp. 1–37. —— (2000) “The Discipline of International Relations: Still an American Social Science?,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3(3): 216–55. Tickner, Arlene B. (2003) “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium, 32(2): 295–324. Tickner, Arlene B. and Ole Wæver (eds) (2009a) International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge.

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Tickner, Arlene B. and Ole Wæver (2009b) “Conclusion: Worlding where the West once was,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 328–41. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2005) Friction. An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wæver, Ole (1998) “The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations,” International Organization 52(4): 687–727. Walker, R.B.J. (1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2010) After the Globe, before the World, London: Routledge. Wang, Yiwei (2009) “China: Between Copying and Constructing,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 103–19.

Part A

Security

2

Security in the Arab world and Turkey Differently different Pinar Bilgin

The study of security, with its attention to relations of power, constitutes a suitable site for exploring how and why International Relations (IR) has evolved in the way it has outside “core” settings.1 By focusing on the cases of the “Arab world” and Turkey, this chapter shows that, over the years, “non-core” settings have produced diverse approaches which distinguish them not only from the core but also from each other, so much so that it is difficult to generalize about the study of security outside the core.2 By virtue of shared history, geography, the trials of developing statehood, and proximity to Cold War and post-Cold War struggles of power over strategic resources and waterways, Turkey and the Arab world have experienced similar insecurities.3 Yet in only one of these two sites security thinking followed a trajectory that was different from the core. While actors in the Arab world insisted on self-reliance and remained non-aligned, their Turkish counterparts pointed to the overlap between their own and “Western” security concerns and joined U.S.-led security schemes. In the study of security, attempts by Arab scholars to come to terms with developing statehood, trans-state Arab identity and superpower interventionism, contrasted with Turkish analyses of those insecurities shared with the “West.” In other words, Arab actors underscored their “difference” as Turkey’s actors emphasized their “similarity.” Although one might consider Arab actors’ behavior as an “authentic” non-core response and explain away their Turkish counterparts’ assumptions of sameness as sheer byproducts of U.S. prevalence, this chapter offers an alternative account by exploring the international political sociology of the study of security. In 1998, Ole Wæver called for studying the sociology of International Relations as opposed to tracing the development of the discipline in relation to the dynamics of international politics alone. This chapter proposes bringing international politics back into such analyses—only in a distinct way—not by studying events “out there” that influence the trajectory of disciplinary IR, but by tracing scholars’ responses to real-world events in a reflexive manner, even as they seek to explain/understand them (Oren 2003).4 As will be argued, it is not sociological factors alone that explain how security approaches in the Arab world and Turkey came to be

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differently different. Understanding the production of such differently different approaches to security requires focusing on the agency of non-core scholars in adopting, adapting, or bypassing concepts and theories originating in the “core.” Such agency, in turn, cannot be considered in isolation from the academic context in which scholars operate and the international political context that shapes (and is in turn shaped by) them. The discussion begins by juxtaposing “standard” and “critical” approaches to security in the “Middle East” and pointing to a limitation shared by both: a lack of curiosity as to how and why practices and conceptions of security have been different in this part of the world. The following two sections look at security practices and conceptions as found in IR texts and contexts.5 There is a caveat here. While non-IR texts and contexts may be equally (if not more) valuable in exploring “alternative” visions of IR in general and security in particular (Chan, Mandaville and Bleiker 2001; Jones 2003; Tickner 2003), the interests of this chapter lie not in discovering “alternatives” as such but exploring how existing approaches to security as found in the Arab world and Turkey have developed in the way they have. Such a focus allows for exploring occurrences of “difference” and “similarity.”6

Security in the Middle East—the “standard” perspective and its critics The “standard” perspective on security lumps together the Arab world and Turkey under the label “Middle Eastern security.”7 Practitioners and scholars in the Arab world and Turkey have taken issue with the Middle East perspective on regional security (Bilgin 2005), albeit in varying ways. At the root of the Middle East perspective on regional security has been the “standard” approach with its characteristic state-centrism, militaryfocus, top-down approach, and outward-directed outlook (e.g., Tripp 1984; Walt 1987). This perspective is top-down because threats to security are defined mostly by external powers based upon their own insecurities, as opposed to a bottom-up approach that pays attention to local actors’ concerns. It has an outward-directed outlook in that threats to security are assumed to stem from outside the state, whereas inside is viewed as a realm of peace. During the Cold War, for instance, the Middle East perspective listed communist infiltration and Soviet interventionism as the greatest threats to security. As a solution, regional states were invited to enter into pro-Western alliances. In contrast, local actors’ concerns with decolonization and postcolonial statehood were seldom acknowledged. The Middle East perspective on regional security is not without its critics. Lenore Martin (1998) and Bassam Tibi (1998) both adopted broad definitions of security that included non-military aspects in order to highlight what is left out of studies informed by the standard notion. Tamara Jacoby and Brent Sasley’s (2002) edited volume, Redefining Security in the Middle

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East, presented a nuanced picture of insecurity that covered an even broader range of issues, including the Israel–Palestine conflict, water disputes, political Islam, gender relations, militarism in Israel, and political liberalization in the Arab world. While all three studies sought to move away from the standard conception of security with its characteristic state-centrism, military focus, and outward-directed outlook, they failed to address its topdown quality.8 Arguably, this was because these otherwise critical studies overlooked a key concern of local actors: that they do not conceive of themselves as belonging to the “Middle East.” Indeed, over the years Arab scholars have insisted on writing about security in the “Arab region” and not the “Middle East” (Abdel Aal 1996; Abu Jaber 1991; Al-Sayyid 1998; Bayomi 1998). While Turkey’s scholars seemed to harbor no such reservation, their writings suggested an ambivalent stance. Even as they designed research analyzing Turkey’s insecurities within a Middle Eastern framework, they looked at it from a “Western” perspective, thereby locating Turkey in the “West” and not the “Middle East” (e.g., DPE 1982).9 To a large extent, the absence of conceptual explorations of these issues by scholars from the Arab world and Turkey is to be blamed for the lack of curiosity as to how scholars in both reacted to the Middle East perspective. Nevertheless, what is available may be used to initiate such an exploration. Consider, for example, Jordanian political scientist Abu Jaber’s contribution to an edited volume on the study of the Arab World (Sullivan and Ismael 1991). Jaber’s (1991) reflective essay, titled “Strategic Studies and the Middle East,” is remarkable not only due to the near absence of military-focused accounts of security, but also because of the geographical delimitation of the author’s analysis. Unlike the title, which promises a survey of the field in the Middle East, Jaber focuses on the Arab world alone. While the mismatch between the title and the essay could be explained with reference to a latent disagreement between the author and the editors, it could also be considered a starting point for exploring how security is conceptualized and practiced differently in this part of the world. In a precious account of the study of International Relations in the Arab world, Lebanese scholar Karim Makdisi (2009) points to the significance of exploring the rationale behind Arab scholars’ reaction to the Middle East perspective by arguing that their reservations mask deeper worries regarding its underlying political project. According to the author, scholars who express preference for an “Arab perspective” do not only offer another label for the same geography, or express their preference for the “Arab region,” but also view themselves as fighting off the projects of “foreign donors” who have since the 1970s … often sought to break up an imagined Arab community into the more nebulous “Middle East” that could accommodate Israel—thus forcing a political project of Arab-Israeli “normalization” on the Arab research community before Palestinian self-determination

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Pinar Bilgin was reached and occupied Arab territory liberated—and even Turkey and Iran. (Makdisi 2009: 182)

As such, the decision to study the Middle East or the Arab world is not governed by whim, but rather, reveals Arab scholars’ different approaches to security, prioritizing the concerns of distinct referents.10 Rather than restating the point that the “Middle East” is an invented region (Lewis and Wigen 1997) or that there are many “Middle Easts” (Ibrahim 1996), this observation constitutes a call for paying attention to the “politics of geographical specification of politics” (Dalby 1991). More specifically, it underscores the need to look at the mutually constitutive relationship between (inventing) regions and (conceptions and practices of) security (Bilgin 2000, 2005). Following critical approaches to political geography, spatial definitions are not neutral (O Tuathail and Dalby 1998), nor are they independent of actors’ conceptions and practices of security. Therefore, a crucial place to begin when analyzing “non-core” actors’ conceptions of security are the geographical constructs behind. In what follows, this chapter pays particular attention to geographical constructs shaping (and shaped by) various actors’ security practices. This allows me to overcome an important limitation of IR in the Arab world and Turkey; the relative lack of conceptual analyses. In their absence, I attempt to tease out various actors’ conceptions from their broad-remit treatises on regional security. Given that a full account of security practices in the Arab world and Turkey is beyond the scope of this chapter, I highlight broad trends in security practice, in particular their (military/non-military) character and referent object (state/non-state/supra-state).

Security practices in the Arab world and Turkey The Arab world and Turkey have experienced not entirely dissimilar insecurities. The trials of state-building and development have topped policy-makers’ agendas in both settings; however, the resemblance ends there. Whereas Turkey sought security within the Western fold, some Arab states remained hesitant while others opposed pro-Western alliances outright. Differences between Arab and Turkish actors’ security practices were partly to do with Soviet policies. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Soviet Union sought to make the renewal of the 1925 Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality between Turkey and the Soviet Union conditional on the former surrendering its two eastern provinces (Kars and Ardahan) and the revision of the 1939 Montreux convention (governing the running of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits). Although the Soviets later retreated from these demands, Turkey sought military security through closer relations with the United States and NATO membership.

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Most Arab states did not have similar reasons for joining an anti-Soviet alliance. The Soviet Union did not begin pursuing a consistent policy towards the Arab world until the mid-1950s (Dawisha 1980). Many Arab leaders simply did not put the Soviet threat on their security agenda, thinking that sheer geographical distance would deter the Soviet Union from undertaking any military attack (Heikal 1978). The only significant exception to this trend was Iraq, which followed pro-Western (and anti-Soviet) policies until the 1958 coup that ousted the Ha-shimite monarchy. While the coup crystallized widespread public dissatisfaction with such pro-Western policies, it was not pro-Soviet as much as it was pro-full sovereignty and autonomy from the West. Developments during 1951–2 revealed differences between the security outlooks of political leaders in the Arab world and Turkey vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1951 Egypt invited Turkey to join the members of the Arab League in creating a non-aligned bloc, and Turkey declined. At around the same time, the United States and Great Britain proposed the formation of a Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO) to “defend” the region against perceived Soviet expansionism. Turkey sponsored the proposal in the hope that this would bolster its bid to join NATO. Only Iraq accepted the invitation, thereby rendering MEDO stillborn. What these two episodes highlighted was that Turkish policy-makers considered NATO to be the solution to their insecurities, whereas many Arab leaders preferred non-alignment. However, Arab actors’ attempts to distance themselves from Great Britain and the United States should not be reduced to the absence of the “Soviet threat,” nor should Turkey’s search for security within the Western fold be reduced to its presence. Both pro-Western and pro-Arabist stances across the Arab world and Turkey were responses to insecurities of military and non-military kinds. Non-military insecurity was rooted mostly in the trials of decolonization and postcolonial statehood. While Arab states gained nominal independence in the post-World War II era (with the exception of Saudi Arabia, which was not colonized), they struggled to gain full control over the production of oil or strategic ports/canals. Decolonization was an important aspect of regional dynamics. By the end of World War II many countries had yet to gain full independence and/or sovereignty. The last to gain independence was United Arab Emirates in 1971, preceded by Yemen in 1967, Algeria in 1962, Iraq in 1958, Libya in 1951, and Jordan in 1946. Yet independence did not immediately translate into full sovereignty. Egypt had to live by the limitations of the Canal Treaty signed with Great Britain. Oil-bearing states could not control production, nor were they able to reap the full benefits of oil wealth. Needless to say, anti-colonialist sentiments remained high throughout the Arab world. In the case of Egypt, it was the British presence and/or influence and not potential Soviet interventionism that were the primary security concerns. In response to aforementioned calls for Egypt to join anti-Soviet defense

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schemes, President Gamal Abdel Nasser responded, “How can I go to my people and tell them I am disregarding a killer with a pistol sixty miles from me at the Suez Canal to worry about someone who is holding a knife 5000 miles away?” (quoted in Brands 1991: 277). President Nasser was more concerned with decolonization, which involved keeping both former colonial powers and the United States at bay. While U.S. policy-makers worried about Soviet interventionism in the region, they remained oblivious to how their own actions constituted acts of “intervention” when viewed from the perspective of some regional actors (Grovogui 2007; Khalidi 2002).11 This is not to suggest that concerns with sovereign development did not busy minds in Turkey. Yet, as noted above, Turkey’s policy-makers responded differently, mainly through the pursuit of pro-Western policies. While Turkey is widely considered to have turned toward the West for security in the post-World War II period, this is true only if security is understood in a narrow sense. As far as non-military aspects of security are concerned, Turkey took a turn toward the West much earlier, with the establishment of the Republic in 1923. Turkey’s insecurities during this early period were nonmilitary in that there was no apparent military threat to its independence, territorial integrity or sovereignty. Nevertheless, its founding leaders were concerned about the future, based upon their particular remembrances of the past and interpretations of the present. One such remembrance was that non-military insecurities (the withholding of formal recognition as a full member of the European/international society) had consequences for military security (instances of military intervention and/or loss of sovereignty). Thus, as early as the 1920s, Turkish security practices had come to rest on the West–non-West divide partly as a response to non-military and non-specific insecurities vis-à-vis the European/international society (Bilgin 2009). These practices went largely undetected by the Middle East perspective (to which Turkey’s scholars also subscribed) that was informed by the standard notion of security. Stated differently, there were important similarities between insecurities as experienced in the Arab world and Turkey, stemming from their character as developing states and experiences with the “core.” However, regional actors’ policymaking and scholarly writings framed and responded to such insecurities in distinct ways. That said, there was a significant difference between the two areas’ security experiences as well. In the case of the former, the existence of the “Arab identity” factor meant that state–society relations in the Arab world had two inter-related layers: relations between individual Arab states and their societies, and relations between Arab states and the trans-state society of Arab peoples. The latter relationship made inter-Arab coordination and cooperation possible. Even after pan-Arabism as a political movement began to decline, Arab actors were able to act in tandem in seeking a solution to the plight of the Palestinians through imposing an oil embargo in 1973, blocking progress in the multilateral track of the Middle East peace process from the mid-1990s onwards, and slowing down progress of the

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Euro-Mediterranean partnership since 1999. At the same time, however, “Arab identity” rendered Arab states vulnerable toward each other’s interventions. Arab actors were able to interfere in each other’s affairs through resorting to what Michael Barnett (1998) refers to as “presentational politics” and “impression management.” Shared language and points of cultural reference allowed Arab actors to address each other’s populaces. Nasser was the most active of all, using the radio to address populations throughout the Arab world. So as not to lose legitimacy, leaders also had to be seen as acting in accordance with the precepts of “Arab security.” Accordingly, their actions had to be justified not only vis-à-vis their own society but also the trans-state society of Arab peoples. Even the more conservative Arab leaders willing to follow the British and U.S. lead hesitated for fear of losing domestic legitimacy. In Iraq, for instance, which was under British trusteeship until 1958, the anti-colonialist and anti-Western mood of the public made it difficult to enter into defensive alliances with the West. The 1948 treaty of Portsmouth (signed between Iraq and Great Britain), which had to be repudiated within a week because of public outcry in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, was an instance of the power of the “Arab security” discourse as a tool in “presentational politics.” In pan-Arabists’ use “Arab security” had two referent objects that were not entirely compatible with one another. These were the “society of Arab states” and the “trans-state society of Arab peoples.” For the society of Arab states, threats were considered to stem from outside the Arab world. When pan-Arabists referred to securing the Arab world (in contrast to the Middle East and/or individual Arab states), they assumed it to be a realm of security on the inside with threats coming from the outside—the West in general and Israel in particular. While pan-Arabists did not entirely overlook political and economic insecurities inside the Arab world under the terms of what Saad Ibrahim calls the “revolutionary social contracts” they signed with their societies, addressing individual and social group insecurities was to be postponed until the state succeeded in the following: grant or [consolidate] newly obtained independence, achieve rapid economic growth (through industrialization), institute social justice, march toward Arab unity, liberate Palestine, and maintain cultural authenticity. (Ibrahim 2000) In this usage, pursuing Arab security meant first addressing threats to the Arab world stemming from the outside and only then turning inwards. Yet, the pan-Arabist discourse on security pointed to another threat: the practices of conservative leaders. Here, the referent object of Arab security was the trans-state society of Arab peoples. By virtue of defending their interests, the revolutionary model of pan-Arabist leaders needed defending against the royalist model of the conservatives. The clash between the radical and conservative leaders meant a bitter rivalry, whereby each side

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sought to undermine the other’s security albeit through non-military means. While pan-Arabists were able to come to power only in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, they punched above their material weight through their command of the discourse of “Arab security.” The discourse of pan-Arabist leaders threatened the security of the conservative regimes too. Contrary to their pan-Arabist counterparts, conservative leaders of the Arab world had no “contractual” obligations to meet and were not accountable as such. Nevertheless, they could not overlook the effects that “Arab security” discourse (with its promise of justice, unity, liberation, and authenticity) had over peoples across the Arab world. Radical leaders in general and President Nasser in particular exploited such sensitivities by shaping public opinion across the Arab world and calling for people to put pressure on their leaders.12 The conservative leaders responded by providing support to Islamist groups and providing/withholding much needed monetary aid for their less well-to-do counterparts. Throughout the years, as inter-Arab cooperation lagged, differences between the security concerns of distinct Arab actors became more and more apparent. In 1990 inter-Arab relations reached a low point following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. While President Saddam Hussein did not hesitate to employ the discourse of “Arab security” and was able to attract the attention of people on the streets, the responses of regional leaders showed how Arab security concerns were far from being unified. In this case, Iraq, an Arab state, had invaded Kuwait, another Arab state, and threatened Saudi Arabia, yet another Arab state. This chain of events allowed Saudi Arabia to invite the United States to aid in its defense, which led the U.S. to strengthen its political and physical presence in the “Arab region” in a hitherto unforeseen manner. Since then, Arab actors’ resistance to the Middle East perspective has grown weaker, with individual state identities and alternative regional identities (as with the Gulf and Maghreb or the broader and much contested ummah) gaining strength. The marginalization of the trans-state society of Arab peoples as a referent object of security has meant that Arab states have become undisputed referents and agents of security. As the near absence of interest in security sector reform also suggests, societies have almost no input into and/or voice over security in the Arab world (Luethold 2004). Islamist actors have made strategic use of the emerging disconnects between Arab society and peoples. They have done so by adopting nonviolent practices that have alleviated human insecurity (as with food, shelter and health services). However, Islamists gaining sympathy in the eyes of Arab peoples has been declared a threat to regime security by regional leaders, who have made use of the post-9/11 environment (Benantar 2006). As with the high time of pan-Arabism, when individuals’ and social groups’ security had to be postponed for reasons of “Arab security,” current regimes have suspended human rights and freedoms in the attempt to address the “terror threat” (UNDP 2009). Therefore, over the years regional leaders’

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approach to security has retained its state-centric and military-focused qualities while their discourse has de-emphasized their common Arab identity. In synthesis, whereas Turkey pursued pro-Western policies from its inception, becoming a U.S. ally in the aftermath of World War II and joining NATO in 1952, many in the Arab world declined British and later U.S. overtures to join defense pacts. Even those Arab leaders who chose to maintain relatively close ties with the United States (especially through arms transfers) stopped short of establishing alliance relations until the 1990s. As will be discussed subsequently, differences between the security practices of various actors in the Arab world and Turkey were also reflected in the security conceptions of Turkish and Arab scholars.

Security conceptions in the Arab world and Turkey The literature on security conceptions across the Arab world and Turkey is considerably thin. In part, this is a result of IR’s status as a newcomer to the developing world. U.S.-trained professors introduced International Relations courses in Turkey during the 1950s. However, not until the mid-1980s did IR begin to be established as a separate discipline (Bilgin and Tanrısever 2009). Since then, research in Turkey has been characterized by a combination of accounts on the state of world politics and Turkish foreign policy dynamics. Precious few conceptually informed analyses exist. This is not entirely different from how IR developed in the Arab world, which, according to Makdisi (2009: 183) was “not so much a distinct empirical field of study as an amalgam of pressing current affairs and short-term public policy concerns.” There, IR has been able to gain a foothold mostly in Englishmedium universities (such as the American University in Cairo and Beirut). Nevertheless, IR studies in the Arab world and Turkey constitute fertile ground for exploring security notions. This is the case especially because security experiences constitute an important part of the reason why International Relations has remained relatively impoverished (Tickner and Wæver 2009: 172). In contrast to Western Europe, where no inter-state wars occurred after World War II, the Middle East underwent numerous interand intra-state conflicts. The impact of international politics was not reduced to the frequency of wars and their effects. Scholarship in the region was also marred by colonial politics of an earlier era, namely, encounters with the European/international society and the legacy of “Orientalism” (Said 1978). The latter has not only influenced the study of the “Middle East” in Europe but also regional actors’ ways of knowing in that it evolved into a division of labor between area studies and the disciplines (Bilgin and Morton 2002). In this hierarchical division of labor, distinct disciplines turned to area studies for “raw data” and very little else. For years regional scholars assumed the role of “data producers” for their disciplinary-oriented colleagues, normally located in the West, or authors of policy-relevant accounts telling the world about their region. Such a division of labor

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resulted in the evolution of IR in the Arab world and Turkey in its current “amalgam” form. Given the limitations of IR scholarship and the dearth of conceptual discussions on security, I will tease out regional scholars’ main ideas based upon their writings on regional security. Based upon the preferred spatial constructs used in such analyses, I focus primarily on the clash between different regional definitions and notions of security. As noted above, Arab scholars writing about international relations have traditionally expressed a preference for calling the part of the world that they live in as the “Arab world” or the “Arab homeland” rather than the “Middle East.” Writing in 1986, two Egyptian scholars, Ali Eddin Hilal Dessouki and Jamil Matar, clarified the underlying rationale for this preference as follows: (1) the term Middle East does not refer to a geographical area but rather it represents a political term in its creation and usage; (2) the term is not derived from the nature of the area or its political, cultural, civilizational and demographic characteristics; for when we use the term “middle” we have to ask “middle” in reference to what? (3) the term tears up the Arab homeland as a distinct unit since it has always included non-Arab states. (Dessouki and Matar cited in Abdel Aal 1986: 197–8) Dessouki and Matar’s objection was not merely to the label itself but also the security perspective beneath it. They considered the Middle East perspective on regional security to be problematic because it legitimized the presence of Israel, Iran, and Turkey in this region, while also marginalizing the concerns of Arab states, which were deemed different from if not opposed to those of non-Arabs. The authors’ preferred regional designation, the “Arab regional system,” served two simultaneous purposes: it symbolized resistance to what they considered to be a self-serving geographical designation and constituted an alternative designed to serve the interests of Arabs, both of which suggested that the security concerns of Arab states could be considered a unified whole and, perhaps more importantly, different from that of non-Arabs (Abdel Aal 1996). Dessouki and Matar’s piece, published in Arabic, is still considered to be a “classic” and is widely cited by other Arab scholars. According to Egyptian scholar Baghat Korany (1994), the authors’ perspective is better characterized as “pan-Arabist” and therefore should not be considered fully representative of security thinking across the Arab world. This may be even truer for contemporary world politics, in which pan-Arabism is a shadow of its former self. Nonetheless, traces of it are still visible owing partly to the resilience of pan-Arabist institutions, including the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut, the Arab Thought Forum and Arab Institute for Security Studies in Amman, and the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo. The latter has published the Arab Strategic Yearbook since 1986. That the

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word “Arab” is used to qualify one’s perspective on various security concerns in the Arab world suggests that “Arab security” still constitutes a single unit in the minds of some scholars. Consider, for example, writings on issues as diverse as “Arab food security” (El-Solh and Chaalala 1992), “Arab water security” (Khouri 1990), or a 2008 conference convened by the Arab Women’s Organization on “Arab Women’s Human Security.”13 The ubiquity of the “Arab” dimension of security conceptualizations cannot be explained away simply as the product of pan-Arabist whim. Korany’s designation of Dessouki and Matar’s perspective as pan-Arabist is better understood as a reference to the origins of Arab national security in the discourses of radical Arab leaders. That those leaders are long gone and their political positions in rapid decline need not render the concept less relevant. Indeed, the fact that it has remained central to the analyses of Arab scholars, notwithstanding its decline as a discursive tool of Arab leaders, begs an explanation. As Said Ali has highlighted, [m]ost of the Arab literature on security perceptions is based on the notion that Arabs have common security needs, even when the much narrower security perceptions of one or another Arab state are being represented. Major research centers in the Arab world take it as a point of departure and analysis. (Abdel Aal 1996: 27) All major think tanks, including the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut, and the Arab Thought Forum in Amman orient their activities towards issues such the Palestinian predicament, which is considered to be the top item on the Arab national security agenda. Such a stance, in turn, fits the profile of an intellectual tradition that has been attentive to the Arab–non-Arab distinction when considering various topics, including security. Korany highlights how “state frontiers have been less important as barriers in collective psychology than has the distinction between Arab and non-Arab” (Korany 1994: 167; Korany 1999; Korany et al. 1993a). This has been the case since the early days of the formation of individual Arab states and despite the efforts of Arab leaders to fortify state boundaries and strengthen sovereignty. When viewed against such an intellectual and political background, scholarly writings on “Arab security” come across as critiques of “standard” concepts and theories that appear to critically engage the increasingly statecentered and military-focused security practices of many Arab leaders by voicing insecurities that otherwise go unnoticed. Nevertheless, Arab scholars, similar to policy-makers, remain divided over the issue of what “Arab security” is/should be. In Egyptian scholars Dessouki and Mattar’s aforementioned classic, the term is discussed with reference to the insecurities of the society of

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Arab states. Theirs is a state-centered conception of Arab security. It is also outward directed in that they stress the differences between the security needs and interests of Arab states as opposed to non-Arabs. Framed as such, “Arab national security” retains some of the basic characteristics of the “standard” conception. Indeed, the authors’ critique of “Western” approaches focuses not on the conceptualization of security but the referent object, the “Middle East.” Thus, “Arab security” leaves little room for the insecurities of individuals and social groups who choose to define themselves with reference to other dimensions of their identity such as gender or (in the case of non-Muslims) religion, not to mention non-Arabs whose concerns are crowded out completely within this framework. On the other hand are scholars who have prioritized the concerns of the trans-state society of Arab people when conceptualizing “Arab security.” Korany is the most prominent example of this second group. For years he has maintained that the analysis of security issues in the Arab world should not be limited only, or even, primarily, to the raison d’etre of the territorial state and that it should address the security concerns of Arab people (Korany 1994: 173). Similarly, Abdul-Monem M. Al-Mashat (1985) maintains that the “standard” concept of national security is not only state-centric but also statist by virtue of the primacy accorded to the security of the state over other referents. Putting the state at the focal point of analysis is problematic, Korany has argued, because it would leave societal insecurities out of security analyses (Korany, Noble, and Brynen 1993b). Another problem identified by this second group of Arab scholars is the military focus of the “standard” concept. According to Al-Mashat (1985: 34), “the national security literature does not look for deep, structural conditions, but only overt evidence of political and military power or of insecurity,” whereas essential issues such as the quality of life (both physical and psychological), social equality and justice, national total development, structural interdependence among nations, global concern with common environmental problems, and international cooperation should also be built into the theory of national security. (Al-Mashat 1985: 19) (Re)conceptualized by Al-Mashat and Korany, the concept of “Arab security” serves as a corrective to the state-centered and military-focused practices of Arab leaders and a reminder that policies designed to secure individual states do not exhaust what could be done in the name of security in the Arab world. Viewed as such, Arab scholars’ critical engagement constitutes “an act of political insurgency” (Said 2000: 202) in that their writings do not merely present theory-critique addressed to security studies audiences at home and abroad, but also constitute acts of defiance to the

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security practices of their own governments that often neglect the multiple security concerns of the Arab people. Whereas Arab scholars’ writings on security have produced insightful critiques of and an alternative to the “standard” concept of “national security,” Turkey’s scholarly scene is characterized by the limits of such critical engagement. Indeed, a review of Turkish IR scholars’ writings on security reveals that they exhibit the very characteristics of the security studies literature that has been identified as problematic by Arab scholars.14 During most of the Cold War, studies on security portrayed Turkey as a “junior partner” of the United States in the “fight against communism” while its security concerns were represented as aspects of “Western security,” a derivative of the security interests and policies of the United States and other “Western” allies. This, in turn, led analysts to focus on those insecurities shared by other NATO members to the neglect of other problems stemming from inside state boundaries by virtue of Turkey being a developing state.15 Although the latter set of concerns was addressed by the economics literature, academic IR barely touched them. Consider, for example, Metin Tamkoç’s 1961 article entitled “Turkey’s Quest for Security through Defensive Alliances,” in which the author defined security in explicitly state-based, outward-directed and militaryfocused terms (Tamkoç 1961: 2). At the same time, however, the analysis gave away an inward-directed conception of security especially when Tamkoç discussed the policy priorities of the early Republican period in terms of the search for security and peace through relying “mainly on its own strength in order to consolidate the homeland.” Once this was achieved, the governing elite’s goal became one of “preserving and defending [Turkey’s] territorial integrity and political independence against possible encroachments by the great powers to overthrow the status quo in the Middle East” (Tamkoç 1961: 13–14). In other words, although the author explicitly adopted a “standard” definition of “security” that emphasized inter-state dynamics, his analysis of Turkish insecurity revealed an internally oriented conception that emphasized intra-state dynamics, including establishing the idea of the state in the minds of the populace and strengthening its institutions. Not until the 1960s and 1970s, when Turkish foreign policy underwent a period of rethinking and readjustment, did scholars begin to actively question the relevance of the “Western security” framework in accounting for Turkey’s insecurities. This period witnessed widespread public debate on Turkish foreign policy in which IR scholars also contributed. The country’s Western orientation in general, and membership in NATO specifically, was the most popular topic of discussion. The terms of the debate were still narrowly defined, in that Turkish security was debated solely in terms of external threats. While the appropriateness of the “Western” framework was questioned, the main concerns that were raised had to do with the political implications of the “Western” alliance for the country’s foreign policies.

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Turkey’s internal insecurities and the interaction between the “internal” and “external” dynamics were still not a part of public or scholarly debates. Haluk Ülman’s 1966 study, titled “Thoughts on Turkey’s National Defense,” constitutes an example of studies that pointed to the discrepancy between Turkey’s security needs and interests and those of its “Western” allies. While the author did not reflect upon the roots of such differences he did call for the rethinking of Turkey’s national security interests with a view to the economic costs of military sector investments.16 While adopting a comprehensive notion of security by integrating the economic dimension, Ülman did not reflect upon insecurities stemming from problems such as underdevelopment. Rather, he presented them as consequences of Turkey’s ostensibly “unique” characteristics, similar to its geographical position and historical background (Ülman 1966). Duygu Sezer’s 1981 Adelphi Paper, “Turkey’s Security Policies,” constitutes the first exhaustive study that did not shy away from pointing to such incongruities. Contrary to many authors who preceded her, Sezer’s study moved away from state-centered and military-focused readings of security and analyzed those vulnerabilities generated by the socioeconomic transformation that Turkey experienced during the Republican era. She wrote: Despite the absence of obvious military threats, the very precariousness of Turkey’s domestic situation exposes her to precisely the kind of internal and external pressures which may dangerously undermine her ability to stand on her own feet and to formulate a coherent security policy. This internal instability is currently the major source of Turkey’s insecurity. (Sezer 1981: 39) Domestic vulnerabilities included the rising socio-economic expectations and demands of Turkish youth, political instability, systemic economic difficulties, resource scarcity and the role of the military in Turkish politics. Hence the need for focusing on the “internal” aspects of Turkey’s insecurities, argued Sezer (1981: 39): “external security cannot be achieved without a stable internal environment and a large degree of consensus.” On the issue of Turkey’s differences from its Western allies, this author introduced underdevelopment as a factor that had until then remained unexamined in the Turkish security literature, primarily by emphasizing the “wide gap in the level of development between Turkey and the other European members” as a factor that impeded cooperation in arms procurement (Sezer 1981: 28). In short, what characterized the scholarly literature in Turkey was a dearth of critical reflection on the limits of “standard” notions of security in understanding and explaining the country’s insecurities as a developing country. Even as discussions revealed that its insecurities were different from

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those of Western allies, these were analyzed as “unique” qualities stemming from Turkey’s “geopolitical location,” not as products of its difference from the “West.” While Turkey’s scholars seemed to accept the Middle East perspective without reservations, they studied Middle Eastern issues from the perspective of Western security (DPE 1982; Karaosmanog˘ lu 1983; Tas¸han 1987). Stated differently, even as they wrote about security in the Middle East, Turkish scholars located Turkey in the “West.” When coupled with post-independence policies of “Westernization” and “modernization,” this overview suggests that the academic study of security in Turkey might be explained with reference to seeking “similarity,” which in itself is a security practice (Bhabha 1994; Ling 2002). Viewed through the lens of postcolonial IR, Turkey’s post-independence policies of “Westernization” as well as its post-World War II policy of joining the “Western” alliance transpire as attempts to become “similar.” While one element of seeking similarity rested on admiration of the achievements of the Enlightenment in the West, another was rooted in the search for security vis-à-vis the source of such admiration. In the case of Turkey, the latter strategy took the form of adopting a Western orientation and then formally joining the Western alliance. Viewed as such, scholars’ focus on the Western security framework as well as the standard notion of security in analyzing Turkish insecurities (analyzing them like “any other Western country”) comes across less as a dispassionate analysis of the country’s security predicament and more as a contribution to Turkish efforts at Westernization, which, in turn, was part and parcel of the country’s search for security. To summarize, in this section I have shown how scholarly literature in the Arab world has pointed to difference and qualified prevalent notions of security by offering “Arab national security” while Turkey’s IR insisted on similarity, based upon the relevance of prevalent ideas notwithstanding apparent incongruities between ostensibly “standard” “Western” notions and Turkey’s insecurities. Scholarly reflections on security in these two worlds were thus differently different.

Conclusion The Arab world and Turkey faced similar challenges throughout the twentieth century that revolved around state building and development. Yet, their similarity ended there. In terms of the security practices of policymakers and scholarly writings, the two have exhibited significant differences. Regarding practice, whereas actors in the Arab world insisted that their difference be recognized by remaining non-aligned, their counterparts in Turkey sought to efface such difference by joining Western-led security schemes (including NATO). In terms of the study of security, whereas scholars in the Arab world sought to come to terms with developing statehood, trans-state Arab identity and superpower interventionism, in Turkey they focused on the insecurities the country shared with the “West.”

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In the Arab world, while the more “radical” actors promoted pan-Arab collaboration (if not unification) as a means of attaining “Arab security” (a vague notion that, in theory, covered concerns with the plight of the Palestinians as well as equitable distribution of oil wealth), the more “conservative” ones considered pan-Arabist rhetoric and policies a threat to their regime security and sought close collaboration with the United States and/or Britain. The bitter rivalry between the two camps that characterized the 1950s and 1960s eased as pan-Arabism declined from the early 1970s onwards. However, Arab actors continued to challenge each other’s legitimacy by questioning one another’s commitment to “Arab security.” Threats to security in the Arab world took military and non-military forms, including the challenges Arab regimes posed to each other and that of their respective citizens. In Turkey, on the other hand, pro-Western practices were considered a solution to insecurities of both a military and non-military nature. While formal alliance relations with the United States were established only in the aftermath of World War II (with NATO membership following in 1952), Turkey has sought to locate itself in the “West” since the establishment of the Republic in 1923 by modeling its state building and development efforts after European countries and the United States. As such, Turkey’s security benefited from membership in NATO (and pro-Western policies in general) in more ways than one. While NATO protected the country against military threats perceived to stem from the Soviet Union and its regional allies, it also reaffirmed Turkey’s “Westernness,” thereby anchoring (and legitimizing) state-building and development efforts. In accounting for security in the Arab world, scholars have challenged the “relevance” of the “standard” concept of security, which they find deficient in accounting for the trials and travails of postcolonial statehood (AlMashat 1985; Korany 1986; Korany, Noble, and Brynen 1993a; Sayigh 1990). Highlighting identity/security dynamics, Arab scholars have utilized the notion of “Arab security” and reworked it to qualify the “standard” concept (Dessouki 1993; Korany 1994; Korany, Noble, and Brynen 1993a, 1993b). Turkish scholars, contrary to their Arab world counterparts, did not challenge the relevance of “standard” concepts but rather offered accounts of Turkey’s security as an aspect of “Western security.” Apparent incongruities between Turkey’s insecurities as a developing country and the standard notions were either explained away with reference to its ostensibly “unique” qualities (Dıs¸ Politika Enstitüsü 1982; Tamkoç 1961; Tas¸han 1987) or accounted for through exploiting “geopolitics” as a theory of state security—invoked as yet another “Western” perspective.17 By virtue of insecurities derived from state building and development, the Arab world and Turkey have both differed from the West. However, the examination of security practices and scholarly analyses reveals that only actors in the Arab world highlighted such difference whereas Turkish actors underscored similarity. While it is possible to explain Turkish actors’

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emphasis on similarity as mere byproducts of its alliance with the United States, this chapter has inquired into the ways in which the two have been differently different. Such inquiry requires taking seriously the agency of non-core scholars in adopting, adapting or bypassing concepts and theories originating from the “core.” Local scholars’ agency was analyzed in terms of the scholarly context in which they operate (that is, the sociology of the study of security) and the international political context that shapes (and is in turn shaped by) them. In these two non-core settings, policy-makers and scholars alike were no mere victims but also merchants of the increasing production and consumption of the notion of “security,” albeit in different ways. Whereas some (as in the Arab world) reworked “security” in order to highlight the insecurities of state as well as non-state referents, others (as in Turkey) refrained from such critical engagement. Such differently different responses of actors in the Arab world and Turkey suggest that although IR scholars outside “core” contexts are expected to reflect on the consequences of past relationships of power inequity (as with colonialism and exploitation) and produce radically “different” perspectives on world politics (as did the dependencia school), differences in experience may also result in seemingly “similar” end-products that are “different” in unexpected ways (Bilgin 2008). Therefore, exploring the diverse forms “difference” takes may provide greater insight into the “international” outside the “core.” Clearly, there is an international politics dimension to the ways in which IR has developed in “non-core” contexts. Inquiring into the study of IR outside the core reveals different insecurities experienced by non-core actors even as they chose to emphasize their similarities.

Notes 1 I have put the terms “core” and “non-core” in quotations to signal their problematic nature. I will continue using them in reference to “Western Europe and North America” and “the rest of the world,” respectively. This divide is not based on the relations of production and consumption in the world of ideas about international relations. For a discussion, see Wæver (1998). 2 Portraying this part of the world as the “Arab world” is not without its critics. This is mostly because the term (over)emphasizes the region’s “Arab” character, whereas “non-Arab” peoples (including Berbers and Kurds) make up a significant portion of the population. What is more, the definition of who is and is not “Arab” is highly contested among regional peoples themselves. 3 Turkey is a developing country that has inherited the Ottoman imperial legacy. Postcolonial states of the Arab world (with the exception of Saudi Arabia) were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire and were subjected to post-World War I mandate regimes of Great Britain and France. 4 See Bilgin (2009) for an earlier exploration of this argument. 5 The term “IR literature” is loosely defined for reasons to do with the characteristics of academic IR in Turkey (Bilgin and Tanrısever 2009) and the Arab world (Makdisi 2009). 6 This point is further developed with reference to non-Western IR in Bilgin (2008).

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7 In some places the geographical scope of the “Middle East” changes. In others, it remains the same, but terminology shifts. Notwithstanding such differences, the conception of security that shapes them has remained constant in that it is an outsiders’ perspective on security located to the southwest of Asia and north of Africa. 8 Barnett’s book entitled Dialogues in Arab Politics (1998) is an exception in terms of looking into the non-military means through which Arab actors were able to challenge each other’s security. That said, Barnett’s study mostly brackets security and is more interested in the ways in which “dialogue” has taken place. 9 In a similar fashion, Turkish scholars viewed the Mediterranean as the “Southern Flank,” not as a region of interest for Turkey as a fellow Mediterranean country but from the perspective of NATO. 10 For example, Abu Jaber’s aforementioned survey of strategic studies literature in the Arab world revealed a conception of security that took Arabs as its referent object and viewed non-Arabs in general and Israel in particular as threats to “Arab security.” 11 This is not to suggest that U.S. policymaking consisted solely of strong-arming regional leaders or that it was designed purely to divide and rule (Little 2002). Throughout the Cold War successive governments poured military as well as economic aid into the region in the attempt to win hearts and minds. Economic development as well as military defense of Turkey was bolstered by U.S. aid. Notwithstanding such efforts, other practices such as the maintenance of the mandate system, oil extraction privileges and covert operations undertaken to prevent the downfall of pro-Western leaders/regimes resulted in the rise of antiWestern feelings among Arab peoples. 12 For example, consider the pressure Egypt’s President Nasser put on King Abdullah of Jordan to join the war against Israel in 1967 through shaping public opinion in that country. 13 The full-text of the conference proceedings is available online at: http://www. aucegypt.edu/research/forum/Publications/Documents/Women%20in%20the% 20Concept%20and%20Issues%20of%20Human%20Security_Vol.%201.pdf 14 Based on a survey of Milletlerarası Münasebetler Türk Yıllıg˘ ı (The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations), Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi (both published by the Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University) and Dıs¸ Politika/Foreign Policy (published by the Foreign Policy Institute, Ankara). 15 This is not to deny the ways in which foreign and security policy serves to address “internal” insecurities in developed as well as developing countries but to emphasize the latter’s concern with prioritizing “internal” over the “external” for reasons of state-building. 16 Ülman’s study constitutes an exception to the generalization made above about the dearth of studies addressing the relationships between economic and military dimensions of Turkey’s insecurities. 17 The history of geopolitical approach to Turkey’s security goes back to the early 1950s. For an evaluation of the evolution of geopolitical discourse in Turkey and its political uses, see Bilgin (2007).

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Lewis, Martin W. and Karen Wigen (1997) The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ling, L.H.M. (2002) Postcolonial International Relations: Conquest and Desire Between Asia and the West, New York: Palgrave. Little, Douglas (2002) American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Luethold, Arnold (2004) “Security Sector Reform in the Arab Middle East: A Nascent Debate,” in Alan Bryden and Heiner Hänggi (eds), Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector, Münster: LIT Verlag, pp. 93–118. Makdisi, Karim (2009) “Reflections on the State of International Relations in the Arab Region,” in Arlene B. Tickner, and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 180–90. Oren, Ido (2003) Our Enemies and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. O Tuathail, Gerard and Simon Dalby (1998) “Rethinking Geopolitics, Towards a Critical Geopolitics,” in Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Simon Dalby and Paul Routledge (eds), The Geopolitics Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 1–15. Said, Edward W. (1978) Orientalism, New York: Pantheon Books. —— (2000) “Travelling Theory,” in Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin (eds), The Edward Said Reader, New York: Vintage, pp. 195–217. Sayigh, Yazid (1990) “Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries,” Adelphi Papers, 30 (251). Sezer, Duygu B. (1981) “Turkey’s Security Policies,” Adelphi Papers, 21 (164). Sullivan, Earl L. and Jacqueline S. Ismael (eds) (1991) The Contemporary Study of the Arab World, Alberta: The University of Alberta Press. Tamkoç, Metin (1961) “Turkey’s Quest for Security through Defensive Alliances”, Milletlerarası Münasebetler Türk Yıllıg˘ ı, 2(1): 1–39. Tas¸han, Seyfi (1987) “Türkiye’nin Tehdit Algılamaları,” in DPE (ed) Türkiye’nin Savunması, Ankara: DPE. Tickner, Arlene B. (2003) “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium, 32(2): 295–324. Tickner, Arlene and Ole Wæver (eds) (2009) Global Scholarship in International Relations, London: Routledge. Tripp, Charles (1984) Regional Security in the Middle East, New York: St. Martin’s Press. UNDP (2009) Arab Human Development Report 2009: Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries, New York: UNDP. Ülman, Haluk (1966) “Türk Ulusal Savunması Üzerine Düs¸ünceler,” Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi, 21(4): 197–226. Wæver, Ole (1998) “The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations,” International Organization, 52(4): 687–727. Walt, Steven M. (1987) The Origins of Alliances, New York: Cornell University Press.

3

Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen The Europeanness of new “schools” of security theory in an American field1 Ole Wæver

Since the mid-1990s, a number of theories or research programs—often called “schools”—have emerged within European security studies. Although security studies are habitually seen as a sub-field within International Relations (IR), these “schools” have not been sectorial manifestations of the main theories as defined by the “grand debates” of the discipline at large. Nor have they generally been copied from the United States. In a discipline (IR) and a sub-discipline/field (security studies) used to American “leadership,” the sudden fertility of European soil has been a surprise. The debate within, among, and across these “schools” has regularly been characterized as particularly fruitful. As noted by Mike Williams (2003: 511) among others, it is with some surprise that the discipline receives new impulses from security studies, a corner expected to represent the most reactionary and policy obsessed (of a generally reactionary and policy-obsessed discipline): Over the past decade, the field of security studies has become one of the most dynamic and contested areas in International Relations. In particular, it has become perhaps the primary forum in which broadly social constructivist approaches have challenged traditional – largely Realist and non-Realist theories on their “home turf”, the area in which some of the most vibrant new approaches to the analysis of international politics are being developed, and the realm in which some of the most engaged theoretical debates are taking place.2 This largely European debate went unnoticed for at least a decade in the United States. Although important contributions are emerging increasingly from both non-Western and American scholars, the emergence of these distinct theories is widely associated with places such as Aberystwyth (critical security studies), Paris (Didier Bigo’s Bourdieu-inspired work), and Copenhagen (securitization). Why in Aberystwyth, Paris and Copenhagen— why not in Amman, Philadelphia or Calcutta? The point of this chapter is certainly not to assume that there is something inherently good or desirable about this particular family of theories nor that they should constitute the basis for emulation elsewhere. Rather, the

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intention is to get a clearer sense of the context-boundedness of these European theories and schools, and not least why one part of the West suddenly deviated so radically from its dominant counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic. Are the theories peculiarly “European” and if so, why? Drawing partly on the political context in different regions and partly on features of the intellectual fields, International Relations and security studies, this chapter traces the emergence of security thinking in Europe. The extent to which theories are bound to local, European problems or are relevant to issues addressed elsewhere is also discussed briefly. The remainder of this introduction delineates the research object, the field of security studies, and in particular security theory, following which a short section argues that the divide between European and U.S. debates is remarkable, and that the emergence of new theories out of Europe is a phenomenon worth explaining—both that they appear (in a field otherwise made up almost exclusively by American theories) and particular features of them. The three most noted of the distinct European theories are then presented, not with the aim of pitting them against each other, but to identify some of their shared features. Afterwards, the emergence of these theories is explained as a function of intellectual traditions and preferred style of writing, the social organization of the intellectual field, and practical policy agendas. Finally, their capacity to travel to non-Western parts of the world in a helpful role is discussed. Security studies emerged as a distinct field after World War II, originally as an American specialty.3 During the 1950s and 1960s, they spread to other parts of the world as the result of both copying and active salesmanship by U.S. institutions. Early security studies (or “strategic studies”) were interdisciplinary, took place mostly in think tanks, and especially during the so-called “golden age” of game and deterrence theory, were both very policy relevant and generated an abstract and intellectually productive research program. In the 1970s, they stagnated in terms of intellectual dynamism while consolidating as a field, mainly by obtaining their own journals, organizations, courses and textbooks, and notably, being increasingly seen as belonging to the sub-discipline of International Relations within political science. The end of the Cold War marked a period of crisis and self-reflection concerning the viability and relevance of security studies as a separate enterprise, and with discussions of a new and wider concept of security. By then, security studies had been established worldwide and in most countries, both within universities and think tanks or other types of policy units. The focus of this chapter is on “security theory,” defined as theory development for use in security studies. Security theory is often linked to or overlaps with International Relations theory, but correspondence is far from complete. For example, in the 1970s when interdependence came close to being the dominant IR theory, it left relatively limited marks on security studies. Furthermore, much security research is conducted in think tanks and foreign policy institutes, not in IR/political science departments.

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Often such policy-oriented research is relatively a-theoretical or draws upon some common sense mix of theoretical fragments, but to the extent that theory is in play, then what theories? This is the empirical material of this chapter. These theories’ development is the “dependent variable,” and “independent variables” will be sought out in both internalist sociology of science-inspired approaches and externalist policy related patterns.

The transatlantic split: two different debates Viewed in relation to the general discipline of International Relations, the sub-field of security studies exhibits an unusual degree of divergence between European and American theoretical developments. In most other fields, scholars on both sides refer to the same debates, even if these might be balanced very differently. One example is the “grand debate” in IR about rationalism and constructivism, where clearly constructivists and reflectivists have an easier time in Europe than in the U.S., and hardcore rational choice is far more influential in the latter than the former, but research communities on both sides of the Atlantic largely agree about the existence of the debate itself. Within security studies, however, most scholars on one side of the Atlantic would depict (and teach) the state of the sub-discipline in terms of debates and theories that are not even mentioned in a similar overview on the other side. For 15 years Europe has housed a vibrant debate over a number of competing schools in security studies: critical security studies, the Copenhagen school, radical post-modernists, feminists, Bourdieu-inspired approaches, and traditional, realist positions. Several of these are not known at all to the majority of American scholars. In this sense, Canada is more European than American or simply itself with its own literature on “human security” (Bellamy and McDonald 2002; Dalby 2000; Thomas and Tow 2002). In other words, the main contrast is not Europe versus North America but Europe versus the United States. If one turns to the leading American journals in security studies (or looks at Ph.D. dissertations written in the U.S.), these debates register only marginally.4 Instead, the leading debate is likely to be intra-realist, between offensive and defensive (and other) versions (Fiammenghi 2011; Mearsheimer 2001; Rose 1998; Schweller 1996; Taliaferro 2000). Numerous interventions refine the theory and test it empirically, often through in-depth historical studies. Also, there have been major debates over particular hypotheses such as the democratic peace (Brown and Miller 1996; Russett 1993) and eventually one that looks more like the European debates: the meta-theoretical discussion between constructivists and rationalists (Copeland 2000; Desch 1998; Hopf 1998; Katzenstein 1996). Given the general situation within International Relations and security studies, where almost all theories come from the United States and scholars everywhere conduct their debate over American theories or at most, a

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contrast between (one or more) U.S. theories and local features (Tickner and Wæver 2009), it is worth noting and explaining, both that a number of European-made theories have gained a significant position with their own debates, first in Europe but increasingly also in many non-Western countries, and how these theories look, i.e., what distinct features mark these nonAmerican theories.

Possible avenues for explanation Elsewhere, I have elaborated a more extensive explanatory model for developments within IR theory in a particular region or country (Wæver 1998). Others have made parallel arguments or relevant criticisms of this model (Guzzini 1998; Schmidt 1998; Wivel and Breitenbauch 2004). One of the major factors, the distinct national intertwining of state-building and organization of the social sciences, is difficult to utilize fully here, given my generalization at the regional level. Therefore, in what follows I make use of the following three elements: 1 Intellectual traditions, i.e., the dominance of positivism, historicism or other general orientations. This is expanded into a discussion of the dominant conception of knowledge, theory and relevance; 2 Organization of the field (in this case, security studies). This is generally defined in the model as the delineation of different social sciences, notably the relationship between law, administration, sociology, history, the humanities and political science/International Relations. In the present case, much of the focus will be on the relationship between universities, think tanks, peace research and the public (including “public intellectuals”); 3 Practical usages, i.e., policy issues and the political agenda. External foreign policy challenges are not introduced in order to resurrect the traditional, semi-positivist view that theories approximate reality and “real world” developments therefore double as theoretical developments, nor to support the general “IR externalist” understanding of the discipline, according to which world events cause disciplinary developments (Schmidt 1998; Wæver 1998a). However, the kind of issues a political community is faced with certainly does influence the content of IR debates (Tickner and Wæver 2009). In consequence, it is important to have a sense of prevailing challenges and debates in order to understand the kinds of research that may appear relevant in a given place and time.5 Before turning to an explanation of the main European “schools” of security, a brief summary of them is in order. The following section is not meant to provide an in-depth or innovative presentation and critical discussion of the theories.6 Rather, they are only briefly introduced—and the choice of “cities” as metaphor justified—to the extent needed for knowing what to explain.

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Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen, and elsewhere Aberystwyth has been one of the most important sites for the development of so-called critical security studies (CSS) (Booth 1991, 2005, 2007; Klein 1994; Krause 1998; Krause and Williams 1996, 1997; Wyn Jones 1999). Among the three schools discussed, CSS is the one that has most clearly been a broad movement emerging out of multiple sources and places, in Europe and certainly beyond. In this case, the metaphor of a town is somewhat problematic, even though the two main figures of CSS’s “emancipatory” wing—Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones—were for the most part located at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. The defining work of the school, the anthology Critical Security Studies was edited by two postCanadians, Keith Krause (Geneva) and Mike Williams (who moved to Aberystwyth in 1998). Non-Westerners too were involved in developing the approach (Ayoob 1997), and as argued below, it is probably the school most easily mobilized in non-Western contexts. CSS argues that researchers should avoid seeing the world through the eyes of the state as implied by use of the “national security” concept. The state is often the problem as much as the solution and the aim of research should be defined in relation to human beings. The best way to conceptualize security in a way that aligns it with people instead of the state is to define it in terms of emancipation. By implication, the concept of security is therefore used in a rather classical sense, but on a different referent object: it is about “real” threats directed against “real” people, and not the allegedly real ones voiced by the state. In this respect, CSS often sounds objectivist in its conceptualization of threat and security, and its political agenda comes close to the classical “critical peace research” of the 1970s that used to be strong in Northern Europe (especially Scandinavia and Germany). This part of CSS thinks of “Critical” in terms of “capital C-capital T,” i.e., Frankfurt School, early Habermas inspired thinking with a drop of Gramsci and maybe Kant. Others think of “critical” in a more inclusive sense in which Critical Theory (CT) is only one possible format, and CSS as a broad movement thus includes other forms of theory that is critical, even if it is not CT, including feminism, normative theory, and post-structuralism (Mutimer 2007). In practice, the majority of these “non CT ct” authors are found somewhere on the IR continuum from constructivism to poststructuralism, and focus largely on the social construction of threats and self-other relations (Bellamy 2003; Campbell 1992; Dalby 1990; Klein 1994; Smith 2000; Weldes, et al. 1994). However, in order to distinguish between the distinct schools, the “Aberystwyth school,” in its emancipatory format, will be taken as representing CSS. The so-called Copenhagen school (CS) in security studies is built around three main ideas: (1) securitization; (2) sectors (the distinction between political, economic, environmental, military and societal security); and

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(3) regional security complexes (an analytical scheme to analyze how security concerns cohere in regional formations).7 I focus on the first, because securitization defines most distinctly the school in a meta-theoretical sense. However, tensions between all three ideas explain much of the dynamics in the development of the theory. Part of the background for the Copenhagen school was the debate in politics and security studies in the 1970s and especially 1980s over a wide versus a narrow concept of security. The “everything becomes security” worry of traditionalists was met by the argument that with a clearer sense of what determines whether or not “x” is a security issue, it is possible to extend the net widely and look for security in all sectors and with all possible referent objects. It is necessary to be able to discriminate and separate security issues from non-security ones. Only by having a clear sense of what is security, is it possible to open up without being swept away. The real functions of the term, the power of the concept, are laid bare when it is employed in political practice. Language users implicitly follow rules for what are seen as meaningful statements. This approach does not entail conducting opinion polls and asking people what they think security means, nor asking philosophers what would be the most logically consistent definition, but analyzing actual linguistic practices to see what regulates discourse. What do practitioners do in talking security? In security discourse, an issue is presented as posing an existential threat to a designated referent object (traditionally, but not necessarily, the state) (Buzan, et al. 1998; Wæver 1995). Designation of the threat as existential justifies the use of extraordinary measures to handle it. The invocation of security opens the way for the state to take special power—e.g., using force, conscription, secrecy, and other means only legitimate when dealing with “security matters.” As a result, “security” is the result of a move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue as above normal politics. The process of securitization is a speech act, not interesting as a sign referring to something more real: it is the utterance itself that is the act. By labelling something a security issue, it becomes one—issues aren’t security issues in themselves and then afterwards possibly talked about in terms of security (Austin 1978). A characteristic feature of the CS is its scepticism towards “security.” Security often has anti-democratic and anti-creative implications. The usual “critical” strategy of widening security becomes problematic when it accepts the underlying assumption of the mainstream approach that “the more security the better” and extends this to still more areas. Securitizing environment, identity, and religion subsumes these areas under a problematic rationality. In contrast, the CS—ceteris paribus—views security as a negative, as a failure to deal with issues as normal politics. Ideally, politics should be able to unfold according to normal procedures without this extraordinary elevation of specific “threats” to a pre-political immediacy.

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De-securitization is the optimal long-range option, since it means not to have issues phrased as “threats against which we have countermeasures” but to move them out of this threat–defense sequence and into the ordinary public sphere (or the economy, or letting religion be religion (Laustsen and Wæver 2000)). In a conflict resolution perspective, the way forward is often de-securitization rather than the production of more security. Paris has been the third site of a distinct theoretical development, mostly inspired by Bourdieu and other sociologists, with a dose of Foucault and a thorough commitment to detailed, empirical investigations of actual practices by various agencies—practices that often reveal patterns different from those found when studying official discourse. Didier Bigo is the main figure in this development and “his” journal, Cultures & Conflicts, published a number of important works in relation to this research programme (Aradau 2001; Bigo 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002; Bigo and Tsoukala 2008; Ceyhan and Tsoukala 2002). Jef Huysmans, who has written extensively on all the schools, “translated” and elaborated the “Paris approach” for security studies (Huysmans 2002, 2006). Empirically, Bigo has among other things shown how internal and external security merge together as agencies compete for the gradually deterritorialized tasks of traditional police, military and customs. They jointly produce a new threat image by constantly connecting immigration, organized crime and terror. Insecurity is largely a product of security discourses and security policy. Bigo starts from a conception of a “field” and its actors and asks what they do, producing well documented maps of practices, notably including the micro level of the various agencies involved. An important advantage of this approach is that it includes routine practices and even deviation from official policy, i.e., it is less oriented towards discourse and more towards all practices of agencies. Where the CS points to the justification of a singular exception in a distinct moment, the Paris approach brings to light the convergence of a general “politics of unease” with changes in the operating procedures of security agencies and bureaucracies. Often technologies turn out to be central, as in the area of surveillance, where practices evolve with the possible, not in step with what is publicly legitimated. The professional network of security agencies that control the truth about danger, while they practically manage threats, is at the heart of a mode of governmentality. It is obviously quite a demanding task to penetrate these various agencies and agents—from police and other bureaucracies to private security companies—and their more or less hidden, transnational networks, but it has the great advantage of being able to keep up with a society increasingly characterized by professionalization and technical rationalization, where specific social positions are privileged in relation to “doing security.” By focusing more on “unease” and thereby on a more individual level of fear than the collective, political fear apparent in the Copenhagen school, this theory also allows a moral mobilization of a demand on politicians to stop violating liberty and to actually produce

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reassurance rather than fear among its own citizens. While this has occasionally been phrased as a return to the original sense of security, the theory comes across in general as sceptical of the growth in (in)security practices. Additional participants in this debate include “traditionalists,” on the one hand, and “hard-core post-modernists” and feminists on the other. “Traditionalists” comprise more or less all the contributors to security studies in the U.S. While they certainly exist in large numbers in Europe too, they have participated very little in published debates (Goldmann 1999; Knudsen 2001). “Hard-core post-modernists” most actively criticize security as such. Drawing on Nietzsche and Heidegger, they question why we are concerned about security at all. Only the timid and unambitious strive for security—better is to live interestingly and less predictably. The typically modern longing for fixity and predictability should be overcome in order to face the “other” and what is truly different as an exciting challenge (Behnke 1999; Burke 2002; Constantinou 2000; Der Derian 1995; Dillon 1996). This is quite easily ridiculed in the institutional setting of security studies as an excessively “academic” approach. Imagine telling policy makers, “September 11? Terrorism? How exciting! You should take this as an interesting chance to develop, change and experience difference.” This is not very promising. However, it is precisely the post-9/11 debate that points to the relevance of the radicals, given that ultimately an inescapable question in relation to terror is to what extent we can learn to live with it. Any strategy for erasing the threat of terrorism—and therefore any attempt to securitize terrorism as a totally unacceptable risk that leaves us in mortal and intolerable danger until removed—is deemed to drive us all into a vicious circle of increased insecurity and counter-productive security strategies. Terror can only be dealt with if it is not totalized as a threat, and thus ultimately any promising strategy has to have an element of learning to tame one’s own worries. Ironically, this approach therefore has some immediate policy relevance, but at least in the short term, it has usually (with the idiosyncratic exception of James Der Derian) been unable to forge ties with policy research and has thus remained limited to “high theory.” Feminists too have done much work on security thinking (from Tickner (1992) to Shepherd (2008)). Given the familiar divisions within feminism (standpoint, Marxist, liberal, post-modern, etc.), some authors parallel the already mentioned schools, while others are more distinct. Much feminist thinking comes close to CSS: individual security should be given priority, state security is over-emphasized by traditional, masculinist scholarship, and the very forms of theory and study is male science (Booth 1994). Other strands of feminist work are more post-structuralist and stress the articulation of concepts of gender, nation and security (Hansen 2001). Although feminism is an important part of the theoretical landscape in Europe, it has not emerged as a distinct European school, nor does it participate actively in debates between the other theories.

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Finally, an emerging debate within these mostly European security circles is about “risk society.” This literature developed among sociologists, primarily in relation to environment and production systems. It meets the concerns of “security studies” as security widens beyond the international into various “domestic settings,” and risk simultaneously becomes the alleged predominant mode of society’s self-reflection (Beck 1992; Hansen 2001; Luhmann 1993; Rasmussen 2001, 2006). How and where these two strands of thinking meet is very much an open question—debate has only just begun. However, the idea of “risk society” ties in smoothly with the main concerns of the European security debate. I now proceed to an explanation of these three security schools, based upon the levels mentioned above: (1) intellectual traditions and conceptions of knowledge; (2) organization of the field; and (3) practical usages: policy issues and the political agenda.

Philosophy, format and knowledge The first level (intellectual traditions and conceptions of knowledge) is almost too obvious in this case—at least on the surface. Clearly, European debates are more “reflectivist” or “post-positivist” than American ones. Although the total spectrum of meta-theoretical positions probably differs little between the U.S. and Europe, the median point does. Seemingly similar debates about “constructivism meets security studies” turn out very differently in the two sites. U.S. security studies discuss a distinct type of mainstream constructivism that orients itself towards the canons of science among rationalists, while much constructivism in Europe blends in more easily with more radical positions. Accordingly, the debate conducted mostly in International Security over the role of constructivism in security studies (Copeland 2000; Desch 1998; Farrell 2002; Hopf 1998) was about “assessing the importance of ideas in security studies,” i.e., ideas and identity conceived as variables and judged in strict causal terms. Also, the participants made explicit efforts to define and distinguish “conventional” constructivism from a “critical” variant. The striking contrast in the elaboration of seemingly similar impulses illustrates the difference in context and “normality.” This meta-theoretical difference is well explained by the literature on “sociology of IR” and other writings on the social sciences. The explanation includes many layers, including deep ones rooted in the historical constitution of national identities. For instance, Dorothy Ross (1991) has argued that the American historical consciousness—the way the nation was constructed over time, the millennial belief in its exceptionalism—was served best by naturalist social science and threatened by historicist approaches. Abstract and “scientific” social science is therefore a repeated preference in United States. Positivist inclinations were supported by factors pertaining to the next level in the present analytical set-up: the formation and delineation of the different sciences placed social sciences in the shadow of natural

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sciences, with political science chasing economics. Finally, the Cold War period strengthened this pattern further due to the social role of IR and security studies in policy, and the ensuing funding of both. Before moving on to the second level of the explanation, it is necessary to pause for a moment and revisit the (overly) simplified and familiar story about positivist Americans versus post-positivist Europeans. The two sides differ not only in terms of meta-theory (positivism/post-positivism) but also IR theory (realism or not) and methodology (historical case studies or other methods). Importantly, U.S. security studies differ from IR in general. Realism remains much more central in U.S. security studies than in both general American IR and IPE, and in European security studies. Within American IR, security studies have their own distinct style. Here (as represented primarily by the journals International Security and Security Studies), the dominant form of research is more historical, and less oriented towards formal rational choice than in International Organization (IO)-style IR (Brown, et al. 2000). This is not an instance of “traditionalism” a la second debate where judgment is seen as integral to research (Bull 1966); a journal like International Security is at least as insistent as IO on strict causal and “positivist” social science. Although this is apparent in the journal’s actual publishing record, perhaps equally revealing is the instruction sheet for potential contributors, where authors are asked to sum up their arguments in an arrow diagram, because if this is not possible, the argument is not yet clear. In other words, arguments necessarily take the form of propositions about cause–effect relations among a few factors (and not writing structured history, deconstructive interventions or normative IR). The debate between offensive and defensive realism is illustrative in this regard. It is phrased in terms of general IR theories and of a kind where clear behavioral hypotheses can be deduced, and thus in-depth, historical case-studies are a fruitful method for evaluating the competing theories. The preference—in contrast to IO—is for theories that are not too abstract and arcane, and a relatively clear discussion of what state behaviour to expect. Usually, the immediate policy relevance is also clearer: what should we expect of other great powers and major regional powers? When will they turn aggressive and expansionist, and when will they be status quo powers? A major difference between the U.S. and European formats is that reflections on the concept of security play an integrated role in research in the latter. In the United States such considerations are at most involved in delineating the field and thereby locating the questions about from which to gain empirical, causal, historical and theoretical knowledge.8 If an article is defined as security analysis, this will typically mean that at most the reflection on this status consists of defining security studies as being about “the study of the threat, use and control of military force” (Walt 1991: 212).9 However, the concept of security is not present in the analysis as such. In contrast, questions about the concept of security became the

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launching pad for general attention in European debates to the self-reflective nature of the discipline, i.e., that the discipline not only studied security, but it also had its own concepts of security and thereby its own security practices. “Doing security” therefore meant reflecting on the practice of speaking in the name of this concept. This pointed towards a general attention to the close connections between sub-discipline, theory, concept and the studied object (all called something like, or with, “security”). A partly related second difference is that in Europe, a particular debate emerged that was organized at first within and because of the particular questions related to security, but that increasingly influences more general IR debates. In the U.S., patterns of influence clearly went the opposite way: theoretical positions within security studies derived from general IR debates. The main salvo from the constructivists, the Katzenstein volume (1996), was launched explicitly as a move in a general IR debate where constructivists found that it was time to prove their worth on the home ground of realism: security. Most of the contributors were not primarily working in fields or institutions traditionally seen as “security.” In contrast to earlier periods such as “the golden age” of security studies in the 1950s and 1960s (Gray 1982), today particular challenges, needs or debates within security studies do not motivate theory development. In the context of American IR, this change is valued. It is generally assumed to be a sign of maturity to get away from particular theories and debates in sub-fields and to instead develop general theories that can be applied to different fields such as European integration, international security or trade disputes. The new European theories developed in relation to public discussions about security and attempts to develop specific theorizing for this purpose. Thus, these theoretical developments were the product of complicated, personal processes of political and theoretical choices and coming to terms with one’s role in-between academia, expertise and as citizen/public intellectual (Booth 1994; Huysmans 2002). It is often stated that IR research in the U.S. is more closely connected to policy than in Europe (Hoffmann 1977), but this is only partly true. Relevant research is more systematically promoted through various channels in the United States, and quite large sub-systems (primarily think tanks) are very directly linked to policy. Also, academic journals such as International Security have a more implicit policy orientation expressed by frequent discussions in terms of what “we” (the U.S.) should do, where equivalents are much more rarely found in any European academic journal. However, the disconnection between large parts of academic IR and policy circles is also very significant, while European research typically has a broader concept of politics that transcends mere policy advice. These two positions represent different understandings of “relevance.” Roughly equivalent to Michael Burawoy’s (2005) much-discussed distinction between “public sociology” (geared towards becoming part of a reflexive public) and “policy sociology” (serving as instrumental knowledge for

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Level 1: Intellectual Traditions Deep historical origins of orientations towards positivism, historicism, etc.

Meta-theoretical split between U.S. and Europe in IR and security studies

Concept of knowledge and relevance: Policy relevant empirical regularities vs. political problematization

Standard security article in the US (causal generalizations based on historical case studies) vs. European self-reflections on concept and practice

---------------------------------------------------------------Level 2: Organization of Field Structure of IR discipline and nature of think tanks/research centers

Conditions for security theory: US: From golden age dual distance to dualistic disciplining (in IR and policy) Europe: 1980s dual distance for peace research; later continuum of academic and policy research

Specific security theories in the U.S. and Europe

---------------------------------------------------------------Level 3: Practical Usages World position: U.S.: Superpower’s top-down perspective; needs mechanical knowledge Europe: Regional political-economic order and second rank power; uses widening and limits to securitization

Figure 3.1 The origins of Euro-American bifurcation in security studies.

policy-makers), European security studies have been much more influenced by reflexivity and debates over their social role, whereas American security studies seek to provide knowledge that is relevant to policy-makers. The European theories developed as an integral part of struggling with security issues, while the American ones are much more detached as part of academic debates between various explanatory theories. This, in turn, is in the American optic the most policy relevant, because the role of the analyst is to provide the relevant knowledge of cause–effect relations that enable the optimal policy decision. Politics and knowledge are not viewed so separately in the European context, where the researcher as participant in the process thinks more in terms of ethics, dilemmas, and choices (see Figure 3.1).

Double-squeezed institutions and career paths A general understanding of the nature and place of security studies must draw on but also go beyond a sociology of IR (Wæver 2010). The study of a discipline such as International Relations must grasp it as a distinctly academic institution, where the unifying currency is recognition— recognition by peers for making new contributions to scientific understanding (Wæver 1998a, 2007, 2010; Wæver and Tickner 2009). A discipline then develops particular social and intellectual structures through which this

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Policymakers

International security studies

Mother disciplines

International security studies

International Relations discipline

(b)

Policymakers

Figure 3.2 Evolving in-betweenness of security studies in the United States. (a) Early international security studies with unclear demands from policymakers, weak links to academic disciplines and a compact internal structure. (b) Late inter-national security studies with tight constraints from policymakers, strong links to one academic discipline and an internal chain structure and tension.

process is channelled and crystallized. Scholars in security studies are exposed to such dynamics, but at the same time they are (to varying degrees) also involved in a much stronger relationship to policy than IR at large. Relevance is a crucial criterion, and the sub-field of security studies is thus stretched between two poles of recognition: for utility by policy-makers and for contributions to a general discipline of social science. The two small diagrams in Figure 3.2 illustrate this development historically in the United States. Early security studies were one coherent field where scholars interacted almost directly. They had different disciplinary reference points, and these were—both because of the peculiar, pioneer situation and because of their multiplicity—not very powerful shapers of the field of IR. In contrast, today security studies is the one sub-discipline of IR that functions as an academic reference point, exhorting a much stronger influence, at least on that part of the field that strives for a career in academic terms. On the policy side, the pressure is also much stronger, given that competition for gaining influence and providing advice has become tightly structured, with numerous think tanks and centers competing vis-à-vis policy-makers that have become highly conscious of their usage of experts. A crucial part of the mediating of these two pressures happens through form, i.e., the kind of work that is recognized and rewarded on both sides. The dual pressure—exposure to two kinds of demands that do not translate into a common rationality but that must be met simultaneously—puts a structural pressure on the field to produce work that has properties that

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allow it to score high on both accounts. The style of work noted above as the dominant form in U.S. security studies has precisely this nature of being both what is valued academically (abstract, generalized, regularities, “theoretical,” empirically founded, universally valid and not political in an open sense) and deemed relevant practically (reveals relevant mechanisms and causal relations, tells what works and what does not, enables predictions, is politically relevant while academic, and neutral in style). Similarly, the European kind of work seems to cultivate a form of writing that can qualify in both a European academic culture of reflexivity and the policy arena, where experts can play a more wide-ranging role as intellectuals. Nowadays, the United States has a tight division of labor between universities and think tanks. Theoretical research is the task of university researchers. Even if some try to be policy relevant, their career hangs on academic publications. Think tanks, conversely, are pressed for providing ultra-practical analyses. The U.S. is a large, fluid “market” in both areas, and therefore structural pressure for specialization and homogeneous optimization on one-dimensional criteria operates more forcefully there. Europe too displays a continuum of academically oriented research institutes that are nevertheless not part of a university (for example, the Max Planck Institute in Germany and CERI in France). Particularly noteworthy in this vein was the 1980s and 1990s role of peace research (Guzzini and Jung 2004). It was more than influential in relation to Copenhagen and for Booth in Aberystwyth, much less in Paris. In the latter, however, the different relationship between IR and other disciplines, i.e., the closeness to sociology, explains a lot, and the Paris school emerged in a similar “pocket” of political sociology and criminology. Institutes such as the peace research institutes were in-between in the sense of being policy oriented but not a-theoretical. Especially in relation to the 1980s and early 1990s, scholars who were clearly relating to IR as their discipline, worked differently when relating also to peace research—either because employed there or because they were active in movements such as Pugwash. More than peace research as a grand project, this probably has to do with the sociological micro-mechanisms, the social conventions within peace research institutes—questions of relevance and political implications are a legitimate part of conversations, which is not common within a political science department, while conversely theory matters in a way that differs from mainstream think tanks. Peace research is not per se conducive to intellectual innovation, but the location of individuals at the interface of peace research and IR was highly productive. Trans-disciplinary institutes that refuse all links to the “old” disciplines and focus wholly on their subject matter easily become too instrumental and without grounds for selfreflection. However, dual disciplinary definitions can be helpful in both stimulating new thinking and delivering a disciplinary self-reference within which to express these ideas.

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The situation of peace research institutes in the 1980s paralleled somewhat that of think tanks during “golden age” strategic studies. The link to policy was very different—not official advisors to policy makers—but European security studies gained political relevance (in a broader sense) due to the politicization of security issues during the period defined by the peace movement, Reagan and Gorbachev. The setting was—as in the 1950s— simultaneously interdisciplinary and connected to current developments in theory in the different disciplines. (Only in the 1970s did security studies decisively consolidate as belonging within IR/political science.) Peace research, in contrast to university IR, was under pressure to deal with relevant issues, but there was no expectation of immediate delivery of policy answers. At RAND in the 1950s, theorists too were given extraordinary leeway to pursue highly abstract, idiosyncratic theoretical tracks that clearly could not be justified in terms of guaranteed pay-off vis-à-vis products to be delivered to policy makers. As a result, publications often ended up being innovative solutions to policy questions. Similarly, peace research was interdisciplinary, politically oriented, but distanced from both immediate policy responsibility and the major powers of the academic system. It is less clear whether there were policy effects, but the point here is the impact of political involvement on theory. As rightly noted by Betts in relation to traditional strategic studies, “[i]ronically, in the past quarter century, policy experience has enriched academic research more than the reverse” (1997: 32). The same might be said about the 1980s and the birth of critical, European theories. A volatile political situation, a sense of importance and relevance, and engagement in heated political debates clearly contributed to the birth of these theories. In a few cases, theorists probably had some role as intellectuals of or for social movements such as the peace movements and Pugwash, as well as some, mostly oppositional, political parties, but in general the effect of practice on theory was probably larger than vice versa. The development in both cases corresponds to the theory of “optimal marginality” (McLaughlin 2001), according to which intellectual innovations often occur at some distance from the geographical and/or cognitive centers of a discipline. American security studies, during their first 20 years, were located at a dual distance, not controlled by disciplinary elites, nor on a buyer’s market on the policy side. Since then, security studies in the United States have become doubly disciplined, with theorists tightly integrated into the IR discipline and policy work pressed away from theory. The in-between space is weak. Traversing this terrain takes stringent observation of demands for the optimal format. In Europe, some innovations took place under a similar double distance condition in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, some tightening similar to the U.S. situation probably takes place, although the poles on both ends are somewhat different. Also, with path dependence, the theoretical disciplining is partly related to the new security theories and schools that are now becoming a new “mainstream,” with debates on them

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consolidating in journals such as European Journal of International Relations, Security Dialogue and International Political Sociology. So it is neither the same points of reference as in the U.S., nor a similar openness as in previous periods, but a new relative tightening of different dual disciplining. The third level of explanation deals with the policy challenges that different research environments are exposed to. One cannot fully and solely explain from there. The first and second levels carry much of the longterm effects, whereas the third level is more time-bound. It is a more recent re-enforcement of patterns, and it is worth asking to what extent even these “critical” European approaches are helped along by being politically “useful” and “relevant.”

The geopolitics of Western security theories In the post-Cold War world, the position of near-unipolarity and aspirations for a U.S. centric ordering of the world place most security scholars— however much they might disagree with specific policies—in a position where they view the world top-down, from a global perspective (with regionalism seen as more of a problem than a solution). The United States’ agenda is to protect its position as the one superpower, which means avoiding “peer competitors” and defining a global agenda that keeps regional ones in check. Therefore, the substance of knowledge needed (especially before 9/11) has entailed questions such as: when will regional powers turn aggressive? When will great powers balance or bandwagon, aim for superpower status or abstain? How will our power work? Can we build a stable order/empire and how? Following 9/11, some interest in non-state issues such as religion and terror also appeared, but both before and with the “global war on terror” now in decline, the debate on how powers decide whether to be status quo seekers or expansionist has been central, i.e., the offensive–defensive realism debate. From the perspective of top-dog and potential intervener in various parts of the world, the form of knowledge needed in the United States is empirical knowledge through case studies and cumulative, general theory. The concept of security serves only to delineate the field of empirical knowledge. In Europe the security problem looks very different. The European Union is the center of its own regional security complex (Buzan and Wæver 2003). It is structured and stabilized by European integration, and thus a politicaleconomic strategy has proven remarkably successful in creating a security community (Wæver 1998b). It is thus understandable that Europeans tend to favor a broad concept of security, i.e., look for political-economic means and regional formats for security when thinking, for example, about ways to deal with violence in and from the Middle East. Simultaneously, Europe is often “security sceptical” when faced with the American global “war on terror” agenda. Its security constellation is among the most non-conventional of

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the world’s regions: many different topics are on the agenda, from the environment and ethnic identity to integration, viewed as either problem or solution, but those that are almost completely absent are the classical state-threatens-state security matters. Therefore, Europeans are on the one hand involved in complicated security issues within the broad agenda, and on the other hand accustomed to having to select and judge among topics that are controversial as to their “security-ness.” Thus, the debate about what are security issues and what are not has become an open and active part of the security order itself. The need to reflect and choose among competing claims to security status has several explanations in the European context. On the one hand, a cautious widening and securitization–desecuritization constellation is needed in order to create Europe and to hold it together. On the other hand, however, as a power that occupies the second tier of great powers, below the one superpower, there is also interest in avoiding being controlled by a global agenda imposed largely by the United States, i.e., to want less securitization. The concept of security is hence at the center of reflection and self-reflection, the latter of which involves the role of the security analyst, given security’s definition as an inherently problematic practice.

And the rest of the world? What might the relevance of the above categories and explanations be beyond the West? If we start with the second layer, organization, most of the surveys on the state of IR in the non-core point to the dominance in many places of a relatively narrow security agenda. Some pressing challenge—for instance, the India–Pakistan conflict—creates a demand for policy research. In a context of limited funding for research, it has often been the case that more theoretical or less politically pressing concerns have been crowded out of the most targeted parts of research by hard-core strategic studies, which has meant until recently a dominance of “low theory,” “common sense” realism. Simultaneously, on the university side, the situation has been determined by the status of IR as an imported discipline and therefore by the predominance of a copy format for IR theorizing. This was shown by Kal Holsti (1985) 25 years ago, but more recent case and country studies confirm the continued relevance of this observation (Tickner and Wæver 2009). At the first level of meta-theoretical and theoretical traditions, in many countries and regions there are obviously intellectual orientations that are at variance with U.S. style positivism. However, strong cases such as Indian philosophy or Islamic thinking about world politics often unfold separately in other departments and institutions, while IR remains Western oriented and defined by Western theories. Several countries have witnessed more recent attempts to develop self-consciously independent “schools” within IR theory, especially China. There is a trend towards developing in still more

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places distinct approaches that are both related to the IR tradition (as defined by the core) and that draw on unique cultural and political conditions. So far, however, this has mostly been quite “top-down” in terms of what schools to foster—sometimes for almost representational or prestige reasons—whereas actual work on specific security issues has mostly happened within the traditional policy-oriented circles and this has been dominated in many major countries by old-style strategic studies. Much of the pressure for change out of this pattern has come from policy—or maybe more political—reflections about relevance. Arlene Tickner (2003) and others have shown striking misfits between IR theory and third world realities. The discipline’s focus on sovereignty, inter-state war and abstract theory is confronted by a condition of multiple overlapping political and social systems, conflicts that are primarily internal or transnational and a need to integrate everyday life and IR knowledge. The traditional concept of security is obviously questioned in this process too. However, it is less clear what kind of security studies is growing out of this discussion. Some have linked up and indeed contributed to critical security studies, and there seem to be many connectors here, notably the focus on the actual lives of people, and the organizing concept of emancipation. As noted by Donald J. Puchala, “[b]y far the most prominent, and indeed the most powerful, theme in non-Western narrative today is emancipation” (Puchala 1997: 131). This should imply quite a good fit with CSS. On the other hand, the implicit opening for all kinds of widening is often problematic in situations where security arguments are often (mis)used by rulers and elites for domestic purposes. There is a need to be able to counter this, which points to a CS attention to securitization and desecuritization. Especially in Latin America, there is a widespread consciousness about the ways security rhetoric has been used repressively in the past, and therefore a wariness about opening a door for this by helping to widen the concept of security.10 Pinar Bilgin has shown how both CSS and securitization theory find their way to usages in third world situations, without necessarily performing either the progressive functions intended by their inventors or forcing third world situations into ethnocentric frames, but rather by being redefined creatively on the basis of local political situations (Bilgin 2008; Bilgin this volume). Ultimately, more interesting than these attempts to export European security schools to the non-core is the question of whether the conditions are ripe for indigenous security theory and what kinds of theorizing are emerging in relation to the specific kinds of challenge facing non-Western countries. But here, it is important to avoid the fallacy of assuming that there has to be security theory, or that security is the natural heading under which the most important or interesting work will happen. The field emerged only half a century ago under very specific conditions and became productive in some phases, again as a result of given situations. The concept of security has developed in tandem with the evolution of the academic field

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of International Relations, but it is possible that under different circumstances other concepts may provide the headline for more productive and inspiring work that covers some of the same issues, concerns, and aspirations, as security has done in very specific (and distinct) ways in Europe and the United States.

Notes 1 Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the annual meetings of the International Studies Association in Montreal, 2004 and 2011. I appreciate comments on both occasions as well as from the IR faculty in Copenhagen, the sociology of science circle and Arlene Tickner. Helene Hagen provided valuable research assistance. 2 For similar claims about the vitality and importance of these debates, see Eriksson (2001: 18, note 1), Huysmans (1998, 2006) and Smith (2000). 3 A convincing history of security studies is offered by Buzan and Hansen (2010). See also, Betts (1997), Gray (1982), Miller (2001), and Wæver and Buzan (2007). While the history of security studies is beginning to consolidate, a sociology of the field has yet to be produced. Recent waves of sophisticated, methodologically self-reflective writings drawing on sociology of science and historiography have almost totally focused on the IR discipline at large. 4 The divergence was pre-visioned during the 1980s and early 1990s by the tepid reception of Barry Buzan’s People, States and Fear (1983, 1991) in the United States, which contrasted with its conversion into a standard textbook and a modern classic not only in the United Kingdom but generally in Europe, Canada, and Australia. 5 These three levels correspond roughly to the three layers of explanation in Randall Collins’ (1998) comprehensive theory of scholarly developments. For a brief summary, see Wæver and Tickner (2009: 14–15). 6 More comprehensive presentations and assessments are found in CASE Collective (2006), Huysmans (2006) and Vaughan-Williams and Colomba Peoples (2010). 7 The name “Copenhagen school” was coined by Bill McSweeney in a critical review essay that turned into an exchange: Buzan and Wæver (1997); McSweeney (1996, 1998, 1999); and Williams (1998). The Copenhagen school usually refers to the work done since 1985 by the “European security” research group at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, notably its collective books: Buzan, et al. (1990, 1998); Buzan and Wæver (2003); Jahn et al. (1987); Wæver, et al. (1989, 1993). A thorough review of the school is offered by Huysmans (1998). For important reflections on the origins and context for the emergence of the school, see Guzzini and Jung (2004). On an increasingly global scale numerous “applications” have been done, but also many critical comments and revisions have been published, including Balzacq (2005, 2011); Ceyhan (1998); Eriksson (1999); Hansen (2000); Neumann (1998); and Williams (2003). 8 Katzenstein (1996: 7–11) argues the strategic rationale of employing a narrow concept of security in combination with constructivism. Here, the question of concepts of security is reduced to one of “issues,” whereas the meta-criticism raised by CSS, the CS and others does not register. 9 The debate on a wide versus narrow concept had significant American participation in the early phase (Mathews 1989; Ullman 1983), but is widely seen as resolved today. Famous anti-wideners include Stephen Walt (1991). 10 See Tickner and Herz’s chapter in this volume.

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Tickner, Arlene B. (2003) “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium, 32(2): 295–324. Tickner, Arlene and Ole Wæver (2009) International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge. Ullman, Richard (1983) “Redefining Security,” International Security, 8(1): 129–53. Vaughan-Williams, Nick and Columba Peoples (2010) Critical Security Studies: An Introduction, Routledge. Wæver, Ole (1995) “Securitization and Desecuritization” in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed), On Security, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 46–86. —— (1998a) “The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations,” International Organization, 52(4): 687–727. —— (1998b) “Insecurity, Security, and Asecurity in the West European Non-War Community,” in Emmanuel Adler and Micharl Barnett (eds), Security Communities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 69–118. —— (2001) “Widening the Concept of Security – and Widening the Atlantic?” in Bo Huldt, Sven Rudberg and Elisabeth Davidson (eds), The Transatlantic Link: Strategic Yearbook 2002, Stockholm: Swedish National Defence College, pp. 31–48. —— (2007) “The Social and Intellectual Structure of the IR Discipline,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Chicago, IL, February 28–March 3. —— (2010) “Towards a Political Sociology of Security Studies,” Security Dialogue, 41(6): 649–58. Wæver, Ole and Barry Buzan (2007) “After the Return to Theory: The Past, Present, and Future of Security Studies,” in Alan Collins (ed), Contemporary Security Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 383–402. Wæver, Ole, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, and Pierre Lemaitre (1993) Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, London: Pinter Publishers. Wæver, Ole, Pierre Lemaitre, and Elzbieta Tromer (1989) European Polyphony: Perspectives Beyond East–West Confrontation, Houndmills: Macmillan-Centre for Peace and Conflict Research. Wæver, Ole and Arlene B. Tickner (2009) “Introduction: Geocultural Epistemologies,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 1–31. Walt, Stephen (1991) “The Renaissance of Security Studies,” International Studies Quarterly, 35(2): 211–39. Weldes, Jutta, M. Laffey, H. Gusterson, and R. Duvall (eds) (1994) Cultures of Insecurity. States, Communities, and the Production of Danger, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Williams, Michael C. (1998) “Comment on the ‘Copenhagen Controversy’,” Review of International Studies, 24(3): 435–41. —— (2003) “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 47(4): 511–31. Wivel, Anders and Henrik Breitenbauch (2004) “Understanding National IR Disciplines Outside the United States: Political Culture and the Construction of International Relations in Denmark,” Journal of International Relations and Development, 7: 414–43. Wyn Jones, Richard (1999) Security, Strategy and Critical Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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Security theorizing in China Culture, evolution and social practice1 Liu Yongtao

Since 1978 and its opening to the world, China has experienced tremendous changes in various realms, ranging from the accumulation of material wealth to transformation in social values. Security policy is no exception. The country has undergone profound shifts in the ways in which it thinks about and practices security, including the way that China’s unique characteristics and innovativeness are represented to the rest of the world (Qin 2008; Wang 2008; Yang 2008; Zhu 2009).2 This novel situation demands new thinking, new ideas and even a new language to (re)present and (re)define security, as well as to create new ways to maintain peace and stability. In the face of an ever-changing and increasingly challenging context of global and regional insecurity, Chinese political leaders have been required to reshape their perceptions and understandings of the external world in order to tackle the emergence of non-traditional threats at the national, regional and global levels. In this ever-unfolding process, Chinese security thinking has increasingly drawn on philosophical insights and teachings from traditional culture and, to some extent, interacted with security concepts from outside China. This is in remarkable contrast to the first three decades after 1949, when China’s security ideas were shepherded mainly by a Marxist ideology devoted to “proletarian revolution” and “class struggle” around the world. Although Marxism is still retained as the official ideology today, in the security realm it coexists alongside other views of this issue. Interest in bringing ideas derived from Chinese traditional culture into this field reflects the rehabilitation of Confucius and his teachings, which suffered widespread criticism in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Confucianism’s renewed appeal also lies in the common understanding that traditional culture serves as a crucial source of distinctive Chinese perspectives on the ever-changing politics of security. Alongside the (re)theorization of security, China has involved itself in the international community slowly but in an increasingly confident way. The country’s participation in the formation and evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) after the end of the Cold War is a case in point.

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What specific philosophical and intellectual insights from Chinese traditional culture have aided China to reshape and reconceptualize its security policy? What are the theoretical assumptions that underwrite China’s reading of security? How does this specific view affect the country’s performance in world politics? This chapter attempts to answer these questions by taking a historical–cultural perspective, focusing on the evolution of Chinese political leaders’ views on security over the past 30 years. Although security thinking in China involves complex interactions between different perspectives produced by multiple sectors of society (including academia), official security discourse is often considered authoritative, and thus shapes the way that security policies are articulated and addressed. Although it is not easy to determine empirically the degree to which political leaders’ views on security are affected by scholarly work on this topic, it is safe to argue, conversely, that the main security concepts that circulate in the academic world tend to reflect, interpret, and even comment on those articulated by the state. The chapter is organized into four parts. First, it revisits core ideas derived from the teachings of Confucius, regarded as a great synthesizer of the Chinese culture that preceded him and its main source afterwards, in order to show that the Chinese concept of security has drawn critical insights from Confucianism. The second section examines the three major stages in which security thinking unfolded over the past 30 years, highlighting the central theoretical assumptions implied by the country’s security discourse as articulated by Chinese political leaders. Third, the chapter briefly examines the SCO as a case study in order to observe how China’s new conceptions of security are applied in practice, in this specific instance to tackle regional insecurity challenges in coordination with other countries. The chapter concludes by arguing that Chinese philosophical ideas help shape perceptions of security and that Chinese thinking on this topic might contribute to the accumulation of knowledge as to how to achieve and maintain peace and stability in the world.

Chinese culture as an intellectual source Culture plays a critical role in shaping different nations’ security and strategic thinking, and in turn, nations may act in ways that reproduce or alter that culture. On the one hand, a nation is culturally and historically conditioned by what it does and says. On the other, the culture and history of a nation are social constructs that are produced through the social practices of the nation (Booth and Trood 1999; Katzenstein 1996; Mazrui 1990; Wang 2000). In other words, nations, like human beings, are situated in specific historical and cultural contexts in which their thinking, reasoning and behavior unfold. Such contexts shape and condition the nation’s “rationality,” including conscious and unconscious knowledge, desires, and goals, and principled action, while nations may also engage in their (re)construction.

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Culture performs at least three major functions in international relations. First, it provides a cognitive and conceptual map for a nation to observe and understand the external world. Political leaders are conditioned by the cultural environment in which they are situated when perceiving the world outside of national boundaries. This may explain why political and strategic vision in one culture can be fundamentally different from that of another, even though people are observing and dealing with the same issues. Second, culture provides the driving force in defining how a nation acts in international affairs. Within a given structure of international politics, nations do not always behave and respond to the external world in the same way. Each nation’s unique culture and historical experiences constitute a key backdrop and influence alternatives for action. Third, culture establishes the criteria by which a nation makes judgments about international ethical and moral issues. As in domestic society, there are standards of “truth, goodness, beauty” and “falseness, evil, ugliness” in international society. In many cases global problems are not simply material issues, but informed by ethical and moral questions. Nations and their political leaders are, to a large extent, guided by their own culture when judging those affairs. Indeed, in its relations with other countries each nation makes use of philosophical ideas to guide its perceptions, judgments, and management of complicated situations and issues. This allows national policymaking decisions to be based on more or less accepted understandings of the logic of world politics. Usually, nations maintain relatively consistent world outlooks and sets of practical approaches drawn from certain historical and cultural resources. In this respect, the culture of a nation usually functions as the intellectual and conceptual basis for its engagement in global affairs and foreign relations. Put differently, the words and deeds of a nation on the world stage are social and cultural constructs.3 The role played by culture in framing Chinese conceptualizations of security during the past 30 years is a case in point. Goodwill is a core idea promoted in Chinese culture. It is the way “that all things in nature evolve and grow, and the supreme realm in which all things in the world are governed; it entails ideas of harmony, coordination, morality, order, and properness” (Zhang 2008: 86). Goodwill has been applied historically and culturally to guide individuals’ words and deeds, and to regulate relationships between human beings and nature. The concept of goodwill can be traced back as early as Confucius’ teachings in the periods of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, educator, and remarkable social thinker, is a household name in China. Despite controversies and ups and downs in Chinese political and intellectual history, Confucianism is regarded as mainstream thinking and has regained its reputation and popularity over the past three decades. Two closely related ideas implied in the concept of goodwill have made specific contributions to Chinese security theorizing. One is the idea of

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lofty morality, which entails not only an ethical meaning but also political implications. Confucius argues that people’s behaviors are regulated by ethical norms and that social governance is conducted through statecraft of moral, not violent, power (Confucius 1980: Book 6 and Book 12). According to Confucianism, conquering by force is not wise because the conquered may be disobedient in silence; winning hearts is more essential and lasting. Mencius, who lived 100 years later than Confucius and inherited the legacy of Confucius’ teachings, once remarked: he who tries to subdue men by force will find that they never submit to him in their hearts’ core but just do so because their strength is not adequate enough to resist; and he who tries to subdue men by virtue will win a sincere and happy heart of their submission. (Mencius 1960: Gongsun Chou I, 74) Thus Mencius concludes: “there is no such a ruler who can rule a country without people yielding their heart’s subjection” (Mencius 1960: Lihou I, 190). The second is the idea of harmony. According to Confucian philosophy, the natural and human world is ontologically one, and all people under heaven are united as brothers and sisters. In other words, the natural world and human world are not separate but linked. They share similar laws in their operation. What is known in the human world represents the will of the natural world that conditions it. This belief in the brotherhood and sisterhood of all things under heaven is based ethically on the assumption that (human) nature is fundamentally benign. Mencius argues that “human nature is benign; it is just like the nature of water that falls downwards” (Mencius 1960: Gao Zi I, 254). This emphasis on the coexistence of nature and humans as a whole is accompanied therefore by the ideal of a harmonious social order based on peoples as well as rulers abiding by social norms and codes of conduct (Confucius 1980: Book 6 and Book 12). More specifically, the concept of goodwill and its related ideas are symbolized in four words central to Confucius’ teachings. The first is yi (justice). The notion of yi requires that people must follow codes of ethics that include taking responsibility and assuming obligations to the community. Confucius said: “the superior man, in the world, does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow” (Confucius 1980: Book 4, 37). In other words, a man’s, and especially a ruler’s mind and action should be guided only by what is morally correct. The second word is ren (benevolence), meaning roughly that people show humane and affectionate feelings and benevolence to one another just as parents and their children do. When asked by a student to define the meaning of ren, Confucius replied: “If one wants to establish himself, he needs to help others establish themselves as well; if one wants to live a

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better life, he needs to help others to have a better life too” (Confucius 1980: Book 6, 65). As a virtue, ren is taken as the highest moral principle in Confucian philosophy. A third term, shu (generosity), calls each of us to treat others as we want to be treated. A frequently quoted saying that illustrates the essence of shu is “[w]hat you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others” (Confucius 1980: Book 15, 166). Mencius expresses a similar idea by saying that “the error of some people is … that they demand much of others and little of themselves” (Mencius, 1960: Jin Xin II, 338). The fourth word is he (harmony). He implies a state of peaceful coexistence. In the social world, people should value friendship because cooperation makes them prosperous and is beneficial to everyone. Whenever there is conflict or dispute, the idea of he enjoins us to resolve it in a peaceful way. According to Confucius’ vision of an ideal society, different people or things live together harmoniously, while retaining their differences (Confucius 1980: Book 13). Harmony does not necessarily mean sameness nor deny diversity; rather, it implies a paradoxical but dialectical relationship of opposition and unity in both the natural and human world. It is paradoxical in that harmony and diversity are implied by each other. Harmony is meaningful only in a diversified world. In the absence of diversity there is no need for harmony. It is dialectical in that there is an interdependence of diversity or oppositions that makes a harmonious world possible, just like the coexistence of yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) that are opposite yet relational in both natural and social life. There is no yin without yang, and vice versa. Normative prescriptions in Confucian discourse not only inform Chinese ethical and moral convictions, but also point to the ideal of constructing a harmonious social order. As integral parts of Chinese culture, notions such as peace, caring, generosity, loyalty, and honesty were cherished and evolved as codes of behavior in China, guiding interpersonal relationships and extending to the country’s relations with other nations. Like other social ideals, the condition of harmony is not inevitable. Rather, it is a social construction that demands the constant efforts of humans. As one commentator rightly puts it, there is a “[c]onstructivist streak in Confucius thinking” (Tamaki 2007: 285). Indeed, reviving and reselling Confucius’ ideas has become a key cultural enterprise in China. In 2007, the Confucius Institute, headquartered in Beijing, was officially established, and now has branches in more than 100 countries around the world. One of the Institute’s main aims is to promote exchanges and communications between Chinese culture and cultures around the world through the diffusion of Confucius’ teachings that might contribute to creating a harmonious world with permanent peace and common prosperity. This revival and circulation of traditional thinking is important, given the context of expanding globalization and unprecedented and complex interdependence achieved over the past 30 years in the world system.

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China has been learning to adapt itself to this ever-changing globe that has become more diversified, fragmented, and multi-centered in many respects. In the learning process the question of how to maintain global peace and stability has prompted China and its political leadership to “revisit and restructure Chinese traditional culture and [its contemporary] national ethos” in ways that favor the ideal of constructing a harmonious society through moral and civil management (Jiang 2007: 53). Adding the values of traditional Chinese culture to the process of understanding the contemporary world has enabled the country to frame refreshing perspectives on security. The following section of this chapter examines the evolution of security thinking in China during three historical phases, beginning with the country’s greater opening to the world in 1978, and identifies the basic theoretical assumptions that underlie each period. It will be shown that although China moved beyond security policies as shaped by Maoist principles early on in this process, traditional Chinese philosophy only began to have influence later.

The evolution of security theorizing in China In 1978, two years after the end of turbulent “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” Chinese leaders decided to open the country up to the outside world in order to rescue a nation on the brink of economic, social, and political collapse. Since then, there have been fundamental changes in almost all aspects of Chinese society, the decisive shift in China’s cognition and perceptions of the world in the security realm being no exception. Three major phases in Chinese security thinking can be identified, based upon the security discourses employed by Chinese political leaders of successive generations. In addition to local sources of influence, ideational reorientations of China’s security policy correspond to the enormous transformations experienced in world politics during the past 30 years, namely, the shift from a bipolar Cold War structure to a post-Cold War unipolar moment and, more recently, the move towards multipolar arrangements. The assumptions and related conceptions reflect shifts in China’s theorization of security as it remolds its security policy in response to this changing global context. The first phase (1978–91): strategic shift In this phase, China made a decisive shift in its strategic thinking. The country began to abandon the mindsets contained in Maoist notions such as “anti-imperialism and anti-revisionism” and “revolutionary war” that prevailed throughout a 30-year period after 1949, and slowly replaced them with the idea of “peace and development,” which focused more on (inter) national stability and economic productivity.

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The advocates of the “revolution and war” idea insisted that the Cold War military rivalry between the two superpowers signaled the constant danger of another major world war, and that this danger could be checked only through proletarian revolution worldwide (Mao 1994: 68–9, 347). To face a likely (nuclear) war, the first generation of Chinese leaders mobilized a people’s campaign of “digging deep tunnels, and storing sufficient food,” which might be seen as a major security practice in the 1960s and 1970s. Chinese security policy revolved around the doctrine of Maoist “selfreliance” (duli zizhu) in international politics, although it imagined a possible anti-imperial alliance of China with the Afro-Asian bloc. However, with détente and the easing of tensions between China and the United States, and other industrial countries in the 1970s and 1980s, second generation leaders began to readjust their perceptions of the external world, recognizing that large-scale conflict or world wars could be avoided. Instead, peace and development were perceived as the two major themes of this era (Deng 2004: 309). Though China retained its practice of independent and peaceful diplomacy, it widened diplomatic efforts designed to improve relations with the developed nations. The country encouraged the introduction of advanced technology, administrative management, and financial investment for national modernization, and made use of a peaceful security environment in order to promote an internal modernization process. China also stressed the significance of maintaining friendly and cooperative relations with developing countries, especially improving ties with immediate neighbors. As a result, Chinese foreign policy and strategic thinking underwent gradual change. On the one hand, it departed from the rhetoric of “proletarian revolution” and “working class struggles” and began to abandon the promotion of communist utopia as the future for human society, neither backing anti-government military groups in neighboring countries nor promoting Maoist tactics of “guerrilla warfare.” On the other hand, foreign policy was based increasingly on pragmatic and realistic assessments of the country’s own national interest, defined primarily in terms of social development and economic growth. The national consensus was that it was useless and meaningless to debate ideologically which system was superior, socialism or capitalism. As one popular saying went in China at the time, whether a cat is black or white, it is a good one if it catches rats. Economic and social development therefore became of overriding importance. This ideational reorientation in China’s perception of the external world shortly before the end of the Cold War was significant. The country opened itself up to the outside world for only the second time since 1840, only on this occasion opening was voluntary and active. Market conceptions were being introduced into China, competitive business mechanisms and environments were being constructed, and liberal ideas of free trade gradually gained acceptance.4

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During this phase several assumptions were central to thinking about security. One concerned the major issues that were considered relevant to world politics during the era in question. In the case of the East and West, the theme of peace was predominant, while in considering North–South relations, development was deemed a key problem. Of these two major themes, development took precedence, given the assumption that development was the key means to assure peace and stability (Deng 1993). Stated more boldly, peace and development were seen as mutually constitutive. Without peace, sustainable development is unlikely. Similarly, without development, it is difficult to sustain peace around the world. The key implication of this assumption was that one of the major sources of global insecurity and instability was underdevelopment, and not simply power politics. One argument made by Chinese leadership at the time was that if developing countries, including China, and the developed countries in Europe sustained positive development into the twenty-first century, there would be a genuine possibility to move beyond the danger of major wars (Deng 1993: 233). This assertion reflected two understandings about the culture of insecurity in the world: first, that poverty and underdevelopment in a single country or a region could be sources of conflict and war; and second, that the greater the number of wealthy countries, the less likely that two superpowers—such as the United States and the Soviet Union—would go to war. This thinking was translated into Chinese foreign and defense policy through China’s expansion of its economic and trade relationship with both developed and developing countries so as to make conflict and war among major powers less likely. A second primary assumption of security thinking during this period also supported the argument that world war could be avoided. Contrary to previous convictions that a world war might break out at any moment, Chinese leaders observed several important developments in international affairs that fostered more peaceful relations. The two superpowers had nuclear weapons and could mutually destroy each other many times over, so they did not dare to launch world wars. Also, citizens around the world were becoming a strong force against world war. Finally, a rapid advancement of new sciences and technology, and increasing economic interdependence around the world made a world war much less desirable or likely. Several explanations help one understand the shift in Chinese security thinking during this phase. First, China was changing its perceptions of the causes of national insecurity by abandoning political and ideologydriven considerations and placing greater emphasis upon national economic growth and social development. Second, the country was adopting a more liberal view in its understanding of the causal relationship that existed between peace and development in global (in)security. Finally, China was willing not only to expose itself to Western ideas of market competition and mechanisms, but also to share the Western conception of deterrence via mutual assured destruction (MAD).

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The second phase (1992–2001): new concept of security With the end of the Cold War, traditional security threats were greatly reduced though not eliminated. On the one hand, the end of the bipolar military rivalry made wars between major powers even less likely and thus increased the expectation of long-term peaceful relations. On the other, the expansion of economic globalization made nations around the world more interested in cooperation and coordination. The post-Cold War context constituted the first time since 1949 that direct military threats from the external world were greatly reduced from a Chinese perspective as well. The country’s relations with its neighbors also improved. For instance, by 1992 China had established diplomatic relations with all countries in Northeast Asia. That said, China’s security in the post-Cold War has been increasingly challenged by the growth of non-traditional problems affecting the entire world, such as global environmental deterioration, drug trafficking, spread of diseases, as well as financial instabilities. The perception of these new challenges forced Chinese leaders to broaden their approaches to security and to widen the scope of what was considered global and regional (in) security issues. In consequence, there was a demand for security approaches that transcended mainstream thinking focused more narrowly, if not exclusively, on military alliances and arms races. The 1990s witnessed the most noteworthy shift in the Chinese security mentality, from “the idea of traditional security” to “the new concept of security.” In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as a third generation Chinese leader, clarified for the first time the new concept of security at a conference on disarmament in Geneva. He remarked, History shows us that the old concept of security that is based on military alliances and strengthens military weapons as its means is not conducive to guaranteeing national security or to creating a lasting peace in the world. It is imperative to construct a new concept of security that corresponds to the needs of the era, and to actively seek new ways to maintain peace and security. We believe that the very core of the new concept of security is mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation. (Jiang 2002: 540) The new concept of security also favored open and inclusive regional and institutional cooperation, and the coordination of security policy, as a result of its attempt to go “beyond unilateral security arrangements so as to seek common security through mutually beneficial cooperation” (Jiang 2002: 541). The Chinese leadership’s new discourse triggered a growth in the discussion of security among academics as well as within the state. In July 2002 the Chinese delegation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

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(ASEAN) Regional Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting reiterated and elaborated upon the new concept of security in the Chinese Position Paper on China’s New Concept of Security. This document, submitted to the full floor, identifies four core ideas regarding international security, addressed earlier by Jiang: mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation. Chinese academics have followed suit by interpreting, representing and making sense of the new concept of security, elaborating upon the meaning of key phrases such as “mutual trust,” “mutual benefit,” “equality,” and “cooperation” (He 2008; Huang, 2002; Wang 1999; Wu and Ma, 2006; Yang, 2006; Zhang 2008). According to some scholars, the word “trust” implies transcending differences in ideology and social system, as well as discarding the Cold War mentality and power politics. Mutual trust is mutual non-hostility and the favoring of dialogue in coping with security problems. “Mutual benefit” entails respect and appreciation of each other’s security interests and concerns. In other words, in the process of pursuing their own security interests, nations need to facilitate the conditions and environment for others to achieve their security, achieving what are usually referred to as win-win games. The word “equality” conveys the meaning that, whether big or small, developed or underdeveloped, nations should respect one another as sovereign states, should not interfere in one another’s internal affairs, and should promote the democratization of international relations. “Cooperation” can be understood as using peaceful means to resolve disputed security issues, and committing one’s country to coordination in the process of seeking security (Rao 2006: 375). For others, “mutual trust” lays the foundation for the new security concept, “mutual benefit” guarantees the realization of the “equality” that is a precondition for protecting the rights of each nation’s security demands, and “cooperation” is the means to instantiate the new security concept in practice (Feng 2006: 55–7). The sources of China’s new security thinking are varied. Clearly, the basic idea of he as goodwill in Chinese traditional culture found its way into the post Cold-War security concept. The modern sense of harmony is that people get things done through working together or cooperating equally and resolve their disputes through peaceful means while still retaining their differences. It can also be argued that the new concept of security reflects the influence of widespread rethinking of post-Cold War global and regional security outside China during the 1990s, including such concepts as “security community” and “common security,” that imply that security can be normatively achieved through the “institutionalization of mutual identification, transnational values, intersubjective understandings, and shared identities” (Adler and Barnett 1998: 59). What, then, is new in the new concept of security? It transcends the Cold War mentality by getting rid of the ideological mindset of confrontation as crucial to the process of seeking security, and abandons conventional conceptions of mutual suspicion and the image of world politics as a

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social jungle. During much of the Cold War period, China pursued an independent or “isolationist” foreign and defense policy that was based on the doctrine of “self-reliance.” In contrast, the new concept of security endorsed multilateral cooperation and common security, assuming that the realization of one’s national interests is linked directly to the realization of the national interests of others. The newness of the concept also lies in its awareness and adaptation to the changing international environment. Global peace and security in the post-Cold War era are constantly threatened by problems such as the widening gap between the North and the South, violence and conflicts caused by ethnic extremists and religious fundamentalists, environmental degradation, drug trafficking, transnational crime, and infectious diseases, to name a few. To keep in check and eventually resolve these problems, it is imperative that nations around the world cooperate and coordinate their strategies. In other words, global (in)security in the twenty-first century is more complex and challenging, and cannot be dealt with by any single nation or by only a few nations. Interestingly, Chinese security thinking in this specific aspect largely resembles security discourses in the West, where the expansion of non-traditional, deterritorialized sources of threat and danger has also been stressed. More broadly, the new concept of security has distinctive theoretical implications that can be better appreciated through ontological, epistemological, methodological and axiological lenses. Ontologically, it addresses the “being” of security; that is, security is understood as comprehensive in at least two senses. First, the world is politically, socially, and culturally diverse and cannot be reduced to one or two models. Nation-states—whether large or small, rich or poor, strong or weak—have equal rights to choose their own models for national development and are equal members of the international community. Thus, the peaceful settlement of all interstate differences and disputes should be on the basis of equality and mutual benefits (Jiang 2002: 526–35; Zhonggong 2001: 1355–6). Second, the scope and domain of security itself has widened, covering the global, regional, and national levels. The object of security is no longer limited to narrowly defined political and military aspects, but includes the fields of economics, culture, information, and environment. According to this understanding, security penetrates into all aspects of human life on a daily basis. Traditional threats continue to pose considerable challenges, but equally critical are emerging non-traditional security issues. Since the world is in a state of mutual coexistence, the (in)security of any single nation tends to constitute a source of global and regional (in)security. Epistemologically speaking, the subject of security is no longer confined to nation-states, but extends to individuals, groups, institutions, society, and even the entire world. Among these, human security is the most essential and fundamental. The underlying logic is that if the security of human individuals cannot be guaranteed, there can be no security of nation-states

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as a whole. Security is indivisible. If most developing countries cannot achieve their security, it will be difficult for the world to be peaceful. No country should encourage its own security at the cost of the insecurity of other countries. Also, as the new concept of security implies, security is not necessarily a fixed thing, but can be socially and politically constructed through meaningful cooperation and mutual trust among nations (Zhonggong 2003: 2340). In this way, Chinese security thinking reflects the humanistic and constructivist elements of Confucian teachings and converges with Western constructivist approaches and critical security studies (Krause and Williams 1997; Wendt 1999). Methodologically, one approach to materializing the new concept of security is to promote practices of cooperation and dialogue. As mentioned above, the post-Cold War era has witnessed both traditional and nontraditional threats to global security. These threats tend to be long term, rather than short term, and include problems that seriously challenge human survival and the sustainable development of global society and economy as a whole. An increasingly shared understanding is that it is beyond the capability of any single nation and its people to deal with these threats or problems. Therefore, it is necessary for countries around the world to take cooperative measures and design common strategies and goals to “tackle challenges confronting human survival and development” effectively in order to achieve universal and lasting peace (Jiang 2002: 539). Responding to global and regional security challenges requires the social and political construction of dialogic communities. In this sense, in their interaction with others all countries should transcend social and political systems and ideological differences and work together to set up cooperative mechanisms, including strong multilateral security (dialogic) mechanisms. In other words, the new concept of security disagrees with the use, or threat of, force, favoring instead dialogue and communication in settling disputes. In axiological terms, the new concept of security contends critically that it is necessary to establish a new world order in global politics and economics to replace the existing one that, to a large degree, continues to be the product of the Cold War. In the new order, global and regional security will be based on the common interests of different countries regardless of their political beliefs, economic models of development, and social systems. International relations should be based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and other universally recognized norms and laws governing interstate systems.5 In other words, the idea of equality should be the basis for achieving democratization and legalization in international relations. Disputes and conflicts should be resolved through dialogue rather than appealing to force, while distant cultures and civilizations should respect each other and maintain diversity in the world. In order to achieve these ends, multilateralism should be promoted and sustainable development pursued. It could be claimed that China’s security theorizing in this phase attempted to keep up with and reflect the changing shape of global security politics

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after the end of the Cold War. A key result of this process was that China’s perspectives on security were considerably broadened from traditional to non-traditional issues, from narrowly defined national security to broadly implied human security, and most importantly, from the Cold War mentality of pursuing the security of the individual nation to a post-Cold War outlook of promoting mutual trust and cooperation among nations in tackling common challenges and threats in the world. As will be argued in the following section, these considerations paved the way for continuing refinement of Chinese security theorizing in the twenty-first century. The third phase (2001–present): ideas of “harmonious world” Changes at both the global and national levels have led China to reframe its approach to security policy. Globally, uneven development, social inequality, and injustice constitute outstanding sources of insecurity and instability worldwide. In addition, the revival of global terrorism and increasing political fragmentation around the globe pose a growing source of vulnerability to diverse populations. Given that global (in)security is increasingly challenging and complex, the need for resolving disputes and conflicts in peaceful and dialogic means has become all the more pressing and desirable. Domestically, after decades of rapid economic growth and social development, China has increased its international power position in fundamental ways and is increasingly regarded as one of the key actors affecting global and regional security dynamics. The questions of what type of power China will become and how it will exert its ascendant power have become important sources of concern for diverse nations, including China’s neighbors. For these countries, a rising China in the twenty-first century raises regional as well as global security questions.6 In this current phase, Chinese security thinking reflects the country’s response to these ever changing contexts. While phrases such as “mutual trust,” “mutual benefit,” “equality” and “cooperation” largely dominated security theorizing in the 1990s, terms such terms as “equality,” “common development,” “democratization” and “harmonious world” have become key terms in Chinese security discourse in the new millennium. At a policy level, this shift has been reflected in the adoption of a strategy of “peaceful development” that aims to further China’s integration into international society in a positive way, including seeking multilateral and constructive cooperation with other countries in resolving disputes and conflicts among them. According to the fourth generation of Chinese political leadership, the construction of a harmonious world is desirable but “requires efforts to achieve the harmonious development of the global economy” (Hu 2006: A1). In other words, the idea of “common development” and the construction of a “harmonious world” are intimately linked, pointing to a more global perspective in China’s security thinking during this current phase.

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Clearly, the rhetoric of “harmonious world” is inspired by the Confucian model of an ideal society, reflecting cardinal values of “ren,” “yi,” and “he” in Chinese traditional culture. Ontologically, it is based on the belief that human nature is fundamentally benign and the social world can be constructed ethically and politically as a harmonious one, in which lasting peace and stability can be anticipated and achieved. It implies that the ascendancy of a nation can be realized through peaceful development, rather than by seeking war paths as has occurred in previous human history. In this sense, the idea of constructing a harmonious world is at odds with the realist notion that human nature is fundamentally evil and/or that the social world can never be harmonious or progressive, and is instead fixed in terms of a constant struggle for dominance and superiority. As one analyst states, there is “a flavor of idealism” in China’s security thinking during this most recent phase (Zhang 2007). The rhetoric of “common development” implies that development is a priority among global issues and that the common development of nations is an important precondition for the maintenance of world peace, given that poverty, inequality and social injustice constitute major sources of insecurity. The diversity of development models and the democratization of international relations are critical to common development, implying a win-win game conducive to the harmonious coexistence of nations (Zhang 2004: 36). Here, the new concept of security has been refined in the sense that it articulates global security to common development among nations. How is it possible to convert an “anarchical” international structure into a “harmonious” one? Current security thinking holds that normative obligations bind all nations. First, all nations, independently of their power or wealth, promote mutual relations through economic, social, and cultural exchanges and cooperation. Positive interactions may help construct a network of strategic partnerships that link them together. Second, all nations should rely on peaceful and diplomatic means, rather than resort to violence or force in resolving disputes and conflicts. This demand for peaceful means of dispute resolution is crucial for maintaining both international and national security and to construct a harmonious world. Third, all nations should work to construct economic, security and perhaps even political communities at the regional level, given that they may further contribute to the creation of a harmonious world through multilateral, multilevel and multichannel cooperation and coordination. Finally, but equally important, the realistic basis for constructing a harmonious world is to stick to the spirit of tolerance towards socially and politically distant others and respect the diversity of cultures around the world. This most recent shift in security thinking has encouraged a recasting of China’s identity and transformations in its security behavior. The three major phases of Chinese security theorizing that have evolved over the past 30 years reflect the evolution of China’s security and strategic thinking as the country responds to a changing world and to changes within

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China itself. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is one case that illustrates how these new concepts have been translated into concrete security practices.

SCO: a test for new concepts of security The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental security community created in 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.7 The shared goal of achieving regional security and stability has been the driving force for the SCO’s development. Historically, regional security in Central Asia has been elusive. Considerable differences in ethic identities, cultures, political beliefs, and even people’s way of life have made collective security efforts rare and successful cooperation in the security realm uncommon. The SCO not only embodies the first multilateral commitment on the part of the Eurasian countries to create a stable environment in order to guarantee both regional security and national development, but also points to an alternative mechanism for achieving regional security by means of a new mode of international interaction. The SCO member countries share a common security discourse that is largely in tune with China’s new concept of security. Its guiding concepts and operating procedures reflect the cardinal ideas of mutual trust, mutual benefits, equal consultation, and common development, discussed previously. They have come to be known as the “Shanghai Spirit” and embody the use of new language on security, a novel type of interstate relation and an alternative mode of regional cooperation in Central Asia. The SCO’s purposes and functions, as set forth in the 2002 Charter, signed by member country heads of state in St. Petersburg, also confirm an institutional acceptance of Chinese security thinking (Yu 2009). In addition to expressing their commitment to strengthening mutual trust and goodneighborly friendship, and to develop their cooperation in multiple fields, in the Charter member countries also reaffirm respect for each other’s national sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. These ideas share a large degree of similarity with the above-mentioned Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The reflection of Chinese thinking in the SCO produces important benefits for the country, despite the myriad problems that the region confronts in the security realm and the blows to its unity suffered after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the onset of the global “war on terrorism.” The organization has served China favorably in several aspects. As one analyst puts it, the SCO functions as a frontline that helps stabilize China’s security in its northwest area and as a supporting base for its attempts to avoid military confrontation over territorial issues in the East China and South China seas. Economically, the SCO allows China to push its own economic growth forward, in particular via the procurement of

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badly needed natural resources. Politically, the SCO has become a crucial test case for China as its experiments with multilateral diplomacy in pursuing a new international order (Zhang 2009: 15). Admittedly, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization faces a number of challenges, including how to improve its functional efficiency, coordination of security policy among member countries, especially China and Russia, which continue to compete in undeclared ways, and the management of its relations with the United States, with which frictions have emerged over that country’s geopolitical interests in Central Asia (Li 2009; Xin 2009; Zhang 2009). However, an additional challenge that remains to be tackled relates to the SCO’s core values, which still need to be firmly established. Although the organization embraces the ideas of mutual trust, mutual benefits, equal consultation and common development that reflect the “Shanghai Spirit,” the evolution of the organization continues to be based primarily on realistic interests instead of shared values among the member countries. As a consequence, the SCO’s future development depends not only on its effectiveness in providing substantial public goods to the region, but more significantly, on whether its member countries are able to develop their core values together.

Conclusions This chapter has traced the evolution of Chinese security theorizing during the past 30 years, and has used the SCO as a test case for illustrating how this thinking is practiced. Additionally, the philosophical foundations of the new concept of security were explored by revisiting Confucius and his teachings and arguing that traditional Chinese culture constitutes a major and growing source of intellectual influence that has reshaped Chinese readings of security. However, two caveats need to be offered. The first is that although Confucian teachings constitute a dominant and idealist school in ancient Chinese philosophy that remains influential today, other less well-known Chinese philosophical schools, such as Legalism, that emphasize largely realist views of the cruel side of human nature, also influence contemporary Chinese thought, including security thinking. The emphasis on cooperation and dialogic means in security policy does not necessarily mean that security thinking ignores or rules out the importance of material capacities as a last resort in securing peace and stability. Nonetheless, current thinking places emphasis on the idea that nations need to learn how to resolve security problems through peaceful means. The second caveat is that the chapter has focused on the Chinese political leadership’s security thinking and discourse. This emphasis is not meant to imply that the state is the only source of ideas on security. Admittedly, mixed and competing views on security have emerged from both academia and in wider public discussions. However, it is important to remember that

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the security thinking and discourse produced by the Chinese political leadership normally presents itself as an orthodoxy that guides China. Chinese understandings of security policy have been affected by at least two fundamental factors. The first is Chinese traditional culture, especially Confucius and his teachings, which promote ideas of goodwill and harmonious relationships in the family, society and the world. These ideas, having long been assumed as norms and codes that guide the behavior of the Chinese people and the governance of Chinese society, are important intellectual sources of security theorizing. This is not to deny that security thinking during different historical phases has also been the result of changes in the world and in China itself. In other words, the problematization of security in China has been historically and socially conditioned by the times in which it evolved. Second, among the key assumptions in Chinese security thinking is the presumed causal relationship between security cooperation and mutual trust among nations, and the maintenance of peace and stability. A harmonious world can be socially and politically constructed only if people around the world make common efforts to do so. These ideas are not only influenced by the values of Chinese traditional culture, such as “he,” but also converge with liberal views and social constructivist approaches in Western IR theories that tend to take relatively optimistic and progressive views of world politics. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) offers an interesting lens for examining empirically the way in which China has put the new concept of security into practice in a regional setting. As a multilateral security community the SCO constitutes an alternative model of security cooperation emerging in Eurasia. Although it has a long way to go in terms of achieving its comprehensive goals and purposes, it is developing into a mature regional security organization. Chinese security theorizing during the last three decades reflects the unfolding path of the country’s domestic development and an ever-changing global environment. Although the meaning of the new concept of security has evolved with the passage of time and may encounter difficulties in reality, this chapter has attempted to show that it offers an alternative understanding of security and distinctive insights as to how to achieve and maintain peace and stability in the world.

Notes 1 The author expresses acknowledgement to David Blaney and Arlene B. Tickner for their academic reviews on and editorial improvement of the chapter. 2 In recent years there has been a growing literature reflecting on the evolution of China’s security and strategy. See Chu (1999); Cui (2005); Liu (2006); Yan (1997); Qin (2003); Wang (1999); Zhang Guoliang (2008); and Zhang Yanjun (2008). 3 See Chilton (1996); Constantinou (2004); Debrix (2003); Donahue and Prosser (1997); Hansen (2006); Larsen (1997), Weldes, et al. (1999); and Williams (2007).

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4 The introduction of market ideas into China is historically documented in the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of Communist Party (1978) and the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee of Communist Party (1984). A traditionally planned economic system in China faded away in the mid-1990s. 5 The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, first raised in 1953 by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, refer to mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression and non-interference in each others’ internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. 6 According to some Western intellectuals, if China “rises” by following the current pace of economic growth, China will become a potential candidate for superpower status and will produce enormous effects on the politics of security in Asia Pacific and the whole world. See Buzan (2004); Ross (1999); Roy (1994); and Wilkinson (1999). 7 The predecessor of the SCO was the Shanghai Five, a security mechanism formed in 1996 by the above-mentioned countries, except for Uzbekistan.

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He, Jiandong (2008) “Shilun zhongguo zhengfu de xin anquan guan” (On Chinese Government’s New Concept of Security) Qianyan lilun, 2: 1. Hu, Jintao (2006) “Zai shate alabo wangguo xieshang huiyi de yanjiang” (Speech at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian Consultative Conference) Renmin Ribao, April 24: A1. Huang, Renwei (2002) “Xin anquan guan yu dongya diqu hezuo jizhi” (New Concept of Security and Cooperative Mechanism in East Asia) Shijie Jingji Yanjiu, Supplementary edition: 24–9. Jiang, Xiyuan (2007) “Cong tianxia zhuyi dao hexie shijie: zhongguo waijiao zhexue xuanzhe jiqi shijian yiyi” (From Tian-Xia Doctrine to Harmonious World: Diplomatic-Philosophic Choice of China and Its Practical Implications), Waijiao Pinglun, 4: 46–53. Jiang Zemin (2002) Jiang Zemin lun you zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi (Jiang Zemin on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics) Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chuban She. Katzenstein, Peter. J. (ed) (1996) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press. Krause, Keith and Michael Williams (eds) (1997) Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Larsen, Henrik (1997) Foreign Policy and Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge. Li, Yong (2009) “‘Shanghe zuzhi’ mianlin de tiaozhan” (Challenges that the SCO Faces), Dangzheng luntan, 8: 25–6. Liu, Guoxin (2006) “Lun zhongguo xin anquan guan de tedian jiqi zai zhoubian guanxi zhong de yingyong” (Characteristics of the Chinese New Concept of Security and Its Application in China’s Relations with the Neighboring Countries), Dangdai Zhongguo Lishi Yanjiu, 13(1): 4–14. Mao Zedong (1994) Mao Zedong Waijiao Wenxian (Selected Works of Mao Zedong on Diplomacy), Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chuban She. Mazrui, Ali A. (1990) Cultural Forces in World Politics, London and Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Mencius (1960) The Analects of Mencius, annotated by Yang Bojun, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Qin, Yaqing (2003) “Shidai guan, anquan guan yu zhixu guan – zhongguo waijiao xin linian de sixiang neihan” (Concepts of Times, Security and Order – Implications of New Ideas in Chinese diplomacy), Guoji Zhengzhi Yanjiu, 1: 27–30. —— (2008) “Guanyu goujian zhongguo tese waijiao lilun de ruogan sikao” (Reflections on the Development of a Chinese Theory of Diplomacy), Waijiao Pinglun, 101: 9–17 Rao, Yinhua (2006) Xin zhongguo waijiao sixiang gailun (Introduction to Diplomatic Thoughts in New China), Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chuban She. Ross, Robert S. (1999) “The Geography of the Peace: East Asia in the Twenty-First Century”, International Security, 23(4): 81–118. Roy, Denny (1994) “Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to East Asian Security,” International Security, 19(1): 149–62. Tamaki, Taku (2007) “Confusing Confucius in Asian Values? A Constructivist Critique,” International Relations, 21(3): 284–304 Wang, Yizhou (2008) “Zhongguo waijiao shi tese” (Ten Features of China’s Diplomacy in a Reform Era), Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi, 5: 6–18. Wang, Yong (1999) “Lun zhongguo de xin anquan guan” (On Chinese New Concept of Security), Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi (World Economy and Politics), (1): 42–5.

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Weldes, Jutta, Mark Laffey, Hugh Gustafson and Raymond Duvall (eds) (1999) Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wendt, A. (1999) Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkinson, David (1999) “Unipolarity without Hegemony,” International Studies Review, 1(2): 141–72. Williams, Michael C. (2007) Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security, London: Routledge. Wu, Zhaoxue and Ma Yanchen (2006) “Zhongguo xin anquan guan yu goujian hexie shehui” (China’s New Concept of Security and the Construction of Harmonious Society) Shijie Jingji Yu Zhengzhi Luntan, 6: 4–9. Xin, Guangchen (2009) “Zhongya de liyi quxiang he shanghai hezuo zuzhi de fazhan” (Central Asia’s Interests and the Development of the SCO) Eluosi Yanjiu, 6: 3–6. Yan, Xuetong (1997) “Zhongguo xin anquan guan yu anquan hezuo gouxiang” (Chinese New Concept of Security and Construction of Security Cooperation), Xiandai Guoji Guanxi, 11: 28–32. Yang, Jiemian (2008) “Gaige kaifang shanshi nian de zhongguo waijiao he lilun chuangxin” (China’s Diplomacy and Theoretical Innovation in 30 Years of Reform and Opening-up), Guoji Wenti Yanjiu, 6: 6–11. Yang, Zhizen (2006) “Dongya anquan hezuo huhuan xin anquan guan” (Call for New Concept of Security in East Asian Cooperation), Zhonggong Shijiazhuang Shiwei Dangxiao Xuebao, 8(3): 35–38. Yu, Jianjun (2009) “Shangghai hezuo zuzhi feichuantong anquan yanjiu (SCO and Non-traditional Security (Studies of Non-traditional Security in the SCO)” Shanghai: Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe (Shanghai Social Sciences Institute Press). Zhang, Guoliang (2008) “Zhongguo dangdai anquan zhanlue lilun yuchuantong ‘zhong he’ zhexue sixiang” (Contemporary China’s Theory of National Security Strategy and Traditional Philosophical Thinking of ‘Internal Harmony’), Nanjing Zhengzhi Xueyuan Xuebao, 24(5): 86–89. Zhang, Jiming (2004) “Zhongguo waijiao he guoji zhanlue zhong de ‘gongtong fazhan’ sixiang” (The Idea of ‘Common Development’ in Chinese Diplomacy and Its International Strategy), Guoji Wenti Yanjiu, 4: 34–7. Zhang, Ning (2009) “Shanghai hezuo zuzhi mianlin de jige fazhan fangxian wenti” (A Few Issues Concerning the Development Orientation of the SCO), Yafei Zongheng, 2: 14–19. Zhang, Ruizhuang (2007) “Zhongguo waijiao zhexue de lixiang zhuyi qingxiang” (Idealist Tendencies in China’s Philosophy of Diplomacy), Ershiyi Shiji Shuangyue kan, 99(2): 81–8. Zhang, Yanjun (2008) “Fei chuantong anquan yu zhongguo de xin anquan guan” (Non-Traditional security and Chinese New Concept of Security), Shehui Kexue Luntan, 8: 100–2. Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Bianji Shi (ed) (2001) Shiwu da yilai zhongyao wenxian xuanbian II (Selected Important Documents since the 5th Party Congress), Beijing: People’s Publishing House. —— (2003) Shiwu da yilai zhongyao wenxian xuanbian III (Selected Important Documents since the 5th Party Congress), Beijing: People’s Publishing House. Zhu, Liqun (2009) “Zhongguo waijiao de ‘zhongyong’ tese” (Features of ‘Middle Way’ in Chinese Diplomacy), Waijiao Pinglun, 3: 18–22.

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No place for theory? Security studies in Latin America Arlene B. Tickner and Mônica Herz

Until the late 1980s, when a wave of democratization hit South America (and to a lesser degree Mexico), the Central American peace process was well under way, the Cold War was coming to an end and security was almost exclusively the work of generals. Both domestic and international defense policies and the concept of security itself were heavily influenced by the military’s approach to the subject. From independence in the nineteenth century until the onset of the bipolar conflict, geopolitics held sway over security ideas, especially given the exigencies of state-building, the porosity of national borders and the ominous presence of the United States. During the Cold War, the dominant mode of thought, a national security doctrine, legitimated widespread repression and authoritarian rule based on the assumption that leftist and other opposition groups constituted a domestic and regional “communist” threat that destabilized the prevailing social order. The transition to democracy and the perceived relevance of international relations, in terms of both globalization and norms and rules framing social, political and economic life, ushered in a new generation of security thinking, characterized primarily by its civilian authorship and its concern with issues related to political regime type, the proper role of the military in public policy, institutional weakness, the relationship between democracy and security, and transnational threats. The fact that interstate conflict was all but eliminated after the 1995 rift between Peru and Ecuador reinforced this shift in perspective, although it did not erase conflict from the regional lexicon altogether. This chapter analyzes Latin American security studies in two main steps. First, we examine the security concepts and practices that have been prevalent during distinct historical periods. This discussion leads us to identify four main stages in regional approaches to security: the geopolitical doctrine, national security doctrine, democratic security, and the broadening of the concept to include domestic insecurity and transnational threats. Second, we explore what we consider to be some of the key characteristics of security thinking in Latin America today. We argue that, like Latin American International Relations (IR) itself, security knowledge has been practical, applied and policy relevant (Tickner 2008, 2009). Given the

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region’s long history of authoritarian regimes, training a new cadre of civilian security experts capable of accompanying/complementing the military and designing a democratic security and defense architecture were seen as the necessary drivers of the subfield, both domestically and abroad.1 To this end, international actors played a key role in forging bridges between Latin American states and academia immediately before and long after the democratic transition. In 2000, donor efforts were stepped up given concern for rising levels of citizen insecurity, the region’s incapacity to address it, and the perceived need for new approaches to non-traditional security threats. Even in those cases in which scholars set out to explore security “concepts” and “theories,” what emerges in their stead are descriptive reflections on Latin American security dynamics and prescriptive recommendations. What this suggests to us is that, in addition to being driven by the production of “policy knowledge,” security (and IR) scholars in the region may understand the meaning of theory differently (Abend 2006). Shedding light on how concepts such as security evolve in diverse national and regional settings demands accounting for these epistemological differences. Security studies’ fixation on the state has been more pronounced than that of regional IR. During the military’s reign over all things security related, this was an inevitable result of the armed forces’ concern with “securing” the nation-state. However, following demilitarization and academization the state continued to be the main referent of security, even as concepts such as human security trickled into Latin American debates. The fact that key security challenges in the post-Cold War period, both domestic (such as citizen insecurity) and transnational (such as organized crime and illicit flows of drugs and arms), came to be associated—at least in part— with the institutional weakness of Latin American states reinforced this tendency. Before we proceed, several caveats are in order. First, notwithstanding the tremendous diversity (in size, global position and domestic concerns, to name but a few) that characterizes Latin America (and the Caribbean) and that makes it difficult to speak of the region as a discrete geographical unit or “region” of security thinking, a series of commonalities make this effort not only feasible but worthwhile. All the region’s countries share a similar history of colonization and independence (even though Brazil’s former colonizer was Portugal and not Spain), all have been affected security-wise by their proximity to the United States and its claims to hegemony and a sphere of influence,2 and all of their states, although to differing degrees, have had and continue to experience some degree of institutional weakness that has hampered their ability to provide security for their respective populations. Security debates have been influenced by the fact that low levels of interstate war have coexisted with high levels of intrastate violence and/or conflict, meaning that alongside the generalized absence of war scenarios, the domestic sources of insecurity have been on the region’s radar for nearly its entire independent history.

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Second, although the military has played a key role in framing security debates and in producing many of the conceptual lenses through which security and defense matters have been analyzed, our discussion is largely limited to civilian academic security thinking. Third, the fact that, with the exception of Brazil, no other Latin American country has consistently aspired to a position of global leadership has reinforced the tendency of regional scholars to look inwards when talking about security. Therefore, even when an “international” level of analysis is incorporated into considerations of security, “international” is normally equivalent to “hemisphere” or “region.”3 Fourth, our reading of security studies is no by means exhaustive; providing a “state of the art” interpretation is neither our goal nor would it be feasible within the scope of one book chapter. Instead, we highlight what we consider to be some of the major tendencies and mediating factors that are observable in this subfield in Latin America.

Security concepts and practice Geopolitical doctrine Geopolitical approaches to security were tied inextricably to late nineteenth and early twentieth century state-building strategies, particularly in Brazil and the Southern Cone (Kelly and Childs 1988). Their origins can be traced to the disputed nature of Latin American borders and the centrality of territorial issues to regional relations, both of which led to an “acute geopolitical awareness,” particularly in Brazil (historically concerned with expanding its influence on the South American mainland), and Argentina and Chile (interested primarily in oceanic initiatives) (Caviedes 1988: 13–22). The relationship between territory and power was a core concern of governing elites as they sought to build homogeneous, spatialized nations. To a large degree, nation-building was viewed as an offshoot of the delineation of national territory, and thus, organic Darwinist images cultivated by traditional geopolitics were incorporated with enthusiasm by Latin American militaries and some civilians (Child 1979). According to this perspective the state was a “living being” with interests and needs that required cultivation in order to make it strong. Militaries in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru often emulated the practices of European armies, incorporating in the process strategic ideas that prevailed on the continent, with German, French, and Italian military missions being the main transmission belts for this influence. Brazilian general Everardo Backheuser (1926) was one of the first to write about geopolitics, having introduced classics such as Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellen to the continent in the “troubled” 1920s and 1930s, when the insertion of Latin America into a Western concept of modernity was intensely debated within the context of rapid social transformation and growing contact with Europe and the United States (Miyamoto 1981).

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During this period, processes such as urbanization, migration (accompanied in many cases by the development of new social movements with socialist, communist, or anarchist tendencies, especially in Brazil and the Southern Cone) and industrialization led to a constant perception of threat on the part of ruling elites throughout the region, driven by fear that the existing exclusionary social order would be disrupted. Geopolitics was one “solution” that presented itself to them. It went far beyond the restrictive liberalism prevailing in Latin America by nurturing aggressive and exclusionary forms of nationalism that emerged in tandem with the first attempts to incorporate the “popular classes” into the state fold. In light of the above, geopolitically-informed analyses were driven by concern about issues surrounding borders, including social order, national economic development, economic clout, and military strength (Kelly 1997: 85). The general view that geopolitics lent itself to was that security was to be attained primarily through national development and augmented power. However, the contrast between the role it played in Brazil, where geographic conditions seemed to indicate a road toward progress and greater power, differed significantly from other countries in Latin America, where the same perspectives pointed to the need for defensive postures. The fact that Brazilian authors were a main source of knowledge of geopolitics, and that many of their texts were translated and consumed throughout the region, fed a view of Brazil as an expansionist state, and even led to disputes between it and Argentina. National security doctrine The transmission belt for the national security doctrine (NSD), a single “conceptual system” (Cavagnari 1994: 52) adopted region-wide during the 1960s, was both local and international. Geopolitical theory was the main Latin American source, while British and French counterinsurgency thinking was also influential. However, the general consensus is that the foundations of NSD were U.S. inspired (Pion-Berlin 1989; Lowenthal and Fitch 1986; Stepan 1971). Following the onset of the Cold War, the United States began to step up pursuit of its security interests in Latin America and the Caribbean, through which regional security dynamics became largely predetermined by the bipolar conflict. Institutional arrangements such as the Inter-American Reciprocal Defense Treaty, signed in 1947 one year before the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS), along with bilateral military assistance agreements signed with the majority of the region’s countries, provided crucial channels through which U.S. security doctrine and influence flowed, while assuring hemispheric cooperation in defense of Cold War policy goals. Both arrangements helped create an ideological bond among the hemisphere’s armed forces, providing for the “integration of Latin America’s military institutions into a warlike bloc whose strategic direction

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corresponded to that of the U.S.” (Leal 1994: 21). Similarly, the National War College offered a model for the creation of like-minded institutions throughout the region. The School of the Americas provided the main venue through which knowledge transfer took place. Between 1946 and 2001 (when it was renamed the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation), the SOA trained over 60,000 members of the Latin American military in counterinsurgency theory and tactics (Gill 2004: 6). Indeed, the vast majority of officers who participated in coups in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, or in repressive regimes in Central America, were SOA graduates. The level of collusion was such that it even lent itself to cooperative anticommunist efforts, as occurred with the infamous Operation Condor, a South American intelligence network created to combat the leftist opposition and aided by the United States (McSherry 2005). The triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, combined with the subsequent expansion of guerrilla movements throughout Latin America, accelerated the speed with which the NSD was embraced. Both events confirmed the dominant U.S. reading of instability and insecurity in the region as rooted in the communist threat. However, as will be discussed subsequently, this argument was redirected in the Latin American context towards the internal threat that was perceived to emerge from national armed insurgencies.4 The Alliance for Progress, inaugurated by U.S. president John F. Kennedy in 1961, marked a brief period in which the need for socioeconomic reform in Latin America, “designed to end instability by reducing the level of poverty in the region” (Schoultz 1987: 19), was added to this mix, but in no way reduced the centrality of counterinsurgency programs as the main pillar of Washington’s security strategy. Notwithstanding national variations, the national security doctrine exhibited a series of shared assumptions concerning security, the state, the definition of threat, and development, some which were carried over from earlier geopolitical thought. To begin with, independently of regime type, the doctrine validated the large-scale involvement of the armed forces in politics. In addition to traditional defense matters and the preservation of domestic order, Latin American militaries came to see their mission as including running the state. Since independence the military has historically been the one of the main institutions in Latin America, developing alongside the state and the church. Therefore, its self-conception has been rooted largely in the idea that it embodies order, the “nation,” and even “Christianity” (Mares 2008: 390). As caretakers of the “state” and “nation,” the military thus came to see itself as “incorruptible” and above civilian rule, answerable only to the “nation,” however narrowly defined. Among the military’s goals in taking charge of or penetrating the state, “securing” the social order became a key objective. To the extent that individual security and freedom were deemed at odds with national security, the prevailing view espoused by NSD was that these needed to be sacrificed or

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curtailed in the name of the “greater good.” This tendency was apparent not only in those countries that succumbed to authoritarianism but also in formal democracies in which state of exception legislation was enacted on a permanent basis in order to bypass any laws or rules that could impair the state’s self-defense. The main threat against which national security doctrine was built was communism, defined in broad terms within the framework of the “ideological frontiers” concept (Couto e Silva 1958). However, contrary to U.S. Cold War security imperatives, the central source of communist contagion in Latin America during this period was deemed to be internal to the region, and not the Soviet Union. Therefore, the “internal enemy” became the central target of security efforts. This dichotomic “friend-enemy” scheme to which the NSD’s portrayal of danger lent itself led to the generalized persecution not only of armed insurgencies but also of all opposition groups (including students, labor unionists, and members of the church) deemed to obstruct state policy. In the more extreme cases of authoritarian rule an amorphous “enemy” was regularly portrayed as a “tumor,” “cancer,” or “sick limb” that needed to be extracted from the body politic (O’Donnell 1978). In this vein, two key elements shared by NSD with its geopolitical predecessor included the importance of the organic metaphor of the state and the need to “administer” the inclusion of the popular classes, whose potential disruption of the domestic order was seen as a threat to state power (Pion-Berlin 1989: 413–14). Both were used to justify widespread political persecution and repression. Brazilian general Golbery do Couto e Silva and Chilean Augusto Pinochet were the most influential authors and actors linking geopolitics and the ideological divide of the Cold War in the Latin American context (Couto e Silva 1967; Pinochet 1974). Not only did national security doctrine proffer a militarized, reductionist conception of security, it also reinforced a particular view of the Latin American state (Maira 1990; Mares 2008; O’Donnell 1975, 1978). Guillermo O’Donnell refers to this “national security state” as it evolved in Brazil and the Southern Cone (and Mexico, under the PRI’s rule), with the adjective bureaucratic-authoritarian (BA), but many of its core traits are observable throughout the region. The catalysts for this model included rapid economic modernization, industrialization and social change largely associated with the rise of the middle and popular classes. One of the key challenges faced by Latin American states during this period was how to integrate new social actors into the polity without obstructing national development policies that had become the state’s key mantra since the 1950s. As dependency theorists, such as Fernando Henríque Cardoso and Enzo Faletto (1978) have argued, the dependent type of development experienced by the region not only affected the Latin American productive structure negatively, but also led dominant groups to support a state model that combined both entrepreneurial and repressive tactics in response to external, mainly U.S., pressures for economic and

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ideological alignment and internal demands for empowerment. Contrary to what modernization theory would predict, instead of democratizing Latin America the dependent mode of modernization and industrialization led to authoritarianism in Brazil (1964), Argentina (1966, 1976), Chile (1973) and Uruguay (1973) (O’Donnell 1972). The BA regimes that came to power set out to re-stimulate economic growth and development, for which the establishment of order was considered a necessary precondition. Achieving both goals was deemed to require a series of measures, including: the reversal of the political and economic gains of recently enfranchised popular classes; the dismantling of “mass praetorianism” through extensive repression and the severance of existing channels of access to the state; the depoliticization of economic, social and political life; the division of labor of specific leadership tasks between the armed forces and civilian technocrats; and the renewal of strategic alliances with foreign capital (O’Donnell 1975, 1978; Maira 1990).5 NSD was functional to this state model in that it provided an interpretation of instability and threat that meshed well with bureaucraticauthoritarianism’s objectives. The two shared the view that political, economic and social crisis, under the guise of either communism or popular restlessness, inhibited national development, while both the military establishment and civilian elites, albeit for different reasons, considered the latter to be the driving force of the nation.6 Development and national security thus became an interrelated duo around which the Latin American state and security policy and thinking gravitated. In the specific case of Brazil this was coupled with a strong bid for technological growth, whose salience was less obvious in the rest of the region. Democratic security The end of the bipolar conflict, the transition to democracy in South America, and the peaceful settlement of the civil wars in Central America were three key factors that led to a re-visioning of security in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the main challenges during this period was to create a postauthoritarian, post-conflict, post-Cold War blueprint for security and defense policies in which the armed forces were subordinated to civilian control. This unease with lingering military influence in the political realm largely explains the “inward-looking” nature of security analyses. At the same time, however, Latin American states were also concerned with designing region-wide security arrangements, given that cooperation and integration were deemed crucial to hemispheric stability. On this score, they found themselves in largely uncharted waters: “the Cold War, for all of its anxiety and threat, provided the nations of the Americas with a structure within which to understand their relations with other states in the hemisphere” (Tulchin and Espach 1998: 172). Afterwards, however, this common framework for action was discovered to be missing.

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The Contadora group—created initially by Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama in 1983—sought a negotiated settlement to armed conflicts in Central America. The effort to provide a peaceful alternative to the tug of war taking place between the U.S. and Soviet Union was perhaps the first to assert the link between security and democracy. Notwithstanding failure to achieve its main goal, which was ultimately pursued by the presidents of the sub-region under the auspices of the Arias Plan in 1987, Contadora placed the democratization process squarely within regional debates on security. The impetus for this rethinking of security, and specifically, for associating the concept with democracy, came from several corners of the hemisphere and from outside. Initially, the South American Peace, Security, and Democracy Commission, created in 1987 by a group of ex-presidents, politicians, clergy members, private sector representatives and academics, coined the term “democratic security” as an alternative to national security doctrine (Comisión Sudamericana de Paz 1988; Somavía and Insulza 1990). President Oscar Arias, the architect of the Arias Peace Plan, picked up this thinking in part due to Costa Rica’s interaction with Contadora members and the Contadora Support Group (created in 1985), and through direct dialogue with the Commission, whose main protagonists where of Chilean origin. Foreign foundations and government actors from the United States and Europe also influenced this process through their involvement in both the transition to democracy and the Central American peace process. The Commission was to some degree an offshoot of the Joint Studies Program in International Relations in Latin America (RIAL), a regional IR network created earlier (in 1977) by Chilean, Argentine, Brazilian and Mexican scholar–practitioners and housed in Santiago. In addition to encouraging IR studies throughout Latin America, RIAL’s primary goal was to foster capacity-building in foreign policy and international negotiation, given the long history of U.S. interventionism in the region and its involvement in military coups in South America and in the Central American conflict (Tickner 2008: 740). The Ford Foundation became an active RIAL supporter in the mid-1980s, roughly around the time that the Commission was born. The democratic security idea emerged at the tail end of what Tickner (2003, 2008, 2009) has described elsewhere as Latin America’s stab at independent thinking in International Relations, in which RIAL’s role was particularly influential and the problem of autonomy figured prominently. Given that debates on security, defense and public order were monopolized by the armed forces, such efforts barely touched this realm until the late 1980s. Augusto Varas (1987: 9) suggests that the subordinate relations with global powers that characterized Latin America’s history after independence applied to the military sector as well, in the guise of strategic doctrines, concepts and technological transfers that were only rarely replaced by short cycles of relative autonomy. However, it seems fair to say that

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Latin American security thinking during this period sought to assert itself in several ways: civilian autonomy and control over the military; autonomy from previous security doctrines (both geopolitics and the NSD), identified as the source of the armed forces’ encroachment upon the state; and autonomy from the primary sponsor of national security doctrine, the United States. Democratic security, as it was developed in both South and Central America, can be defined as a “[ … ] more encompassing and positive concept that prioritizes the needs of individuals to live in peace and to have access to the economic, political and environmental resources required for a dignified existence” (Somavía and Insulza 1990: 7). According to the South American Peace, Security, and Democracy Commission (1988), not only did national security doctrine place the security of the “nation,” narrowly defined, above that of Latin American citizens, but also justified systematic repression and exclusion and the political tutelage of the armed forces. Therefore, institutional development, democracy, respect for human rights, civilian control over the military, and economies based upon the satisfaction of basic needs were considered the main domestic ingredients of the new security model. The promotion of regional cooperation and integration processes was also deemed essential and viewed as both complementary to internal democratization and guarantor of autonomy and independence internationally, in particular vis-à-vis the United States (Comisión Sudamericana de Paz 1988: 33). More so than any other policy document, the Framework Treaty on Democratic Security in Central America, signed in 1995, best embodies this new thinking at the practical level (Urgell 2006/ 2007). The key provisions included in the treaty were the separation of military and police matters, civilian control of the armed forces and the police, free and democratic elections, individual freedom, and social development as a prerequisite of security. In Latin American scholarship, the democratic security idea and the specific policy needs that it espoused were translated primarily into studies on civil–military relations (Diamint 2001; Castro 1995; Oliveira 1994; Rial 1990), security versus defense, and confidence building measures (Domínguez 1998; Palma 1990; Tulchin and Rojas 1998; Varas 1987). In the minds of most civilian practitioners and academics, civil–military relations and the delimitation of security and defense matters constituted two of the main challenges faced by the majority of the region’s countries. Both were markedly local concerns that emerged from the need to reclaim security from the control of the armed forces, to design civilian-led policies and to differentiate between security problems, in which the involvement of the armed forces and military “solutions” were unwelcome, and defense matters pertaining to territorial integrity and violent threats to the state that called for greater military participation. As a result of the above, the measures needed to establish cooperative security frameworks, in particular transparency, confidence-building and

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institutional strengthening, came to the forefront of the regional research agenda. Emphasis on confidence and security-building, which guarantee transparency of military procedures and the availability of information, replaced the stress on deterrence, one of the pillars of the concept of collective security (and defense) (Griffith 1998). Another important offshoot of the democratic security principle was the creation of a norm of protection of democratic regimes within the institutional framework of the OAS (Herz 2011a), in which representative democracy became a condition for participation beginning in the 1990s. The 1991 Santiago Declaration called for a prompt reaction of the region’s countries in the event of a threat to democracy in any member state, while Resolution 1080, passed at the same time, authorized the adoption of concrete measures in instances of suspension of constitutional rule. A reform of the OAS charter, effected by the 1992 Protocol of Washington, established that countries could be suspended from participation if a “democratically constituted” government was overthrown by force; the Inter-American Democratic Charter was adopted in 2001, further institutionalizing the democratic paradigm.7 The association between security and democracy, which was generated paradoxically within the context of the search for a Latin American solution to Latin American problems and as a result of U.S. attempts to revive hemispheric multilateralism, established a political and academic agenda rooted in the autonomy of the political process from the military establishment. This allowed regional countries to adapt to the hegemonic version of security transmitted through the UN system and regional organizations such as the OAS, in which Western liberal democracy was deemed the ultimate guarantor of security. Conversely, the move towards greater regional integration was one of the main answers at the time to the problem of autonomy vis-à-vis the United States, eventually leading to the creation of organizations such as the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). Domestic insecurity and transnational threats A key conclusion that the democratic security framework lent itself to was that sources of risk in Latin America were multifaceted, non-traditional, and unsusceptible to military solutions. However, in the immediate aftermath of democratic transitions, peace negotiations, and the Cold War, the Latin American security research agenda was largely preoccupied with policy issues (highlighted above) that the region’s states (and as we will discuss subsequently, foreign funding agencies) considered in need of resolution. Not until the late 1990s did regional scholars and states fully embrace a widened definition of security. The expansion of security studies during this period included several dimensions: (1) the incorporation of “nonconventional” topics not normally considered security problems, including

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drug trafficking, organized crime, migration, youth gang violence, natural disasters, and terrorism; (2) the examination of the links between ungovernability and insecurity at the national level; and (3) the study of the role of international, mostly hemispheric, mechanisms for achieving greater degrees of cooperation in order to address increasingly salient transnational security threats.8 As hinted at previously, the United States was largely responsible for launching the institutional debate on the redefinition of security at the OAS and the Conferences of Defense Ministers of the Americas (Herz 2011a). Negotiations on the subject evolved within the context of the Hemispheric Security Commission, created in 1991 and then becoming a permanent body in 1995. Acceptance of a broadened view of security on the part of most Latin American countries was conditional on their concerns about its effects upon state sovereignty, especially in relation to the U.S. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the targeting not only of terrorism but other non-traditional forms of violence—including organized crime and youth gangs—as security threats, heightened such fears. In consequence, concepts such as humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect never made their way into the OAS vocabulary. Hemispheric discussions led to the incorporation of an expanded concept that took into account the interdependence between economic, social, political and environmental issues and threats. The idea that so-called “new” threats to security, such as drug trafficking, the illegal traffic of arms, intrastate violence and the institutional fragilities of states could be tackled multilaterally also gained greater legitimacy among the hemisphere’s states. Finally, the level of regional coordination and debate on public security increased significantly, challenging, at least partially, the distinction between external and internal security. The 2003 OAS Special Security Conference, convened by the General Assembly in Mexico, constituted a watershed for this discussion in that the final Declaration on Security in the Americas defined security in multidimensional terms and called for a flexible security architecture to address the myriad security problems facing the countries of the Western hemisphere, as well as the differences existing between states and sub-regions (Rivera 2008). In so doing, the Declaration gave clear expression to a regional version of the security, democracy and human rights nexus in vogue internationally. The institutional frailty or “absence” of the state, along with related governance problems, became key concerns in scholarship on security during this period, largely because analysts and regional states associated them with the majority of non-traditional problems faced by the Latin American countries and their national populations (Mason and Tickner 2006; Sepulveda 2006; Serrano 1998). Institutional weakening, present in varying degrees throughout the region, was deemed to impair states’ abilities to carry out many of their core functions, including the exercise of authority over the national population and territory, the monopoly of the

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use of force, and the provision of basic public goods, including citizen security (Frühling and Tulchin 2003). The security subfield also began to draw connections between shared local problems such as institutional weakness, democratic governance, poverty, inequality, criminality and citizen insecurity, and scant regional cooperation on security matters (Mathieu and Guarnizo 2010; Mathieu and Rodríguez 2009; Sepulveda 2006; Tulchin, Benítez and Diamint 2006; Youngers and Rosin 2005). Given the salience of transnational organized crime and illicit flows of drugs (arms and people) as two of the most pressing problems shared by all Latin American countries, more scholarly work has gravitated around them than other issues such as migration, youth gangs, natural disasters, epidemics, or arms purchases, which are of greater or lesser concern depending upon the sub-region in question.9

Explaining security in Latin America As we have seen, scholarly activity and public debate on Latin American security grew considerably in the 1990s, as did broadened approaches to the subject matter. Our survey of the academic literature points to the salience of four features, which we discuss in this section: parochialism, statecentrism, the production of “policy knowledge” for which the creation of regional expertise has been a key tool and the invisibility of theory.10 Parochialism For the most part, security studies are geographically delimited to specific countries and sub-regions of Latin America, while almost none are grounded in an international level of analysis. The vast majority of the material produced deals with Latin American issues, conflicts, cooperation mechanisms, foreign policies and military establishments. In addition, next to nothing exists in the way of comparative analysis. Both factors have reinforced parochialism within the Latin America scholarly community, limiting interaction and comparison with other parts of the world. Colombia constitutes an extreme case of inward looking security analysis, due to its over half a century of armed conflict, while Brazil is perhaps the only outlier, given its bid to global power (Herz 2011b; Jobim, Etchegoyen and Alsina 2010). Parochialism is also manifest in the limited interaction that exists between security studies and wider social science debates; for example, dialogue with the considerable Latin American social science community that deals with distinct facets of violent conflict (including crime, race, ethnicity and gender) is negligible. The reasons for parochialism are varied. Comparatively low levels of international political influence, especially in the security realm, combined with the persistent intervention of external actors in regional security dynamics, especially the United States, constitute perhaps the simplest

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explanation. The magnitude of domestic security problems are a second driving force. The fact that violence and citizen insecurity has reached epidemic proportions in many sites and that transnational criminal actors and illegal flows are deeply entrenched region-wide tends to crowd out other facets of the security problem. For example, with the exception of Brazil, topics such as nuclear weapons or the rise of China, two key global security concerns today, are largely irrelevant. The fact that the absence of inter-state disputes in Latin America has not eliminated altogether the use of force, nor traditional security dilemmas (Hirst 2003; Mares and Bernstein 1998), has reinforced the salience of the region as the other primary site for security analyses. Recent frictions between Colombia and its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador—including the Colombian bombing of a leftist guerrilla camp in Ecuadorian territory in March 2008, mutual distrust among neighboring countries such as Peru and Chile due to stepped up military spending and weapons purchases, and the persistence of myriad obstacles to deeper regional and sub-regional security cooperation—seem to confirm the importance of this level of analysis. The history of the social sciences in Latin America is a final factor worthy of mention. Since their inception in the 1950s the study of local or national features has dominated the production of ideas and texts in all social science fields, even in larger and more influential countries such as Brazil. Florestan Fernandes’ (1958) belief that universities in wealthy nations should be responsible for the production of general theories while in the periphery, the study of local realities should predominate, is representative, even today, of a regional consensus concerning the appropriate focus of social science knowledge. In the case of Brazil security studies have become more “international” during the past 20 years. In tandem with the country’s growing role as a global interlocutor and security player, academic interest in security studies too has grown. The Brazilian state’s heavy investment in the training of qualified academics, growing concern with the Amazon region and the South Atlantic, increased participation in international peace operations, most notably in Haiti, and the search for a geopolitical leadership role in South America are some of the factors that explain this specificity. State-centrism Since Latin American independence, the state has been viewed as the principal domain of political, social and economic regulation, the main expression of the “nation” and a key symbol of national sovereignty. Additionally, since their inception between the 1950s and 1970s, the social sciences and IR have been geared largely towards matters of the state. It therefore comes as no surprise that security studies too share this state obsession.

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Tickner and Wæver (2009: 334–5) suggest that a state-centric ontology, which is common to IR throughout the world, is well suited to realist ideas about security, power and the national interest. This is one reason why realism and the statist version of liberalism are the preferred conceptual lenses through which Latin American security studies take place. Realist assumptions continue to inform the debate on security, even today. In particular, national security, threats to the state, deterrence, arms control, self-interested balancing, bandwagoning, material capacities and the distribution of power are some of the main analytical constructs found in scholarly work on this topic. On the other hand, the weight of liberalism (which in the Latin American context has acquired diplomatic legalist overtones) is observable in both the emphasis on multilateral security institutions and the confidence-building agenda that are at the core of recent security scholarship. The “distinctiveness” of the Latin American state vis-à-vis the developed world is implicit in many security analyses, although only rarely do scholars engage with the conceptual implications of such difference or the limitations of imported theories for analyzing the region’s security problems.11 Under authoritarianism, the state was identified as one of the major causes of national and regional insecurity, while current Latin American discussions point to ungovernability and institutional weakness as security problems precisely because such conditions impair the state’s ability to guarantee citizen security. And yet, at the same time that analysts point to sources of insecurity that are rooted in the states’ difference, they treat it in the homogeneous fashion often criticized by authors such as Mohammed Ayoob (1995), who claims that the specificity of third world states makes their security predicaments different. Even democratic security, the closest thing to what might be considered an alternative Latin American approach operates within this state-centric tradition. Notwithstanding its battle with national security doctrine, it too targeted the state as its main referent object, mainly in order to keep the military out of politics. In so doing, democratic security became a powerful discourse for talking about the affairs of the state and the duties of democratic regimes towards their citizens. Contrary to human security discourse, however, democratic security never identified human beings as its object of study. The fact that human security has never been widely embraced by Latin American scholars points to its essential misfit with regional approaches that are by nature statist and are part of the region’s long-standing tradition to view the state as an agent of modernization.12 Expert communities and policy knowledge As we have hinted, security studies’ constitution and identity have been largely attributable to interaction with the policy world, with which the prevailing view of the purpose of scholarly activity is “how to act efficiently

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as a bridge that connects public policy, decision makers and ideas” (Rojas 2000: 8–9). Ideas in this regard are considered useful to the extent that they can be translated into effective public policy decisions capable of resolving specific problems. In addition to providing “relevant” knowledge to the state, since the 1980s a key goal within the subfield has been to create civilian expertise in security and defense policy in order to allow civil society, national legislatures and academia to play a greater role in debates on and the elaboration of public policy. To this end, multiple efforts have been made to cultivate “communities of experts” in the region, in which international donors have participated heavily. A significant number of scholars and scholar-practitioners are linked together through regional and hemispheric networks dedicated exclusively to security and defense matters. The main security and defense networks that exist today include the Security and Defense Network in Latin America (Resdal), Creating Community in the Americas, coordinated by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Program on Regional Security Cooperation, led by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. All three share concern with civilian capacity building, the institutionalization of state security and defense within the framework of democratic civilian control, the creation of mutual confidence and cooperation between the region’s countries, and the development of more equal terms of security interaction between Latin America and the United States. To this end, each network organizes workshops and seminars, publishes working papers and reports, maintains extensive databases with bibliography on diverse aspects of the security and defense problematic, and seeks to deepen interaction between experts and policymakers. Conversely, none of the networks seems to favor the creation of theoretical approaches to security as an objective. Similar to the case of International Relations (Tickner 2009), foreign donors have been key players in the creation of civilian-dominated security studies. Tellingly, one of the underlying goals of funding activities has been to create a regional knowledge community in the security realm. In the case of the Ford Foundation, historically the largest funder of activities related to international relations and security, following a period in which it had reduced its support for IR programs abroad, non-traditional security issues came to the forefront of its grant-making concerns in the late 1990s.13 In Latin America and the Caribbean concern with the institutional weakness of regional states and a rising public security epidemic translated into support for issues such as domestic social conflict, public safety, human rights and democracy (Tschirgi 2006), much of which was channeled through the networks in question. The impact of these cross-national networks has been twofold. First, they have encouraged greater debate among Latin American security experts by providing them with a common language through which to address their subject matter and compare and contrast the security environments that characterize individual countries. Second, they have favored stronger

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interaction between academia and the policy world, given the knowledgedeficit characterizing many Latin American states in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, the need to reduce the military’s hold on security and defense thinking, and to bring the region more in line with post-Cold War security trends internationally, led civilian policymakers to seek out new ideas in this subfield, for which regional groups of experts became one of the primary providers. Invisible theory A final characteristic that stands out in Latin American security studies is their non-theoretical and descriptive nature. Tickner and Wæver (2009: 335–6) offer several explanations for the general “theory deficit” in the IR discipline globally that are pertinent for looking at the specific case of security studies in Latin America. At the most obvious level, there is an entrenched and palpable global division of labor whereby the center is seen as the main producer of theoretical knowledge and the periphery a simple consumer. Locally, many scholarly communities lend themselves enthusiastically to the reproduction of knowledge hegemony by favoring core knowledge and ignoring that which is produced at home. Foundations too reinforce the production of descriptive, policy-relevant knowledge, as suggested above. That a representative portion of Latin American intellectual production is funded by foreign foundations and that publications on security are mainly conference memoirs and papers, and policy briefs, none of which derive from systematic empirical research or make explicit use of theories, illustrates this relationship. As we have shown, Latin American scholars have gone to great lengths to discuss how security connects to different problems. Since the late 1980s, when security was first linked to democracy and regional integration, emphasis has been placed on determining the term’s desirable scope and the types of issues that it should (and should not) envelop. Notwithstanding scholarly interest in “operationalizing” security, little debate has taken place over what it actually means. Therefore, the concept has failed to play the classical role of “handmaiden” or “building block” of theory (Gerring 1999). Take for instance the idea of democratic security. Rather than leading to a wider theorization on the links between security, democracy, the state, and integration, this distinctly Latin American reflection basically mutated into work on civil–military relations and confidence-building measures. The conceptual emptiness of the term even lent itself to appropriation and redefinition by the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe, whose “democratic security policy” launched in 2002 in order to combat leftist guerrillas and drugs, looked eerily similar to earlier national security doctrine. A comparable dynamic can be observed in the case of “securitization.” Admittedly, its frequent use in regional discourses on security may seem like an indication that a wider theoretical and epistemological debate is

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under way in the region.14 However, although broadly used, the concept is largely dissociated from the theory that it serves in global security studies (Wæver 1995). Instead and in keeping with previous attempts to demilitarize the security domain, “securitization” reflects shared fears that a broad, multidimensional definition of security will produce not only an unwanted militarization of a diverse array of non-traditional problems, but that in doing so it might also make the region vulnerable to international and U.S. meddling, particularly in the context of the expansion of the UN Security Council agenda. Beyond the primacy of policy relevant knowledge Latin American understandings of theory and its role in academic practice—as evidenced in subfields such as security (and in IR more broadly)—vary from those prevailing in the United States or Europe. Although Gabriel Abend (2006) develops this argument specifically in the case of Mexican and U.S. sociology, the author’s insights are pertinent for regional security studies too. According to Abend, whereas in the United States theories are strongly associated with empirical data, variables, hypotheses, testing and value-neutrality, in Mexico they are not normally tested by nor related to data, nor is the belief that neutrality is a good thing widely shared. Moreover, “theory” usually refers to concepts and definitions borrowed from existing theories and used to interpret specific problems (Abend 2006: 7).15 As we have seen, Latin American security problems are rarely examined with the goal of illustrating larger theoretical issues or with establishing comparisons with other parts of the world. Instead, most analyses are posed in “ought to” language that is suggestive not only of value judgments (Abend 2006: 22), but in this specific case, of the audience to which the security literature is largely directed: the state and policymakers. Curiously, an overwhelming number of titles produced on Latin American security include prescriptive language such as “challenge” and “goal,” which presuppose diagnoses of specific problems and the offering of answers on the part of the analyst as to how policy makers should proceed in order to address them.16

Conclusion The most original and critical intellectual production in Latin America in the social sciences can be situated between the 1940s and the 1970s, when scholars imagined and developed critical theoretical–empirical analyses of regional realities (Dominguez 2006: 8). During this period, reflections on security were instead dominated by geo-strategic European thinking and U.S.-inspired national security doctrines linked to the Cold War and to authoritarianism. When the study of security was finally able to flourish within the context of civilian governments and increased scholarly activity, the creativity encountered in earlier times was nowhere to be found. As we

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have noted, concepts such as democratic security may have underwritten interesting and democratically-inspired political and strategic propositions— a lofty accomplishment in itself—but they failed to produce novel theoretical frameworks within which to understand security in Latin America. Perhaps one of the most puzzling aspects of security scholarship is that despite the peripheral nature of the region’s insertion into the international system, a broad tradition of questioning the global distribution of power and the recent rise of leftist leaning governments, critical approaches have had only a limited influence. Nor has the specificity of regional security problems, including transnational crime, illicit flows, youth violence and citizen insecurity, translated into creative forms of synthesis with other fields of the social sciences that focus on like issues. Latin America’s penchant for importing theories and concepts from abroad is tainted by the perception—rarely acknowledged explicitly—that the attempt to adapt ideas developed in other social and political contexts is never complete and is rife with tension. Thus foreign theoretical knowledge often becomes an insulated tool that is used to categorize reality and that lends legitimacy to scholars, but that never completely accounts for local problems. And yet, the subfield of security and International Relations in general remain fixated on a statist model inherited from the Western world and intent on producing policy guidelines for that same state. In fact, the standard for scholarly “relevance” is deeply rooted in the idea that knowledge should help state actors to gain better understandings of specific security issues and to develop more effective policies to address them. In sum, reflecting upon the difference that is implicit in Latin America’s security problems, as has been attempted by social scientists in other fields, is not yet a chief concern of those scholars who study security. Until this occurs the subfield will continue to be defined primarily by the region’s political agenda.

Notes 1 Interestingly, the origin of security studies in the United States was also largely related to the rise of civilian experts on matters previously reserved for the military. See Wæver and Buzan (2010). 2 The dispute for regional influence among great powers has in fact been a permanent feature of Latin America’s entire independent history. 3 Brazilian “exceptionalism,” tied to it being the only country that has regularly sought out an international role, will be addressed where pertinent throughout the chapter. 4 The NSD thus legitimated authoritarian military regimes on the grounds that either there were armed insurgencies that threatened stability (and thus hampered development) or there were leftist governments in power that posed no less of a threat. 5 Although other major countries such as Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela survived this authoritarian interlude, they too underwent elite pacts designed to dismantle popular demands.

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6 While the armed forces, largely due to the influence of geopolitical doctrine, viewed development and security as two related dynamics, regional elites imbued with the findings of the Economic Commission of Latin America (ECLA) considered development to be the main building block of the state. 7 Other regional organizations such as the South American Union of Nations, unasur, the Andean Community of Nations, CAN, and the South American Common Market, mecosur, have followed the lead of the OAS by internalizing the democratic norm as the sole legitimate form of government. 8 Two comprehensive overviews of regional security during this current period include Grabendorff (2003) and Tulchin, Benítez and Diamint (2006). 9 On the problems of drugs and organized crime, see, for example, Mathieu and Rodríguez (2009); Mathieu and Niño (2010); Tokatlian (2009); and Youngers and Rosin (2005). 10 In addition to the literature cited in this chapter, we reviewed the contents of a dozen specialized Latin American IR or security journals (Colombia Internacional, Comentario Internacional, Contexto Internacional, Estudios Internacionales, Estudios Político Militares, Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, Foro Internacional, Fuerzas Armadas y Sociedad, Nueva Sociedad, Política Externa, Relaciones Internacionales and Revista Brasilera de Política Internacional) between 1990 and 2010; and conducted searches on the two security network publication databases that exist in the region, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Regional Security Cooperation, http://www.seguridadregional-fes.org and Latin American Security and Defense Network (Resdal), http://www.resdal.org 11 See Rut Diamint (2001) and Carlos Escudé (1995) for two exceptions. In his peripheral realist analysis of Argentine foreign policy, Escudé argues that the predominance of realism has historically led to power politics-based dynamics for which the country has no resources. In turn, Diamint points to the difficulties of accommodating the U.S. literature on civil–military relations in cases of weakly consolidated democracies. Contrary to the case of IR and security studies, the field of sociology, primarily through approaches such as dependency, has historicized the development of the state and the conditioning role played by global capitalism. 12 Rojas and Gaucha (2002) constitute one attempt to introduce human security into the Latin American debate. 13 Today, the Open Society Institute is the main contender for foundationbased influence, given that it constitutes the primary source of funding for research and networking activities related to transnational organized crime and illicit drugs. 14 See, for example, Oelsner (2009) and Tickner (2004). 15 In Latin American IR and security studies, the fragmented incorporation of terms and concepts (“picking and choosing”) is also prevalent (Tickner 2003, 2009). 16 An unstructured search on the FES website, which contains perhaps the largest database of texts produced on security in Latin America, indicates that the word “desafíos” is one of the most recurrent in titles, more so than “amenaza.”

References Abend, Gabriel (2006) “Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the Mexican and U.S. Quests for Truth,” Sociological Theory, 24(1): 1–41. Ayoob, Mohammed (1995) The Third World Security Predicament, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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Backheuser, Everardo (1926) Una estructura política de Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Mendoca, Machado y Cia. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Enzo Faletto (1978) Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina: Ensayo de interpretación sociológica, México: Siglo XXI Editores. Castro, Celso (1995) Os militares e a República: um estudo sobre cultura e ação política, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. Cavagnari Filho, Geraldo Lesbat (1994) “América del Sur: algunos elementos para la definición de la seguridad nacional,” in Francisco Leal Buitrago and Juan Gabriel Tokatlian (eds), Orden mundial y seguridad: Nuevos desafíos para Colombia y América Latina, Bogotá: TM Editores-SID-IEPRI, pp. 49–76. Caviedes, César (1988) “The Emergence and Development of Geopolitical Doctrines in the South Cone Countries,” in Philip Kelly and Jack Child (eds), Geopolitics of the South Cone and Antarctica, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner Publisher, pp. 13–29. Child, John (1979) “Geopolitical Thinking in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, 14(2): 89–111. Comisión Sudamericana para la paz, la seguridad regional y la democracia (1988) “Second Plenary Session, June 8–10, 1988,” Santiago: Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales. Couto e Silva, Golbery do (1958) Planejamento Estratégico, Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército. —— (1967) Geopolítica do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympo. Diamint, Rut (2001) Seguridad y democracia en América Latina, Buenos Aires: GEL-Nuevohacer-Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Domingues, Jose Mauricio and Maria Maneiro (2006) América Latina hoje conceitos e interpretações Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Domínguez, Jorge I. (ed) (1998) International Security and Democracy. Latin America and the Caribbean in the Post-Cold War Era, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Escudé, Carlos (1995) El realismo de los estados débiles, Buenos Aires: GEL. Fernandes, Florestan (1958) A etnologia e a sociologia no Brasil, São Paulo: Anhembi. Frühling, Hugo and Joseph Tulchin with Heather A. Golding (eds) (2003) Crime and Violence in Latin America: Citizen Security, Democracy, and the State, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Gerning, John (1999) “What Makes a Concept Good? A Critical Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences,” Polity, 31(3): 357–93. Gill, Lesley (2004) The School of the Americas, Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grabendorff, Wolf (ed) (2003) La seguridad en las Américas. Enfoques críticos y conceptos alternativos, Bogotá: FESCOL-CEREC. Griffith, Ivelaw L. (1998) “Security Collaboration and Confidence Building in the Americas,” in Jorge I. Domínguez (ed), International Security and Democracy. Latin America and the Caribbean in the Post-Cold War Era, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 109–87. Herz, Mônica (2011a) The Organization of American States (OAS): Global Governance Away from the Media, New York: Routledge. —— (2011b) “Brazil: Major Power in the Making,” in Thomas J. Volgy, Renato Corbetta, Ryan G. Baird, and Keith A. Grant (eds), Major Powers and the Quest

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for Status in International Politics: Global and Regional Perspectives, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 159–80. Hirst, Monica (2003) “Seguridad regional en las Américas,” in Wolf Grabendorff (ed), La seguridad en las Américas. Enfoques críticos y conceptos alternativos, Bogotá: FESCOL-CEREC, pp. 25–80. Jobim, Nelso, Sergio Etchegoyen and João Paulo Alsina (2010), Segurança internacional. Perspectivas brasileiras, São Paulo: Fundação Getulio Vargas. Kelly, Philip (1997) Checker boards & Shatterbelts: The Geopolitics of South America, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Kelly, Philip and Jack Childs (eds) (1988) Geopolitics and the Southern Cone and Antartica, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Leal Buitrago, Francisco (1994) El oficio de la guerra: La seguridad nacional en Colombia, Bogotá: TM Editores-IEPRI. Lowenthal, Abraham F. and Samuel Fitch, J. (ed) (1986) Armies and Politics in Latin America, New York and London: Holmes & Meier. Maira, Luis (1990) “El estado de la seguridad nacional en América Latina,” in Pablo González Casanova (coord.), El Estado en América Latina: Teoría y práctica, Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores-Universidad de la ONU, pp. 108–30. Mares, David (2008) “The National Security State,” in Thomas H. Holloway (ed), A Companion to Latin American History, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 386–405. Mares, David and Steven A. Bernstein (1998) “The Use of Force in Latin American Inter-State Relations,” in Jorge I. Domínguez (ed), International Security and Democracy. Latin America and the Caribbean in the Post-Cold War Era, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 29–47. Mason, Ann C. and Arlene B. Tickner (2006) “A Transregional Security Cartography of the Andes,” in Paul W. Drake and Eric Hershberg (eds), State and Society in Conflict. Comparative Perspectives on Andean Crises, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 74–98. Mathieu, Hans and Catalina Niño Guarnizo (eds) (2010) Seguridad regional en América Latina y el Caribe. Anuario 2010, Bogotá: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Mathieu, Hans and Paula Rodríguez (eds) (2009) Seguridad regional en América Latina y el Caribe. Anuario 2009, Bogotá: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. McSherry, J. Patrice (2005) Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America, Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Miyamoto, Shigenoli (1981) Geopolitical Studies in Brazil: A Contribution to their Evaluation, São Paulo: Perspectivas. O’Donnell, Guillermo (1972) Modernización y autoritarismo, Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidós. —— (1975) “Reflexiones sobre las tendencias generales de cambio en el Estado burocrático-autoritario,” Documento CEDES-CLACSO, No. 1, August. —— (1978) “Tensiones en el Estado burocrático-autoritario y la cuestión de la democracia,” Documento CEDES-CLACSO, No. 11, April. Oelsner, Andrea (2009) “Consensus and Governance in Mercosur: The Evolution of the South American Security Agenda,” Security Dialogue, 40(2): 191–212. Oliveira, Eliézer Rizzo de (1994) De Geisel a Collor: Forças Armadas, transição e democracia, Campinas: Papirus. Palma, Hugo (1990) “Medidas de confianza recíproca,” in Juan Somavía and José Miguel Insulza (comps.) (1990) Seguridad democrática regional. Una concepción

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alternativa, Santiago and Caracas: Comisión Sudamericana de Paz-Nueva Sociedad, pp. 283–319. Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto (1974), Geopolítica, Santiago: Editorial Andrés Bello. Pion-Berlin, David (1989) “Latin American National Security Doctrines: Hard and Softline Themes,” Armed Forces & Society, 15(3): 411–29. Rial, Juan (1990) “Relaciones cívico-militares: diálogo para el fortalecimiento de la democracia,” in Juan Somavía and José Miguel Insulza (comps.) (1990) Seguridad democrática regional. Una concepción alternativa, Santiago and Caracas: Comisión Sudamericana de Paz-Nueva Sociedad, pp. 253–68. Rivera, Fredy (ed) (2008) Seguridad multidimensional en América Latina, Quito: FLACSO. Rojas Aravena, Francisco (2000) “Repensando la seguridad en América Latina: nuevas demandas conceptuales,” Fuerzas Armadas y Sociedad, 15 (2), April–June: 3–13. Rojas Aravena, Francisco and Moufida Gaucha (eds) (2002) Seguridad humana, prevención de conflictos y paz, Santiago: UNESCO-FLACSO. Schoultz, Lars (1987) National Security and United States Policy Toward Latin America, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sepulveda, Isidro (ed) (2006) Democracia y seguridad en Iberoamérica. Los retos de la gobernabilidad, Madrid: Instituto Universitario General Gutiérrez Mellado. Serrano, Monica (1998) “América Latina: la nueva agenda de seguridad,” Foro Internacional, 38 (1): 124–44. Somavía, Juan and José Miguel Insulza (comps.) (1990) Seguridad democrática regional. Una concepción alternativa, Santiago and Caracas: Comisión Sudamericana de Paz-Nueva Sociedad. Stepan, Alfred (1971) The Military in Politics. Changing Patterns in Brazil, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tickner, Arlene B. (2003) “Hearing Latin American Voices in IR,” International Studies Perspectives, 4(4): 325–50. —— (2004) “La securitización de la crisis colombiana: bases conceptuales y tendencias generales,” Colombia Internacional, 60, July–December: 13–35. —— (2008) “Latin American IR and the Primacy of lo práctico,” International Studies Review, 10(4), December: 735–48. —— (2009) “Latin America: Still Policy Dependent after all these Years?” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds) International Relations Scholars around the World, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 32–51. Tickner, Arlene B. and Ole Wæver (2009) “Conclusion. Worlding where the West once was,” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 328–41. Tokatlian, Juan Gabriel (comp.) (2009) La guerra contra las drogas en el mundo andino, Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal. Tschirgi, Necla (2006) “Analyzing the Ford Foundation’s Peace, Conflict and Security Work, 2001–2006,” Final Report submitted to the Ford Foundation, commissioned for the Peace and Social Justice Program global meeting, Delhi, India, December. Tulchin, Joseph S. and Francisco Rojas Aravena (eds) (1998) Strategic Balance and Confidence Building Measures in the Americas, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press-Stanford University Press.

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Tulchin, Joseph S. and Ralph H. Espach (1998) “Confidence Building in the Americas: A Conclusion,” in Joseph S. Tulchin and Francisco Rojas Aravena (eds), Strategic Balance and Confidence Building Measures in the Americas, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press-Stanford University Press, pp. 172–9. Tulchin, Joseph S., Raúl Benítez Manaut and Rut Diamint (eds) (2006) El Rompecabezas. Conformando la seguriad hemisférica en el siglo XXI, Buenos Aires: Prometeo-Bononiae. Urgell García, Jordi (2006/2007) “La seguridad (humana) en Centroamérica: ¿retorno al pasado?” Revista CIDOB D’Afers Internacionals, 76, December– January: 143–58. Varas, Augusto (1987) “De la competencia a la cooperación militar en América Latina,” in Augusto Varas (comp.), Paz, desarme y desarrollo en América Latina, Buenos Aires: GEL-RIAL, pp. 9–21. Wæver, Ole (1995) “Securitization and Desecuritization,” in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed), On Security, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 46–86. Wæver, Ole and Barry Buzan (2010) “After the Return to Theory: The Past, Present, and Future of Security Studies,” in Alan Collins (ed), Contemporary Security Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 463–83. Youngers, Coletta A. and Eileen Rosin (eds) (2005) Drugs and Democracy in Latin America, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Part B

State, sovereignty and authority

6

The state of the African state and politics Ghosts and phantoms in the heart of darkness Siba Grovogui

The study of Africa in the Anglophone discipline of political science suffers from two separate, though related, sets of conditions. The first pertains to the spatial setting of disciplinary agendas and related practices. In the U.S., for instance, scholars of Africa, whether in the subfields of comparative politics or International Relations, have had to negotiate their own relations to the past and the present. Where this past involves Africa, there is notable ambivalence toward, as well as ambiguities around, issues of slavery, colonialism and postcolonial/neocolonial relations. The dominant ideological stance disavows the African past—of slavery, colonialism and, more recently, the Cold War—as mere misfortune better left alone. With regard to the present, the reality of U.S. power and its imperial aspirations have also influenced the study of Africa. Here, one detects frustration that the constitutional and institutional arrangements imposed at decolonization failed to deliver the promised progress, modernization and modernity. In response, scholars have identified “African dysfunctions”—including political violence and instability, dictatorship and authoritarianism, and state failure and civil wars—as reasons for the inefficacy of postwar U.S. and European interventions in the continent, including aid. The second set of conditions that affect the study of Africa is the marginality of African analysts in most fields of academic production. This argument is not determinist. In 1973, for instance, African social scientists and activists established the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria) in order to develop skills and scientific tools for a pan-African community of active researchers interested in the cohesion, welfare, and progress of African societies. This obviously required the protection of the intellectual freedom and autonomy of the scholars concerned. However, it remains true that most contributions from Africa come from scholars trained in Western academies where they are subject to existing disciplinary practices, no matter their perspectives. This situation has been compounded by a brain drain that was amplified by the dismantling of the infrastructure of African universities beginning in the 1980s under the mandates of the International Monetary Fund for the structural adjustment of national economies, privatization of national assets, and the

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devaluation of national currencies. The ensuing landscape of the African university has since grown even bleaker with its corporatization under neoliberalism and the advent of the globalization of the production of knowledge. As I too am trained by the U.S. academy, this chapter is not intended as an “indigenous African perspective” founded analytically in African traditions. I also concede that the authoritative or dominant disciplinary discourses and narratives of Africa cannot be countered in one essay. My goal is to examine primarily U.S. academic practices and truisms on Africa. I focus on disciplinary verities on the African state, about which there are clear tendencies, principally: (1) the absence of historicity and/or temporal and spatial dimensions to research and discourses on Africa; and (2) the omission of the strictures of the global political economy and power politics as context for much of the corruption and violence in Africa. This is not to say that the failings, misdeeds, and misfortunes of Africans are attributable exclusively to the machinations of foreign powers or to structures or dynamics beyond their control. Africans are participants at all levels of the interactions and dynamics to which I allude. However, the degrees and manners of their participation are open questions. The following is both a historical survey of the study of Africa in the discipline of political science and an alternative reading of African politics that acknowledges not only the political openings afforded by decolonization and its associated mechanisms of production, distribution, and consumption, but also supposed endogenous dimensions of African politics. My first objective is thus to examine analysts’ perceptions of the material and symbolic endowments of the wards of the African state at the time of decolonization. These are determined partly by the global distribution of power, the political economy, and corresponding regimes of sovereignty and morality. My second objective is to review claims of the ability (or failure) of African rulers to make sense of the actual mechanisms and processes of global power and their cultural and ethical norms, regimes of laws, and their modes of enforcement. Finally, I examine the extent to which African elites are said to be responsible for the state of African politics. For this purpose, “African politics” encompasses domestic contentions originating from strictly local dynamics; but it also includes claims and positions resulting from outside the state in the interstices of external interventions by foreign powers, international and transnational actors, whether incorporated or otherwise, based on the effects of their mechanisms and processes on domestic politics. In short, I am interested in all dimensions of postcolonial politics so long as they bear on the constitutional compact and the legitimacy of the state, other actors, and their agendas. I remain mindful that the disciplinary production of Africa occurs within multiple, apparently competing, methodological artifices, each with their own institutional, ideological, and political particularities. Thus, I should note that theories of imperialism, neo-colonialism, and political economy are excluded from the

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present discussion, which focuses on the negation of the historical contingencies and relational dynamics that give context and meaning to the African condition.

Time, space and their derivations I start with Mahmood Mamdani’s lament in Citizens and Subjects (1996: 13) that Africanist discourse is more programmatic and analogical than historical and analytical. Mamdani’s comment is directed at efforts to dispense with structuralism in the guise of restoring historicity to African politics and agency to African subjects (Mamdani 1996: 10). To him, the resulting methodologies have largely reproduced a trope according to which things African are one of two sorts: either particular instantiations of more universal phenomena that flow progressively, uniformly, and teleologically from the West to the rest; or separate and self-contained and therefore barely connected to other equally self-contained regions of the world. While the indicted theories (and theorists) reject the universal empiricist suppositions of positivism and rationalism, they espouse an equally universal faith in the revelatory and redemptive properties of their own methodological artifices— including post-positivism, post-structuralism, and post-modernism—also imported from Western academies. Mamdani (1996) is not implying that the validity of theory depends on its origins. He is addressing the historicity of the new methods themselves, particularly the relationships between, on the one hand, their modes of justification and legitimation and, on the other, the temporal and spatial exigencies from which they arise. The coming into effect of the new scientific and linguistic devices takes place in a context of national transformations within Western societies owing to new global dynamics. The latter also affect the relations between the West and other regions. It is Mamdani’s position that the new methodologies do not enhance the analytical and comparative capacities of analysts because they fail to properly appreciate how global processes of power, cultural production, and political economy participate in their own social and symbolic constitution of the regions of the world, including the West and Africa. In sum, Mamdani suspects that professional Africanists fail to understand “Africa” and/or to capture the complexities of “African” politics because they proceed analytically from concerns and logics that are either not pertinent to the lives or plight of their subjects, or they are beholden to extraneous concerns such as personal ambitions, demonstration of mastery of professional procedures, or political inhibitions. Mamdani is not alone. Michel-Rolph Trouillot has shown in Silencing the Past (1995: 49) that it would be naïve to assume that the primary interest of the disciplinary gaze at other regions and subjects, historically connected to or governed outright by the West, is motivated strictly by objectivity, positively understood as the disinterested pursuit of truth, uncontaminated by temporal and spatial conditions and considerations. In fact, according

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to Trouillot, the texture and particularities of the distance between “what happens” historically and “what is said to have happened” by professional and other properly constituted guilds is seldom inconsequential. This is because such distance is mediated by regimes of truth long imbued with specifiable interests, values, norms, and their affected states. Trouillot (1995: 48–52) reckons that silences are inherent to history because events enter into it necessarily stripped of significant parts. The interesting question for Trouillot is which parts get left out, which are recorded and why. The author himself provides some answers. Events and their significances are mediated by externalities and conditions proper to time and place. This is to say that the important factors or dimensions of the political, historical, and socio-cultural environments are not necessarily self-evident. The importance of events therefore flows from social and political considerations, affective dispositions, and the requirements and exigencies of professional guilds, including the desire to perform or to stay relevant to disciplinary and policy debates. Further, Trouillot (1995: 45) insists that there is “interplay between the inequalities in the historical process and inequalities in the historical narrative” such that the “inequalities experienced by [ … ] actors lead to uneven historical power in the inscription of traces,” which in return “privilege some events over others” (Trouillot 1995: 48). Gillian Hart (2006), too, is concerned that theorists and other analysts of Africa have lost sight of the modern imaginary and imperial vision upon which Africa’s place in the global order is predicated. To Hart, scholars too often ignore important dimensions of global politics specific to the continent, including longstanding mechanisms of dispossession and its underlying violence. This neglect obscures the “power-laden processes of constitution, connection, and disconnection” (Hart 2006: 982) that lay at the core of the regimes of law, morality, and ethics underpinning the international order. To speak meaningfully of Africa and African politics, according to Hart, it might be more accurate (historically and scientifically) to begin with the relational constitution of Africa as a space or region through processes and mechanisms of power, economy, and culture, including law. Thus, it is a space or region at once connected and disconnected both materially and symbolically from other regions of the world through cultural and ethical norms (the temporal predicates of legitimate power); structures and processes of global governance (the material embodiment of power); and practices of politics, law, and morality that both integrate Africa into the globe but also set it apart relationally as a distinct entity. Following these authors, this chapter is built around two central propositions. The first is that the substance of analyses of Africa is not merely a function of the fact that its study is dominated by forces and concerns outside of the continent. Such a view would be too simplistic if it led to the conclusion that analyses may be righted simply by the presence of Africans in research or the inclusion of African views. The networks, mechanisms,

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and modes of production, distribution, and consumption of power, culture, and values that form the context of the central concerns of “African studies” may originate from without Africa but they also operate within. In some cases, the very intellectual process that examines Africa as an object also contributes to the definition of its very boundaries and properties as an object. In this sense, knowledge of Africa is not acquired through the moral equivalent of osmosis by the mere fact of being African; nor is knowledge valid, authentic, or legitimate merely because it was “produced” in Africa. My second postulate is that “African difference” is relative. This relativity is only fully appreciated when it is placed in its proper global context based on a relational comparison with other regions of the world. This is not to negate “African perspectives,” loosely construed as ones shaped by historical concerns and affective structures and interests such as reflected by my own arguments. It is to say that no one operates outside of history and that all scholars are affected by the processes of modernity and its complex structures and networks of power, its mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion, and its modes of governance. In this context, the relevant question in assessing analyses of Africa should not be illusions of authenticity and irreproachability but whether the methods or modes of analysis more or less accurately capture the “local,” “national,” and “global” mechanisms that produce subjects through the application of the rule of law and violence; the underlying constitutional assignation of entitlements and their modes of inclusion and exclusion; and their instituted forms of political adjudication of conflicts through the constitution of values, norms, and interests. Together, the modern sovereign state system and the base global political economy give form to the above, along with international morality, which itself is integral to worldwide contestations over the determination of goods, from consumables to law, ethics, and morality and the practices that flow from them.

The African state as an object It is undeniable that decolonization expanded the spheres of freedom and the expression of sovereign will by Africans. Yet, the extent of African leaders’ ability to shape their own destinies and those of their populations has been exaggerated by analyses that focus on the fact of the transfer of power from former colonial rulers to African elites at the time of political independence, without placing postcolonial governance into the historical context of its advent: the Cold War, global capitalism and the determination of former colonial powers to maintain their hegemonic positions within both. These analyses, typical of the first generation of Africanist scholarship on the African state, frequently opened with a skeptical if mocking glance at one of Kwame Nkrumah’s admonitions to his peers: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be added onto you”

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(cited in Mazrui 1993: 105). As Ali Mazrui points out, Nkrumah had been mistaken about the ability of the postcolonial state to meet the expectations of citizens in the context of weak institutional and economic capacities as well as entrenched ethnic and class divisions. Mazrui hastens to add that these factors alone did not seal the fate of Nkrumah and those of other leaders who followed. Mazrui points to other dimensions of postcolonial governance, including the Cold War, which are often noted and yet not incorporated in the explanations of the ultimate outcome of postcolonial governance. Significantly, the bipolar conflict led to manifest neocolonial interference and the overthrow of democratically elected but “disagreeable” African leaders. Nkrumah (who was overthrown in 1966) was a victim of both interference and removal. He was preceded by Congo’s Patrice Lumumba (1961) and Togo’s Sylvanius Olympia (1963). All three were replaced by military dictators. These coups were executed by multinational alliances that included locals and yet their mechanisms of implementation and structures of legitimation were all commodities of global politics long before African independence. The neo-colonial events would not have taken place with the assent of segments of postcolonial elites. Nonetheless, they show the degree to which postcolonial elites were enabled, constrained, or burdened by the regulatory and constitutive dimensions of Cold War politics, its institutions and regimes of legitimacy. The scale of imperial interference and the willingness to overthrow governments were only the external signs of neo-colonial webs of power—and therefore of actors, agents, and subjects—that gave content and form to the new global regimes of law, morality, and ethics that characterized the postcolonial era. Yet, as I show below, the ways in which these regimes were constituted in the Cold War period and their effects on the postcolonial African state are often minimized or neglected in English-speaking literature on this topic. In the 1980s, for instance, Prosser Gifford and Wm. Roger Louis (1988) issued two compendia on decolonization and the transfer of power in Africa that assembled towering figures in African studies and looked retrospectively at the final 20 years of colonial rule and the first 20 years of national independence. Crawford Young (1988), who penned the first chapter of volume two, professes to approach the African state as an historical actor, a collective agent of macropolitical processes. However, he quickly turns to the trope of the “reason of state” as the crystallizing imperative that festers in the mind of officeholders and therefore guides state behavior. This imperative, Young claims, can be observed through the state will to domestic hegemony, internal security, political autonomy, moral legitimacy, and revenue collection. By attributing the actions of the postcolonial state to a universalized concept of state rationality, Young ignores the postcolonial state’s constitutive relationship to ideologies of liberation and to the geopolitical dynamics that placed constraints on them. In Young’s model of analysis, decolonization was the result of the constant interactions of three levels of agency: African, metropolitan,

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and international. On its face, this position is legitimate and even demonstrable. Young also intimates that both the “African” and the “international” proceed and flow from the “metropolitan”: the West. Not only does Young fail to give space to African ideas and imaginaries of decolonization and postcolonial freedom, he mistakenly conflates decolonization and political franchise without much thought given to the possibility that European ideas and institutions of freedom might have undermined African self-determination. The mere equation of decolonization with a transfer of power forecloses possible questions about the terms of settlements on the economy, fiduciary responsibility, and transfer of assets, or to put it bluntly, compensation and other adjudications of the colonial “inheritance,” including property. In neglecting these and other questions, Africanists dispense with the colonial legacy and postwar politics in their diagnoses of the causes of the crisis of the African state. These omissions are all the more astounding since the connections from the present to the past seldom required a stretch of the imagination. Young, for instance, was a scholar of Congo. Colonial Congo, it should be recalled, was among the most brutalized colonies of Africa, where forced labor, child labor, punishment by amputation, and like cruelties were introduced by the colonial overlord as mechanisms of social control. Congo is also where the U.S. and the Soviet Union came into direct conflict in Africa over the objections of Ghana, Guinea, Egypt, and Tanzania; where the first elected African head of government was assassinated; where foreign agencies were first involved in such an assassination; and where the United States backed the then most corrupt ruler in the history of postcolonial Africa. Only two years after Lumumba was assassinated, President Olympio was killed by the Togolese army; and three years later, Nkrumah was overthrown. The assassination of Lumumba opened an era of Western-backed military coups and rule that was followed a decade later by a wave of Soviet-backed military coups and dictatorships. The related events were the object of studies in the 1970s and 1980s by Samuel Decalo (1976) and others. These scholars purposefully moved beyond “the previously fashionable discourse on the merits of unipartyism, mass vis-à-vis elite parties, panAfricanism, and African socialism,” to develop research agendas on military rule in Africa. Such studies systematically surveyed countries led by military juntas or regimes. But, as Decalo himself acknowledged, they were based largely in “theories of organization” that grossly reified the African army. He also bemoaned the fact that, while they had become fashionable, the new studies paid scant attention to prior studies of the African state (Decalo 1976: 1–3). Finally, Decalo attributed methodological flaws to studies of army rule, particularly qualitative analyses of unreliable archival materials and self-interested interviewees. Even so, Decalo joined his peers in likening military takeover metaphorically with the coming into being of the praetorian state. As narrated,

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post-1970s army coups followed the advent of single-party regimes to which there was significant opposition. This liberalizing opposition would strategically align itself with the military, which would lead to the restoration of the rule of law. In retrospect, the prediction of Africanists according to which Western-backed authoritarian (military) regimes would lead the way to the rule of law was mistaken (Kirkpatrick 1979). The thesis of the praetorian state thus served to disguise, first, the Cold War lineages of the politics of army takeover and, second, the repression, corruption, and moral decay instituted upon takeover. Decalo is right that military regimes found something to exploit in panAfrican ideologies. Long before decolonization, African nationalists joined their Asian and Middle Eastern counterparts in their faith in unified coalitions as a formula for power. This idea of national unity along secular lines took form in Congress, and spread from the Indian subcontinent in the Indian Congress party to the southern tip of Africa with the African National Congress. The French-speaking counterpart to Congress was the Rassemblement. This idea had such a pull that nearly every colonial territory in the French empire had its branch of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain, which in turn sought to unite all decolonization movements in their purpose. By the 1970s, the ideas of Congress and Rassemblement had been translated and distorted politically as authoritarian one-party systems. In this context, insurgency armies too could claim at least rhetorically to restore national unity in times of crises that many of the coup-makers helped to instigate. Like their civilian counterparts, military regimes also had their strongmen who claimed the mantle of father and savior of the nation. This trend prompted books such as Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg’s Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (1982). In their account, the politics and governments of Africa operated “without the benefit of institutions” and in this context, political scientists were well advised to “watch the key players,” as a guide to the manners in which “political institutions are developed, maintained, and destroyed” (Jackson and Rosberg 1982: xi). In personalizing politics, Jackson and Rosberg omitted the fact that Africa has become the theatre of global contests, a fact amply documented by Zaki Laidi (1990), Arthur Gavshon (1981), and Anthony Lake (1973), among others. The views of the latter three scholars are complemented by others such as Henry F. Jackson (1982), who highlights the ideological, racial, and personal dimensions of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa; John Stockwell (1978), a former chief of the CIA Angola Task Force who fleshed out U.S. efforts to subvert nationalist movements; and William Minter (1986), who exposed the business ties that paved the path to U.S. actions and support for “reactionary” and “criminal” regimes throughout Southern Africa. The perspectives of the last three authors are complemented by African and pan-African scholars who broach the same subjects from somewhat insider standpoints. The first, Walter Rodney (1982), incontestably linked

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the advent of the Industrial Revolution to underdevelopment in Africa during the eras of imperialism and colonialism. This treatise did not merely expose the impact of the European Industrial Revolution on Africa but it conclusively established the exclusive constitution of Africa as provider of labor and raw materials necessary to European development. For his part, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja focused on the postcolonial condition of his home state, the Congo, and the tribulations of anti-colonial revolutions in Africa that aimed to reconstitute the African state to be more responsive to its domestic challenges and the needs of its populations (Nzongola-Ntalaja 1982, 1986, 1987; Nzongola-Ntalaja and Magubane 1983). Of all these scholars, Samir Amin has been the most prolific, insistent and prescient in analyzing events in Africa from the African experiences of development, to the processes of accumulation on a global scale, to the quandaries of unequal development (Amin 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969a, 1969b, 1970a, 1970b, 1971, 1973a, 1973b, 1973c).

Beyond structuralism and determinism There are two essential points that flow from the above review. The first is that scholars pick and choose their evidence from archives and entities which are pre-constituted to support the cases they wish to make. As emphasized by Mamdani, Trouillot and Hart, disciplinary understandings of Africa and the weight given to political events and incidents seldom correspond fully to the contours of events or their effects in the experiences of the participants. Most political scientists have paid little attention to African historiography in their analyses and conclusions. In contrast, and this is the second point, the subjective philosophical and epistemological premises of a given study, as well as its determination of the political significance of behaviors or events, largely conform to the prevailing epistemological and ontological currents prescribed by professional guilds. Hence, the constitution of knowledge is infused with ideology and disciplinary practices that distort the terms of inquiry. In these regards, the most enduring and pervasive ideological undercurrents to African studies have been post-World War II liberalism and rationalism. These currents made their entry into Africa studies through theories of development, modernization and the rule of law or good governance. The theory of modernization provided by W.W. Rostow in The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960) helped pave the way for the study of postcolonial states as traditional and non-modern in contrast to the more advanced liberal democratic states of the West. Rostow’s theses and arguments validated the embedded liberalism of postwar U.S. global reform agenda. In the United States, the related ideas lent credence and legitimacy to development aid and the agenda of the liberalization of trade and investment abroad.1 The underlying ideas and creeds also found echoes in the agendas of government-sponsored and private

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foundations that supported research and academic exchanges. The identification of modernization with liberalism and the national interest was not without effects. It inhibited critical inquiries into the relations between modernity, capitalism, and the state. It also served to repress questions about the instrumentality of state coercion in advancing particular interests in the global political economy. Finally, it discouraged analyses of domestic resource allocations, state coercion, and social violence. The result is that scholars set their gaze on the supposed functions and dysfunctions of local institutions, cultures and behaviors (Bates 1981; Jackson 1990; Young 1983). They imperatively vilified any individuals and analyses associated with communism and/or anti-colonial nationalism, including Marxism, dependency and neocolonial theories, structuralism, and “Afro-centrism.” The assault on “radicals” was predicated on two parallel political developments. One was the rise of so-called Afro-Marxist regimes in Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Benin and Madagascar, among others. The other was the emergence of widespread discontent among populations across Africa who had grown wary of the economic restructuring policies proposed by Western governments, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the ensuing confrontation, liberals and their conservative allies accused Marxists and other so-called radicals of structuralism and therefore of dispensing with African agency. The former also dismissed African nationalist theses on decolonization as pretenses designed to mask failings in public morality, particularly authoritarianism, corruption, and gross violations of human rights. Disciplinary debates over methodology emerged in this context as neutral terrains for the adjudication of truth. Not surprisingly, the favored methods were not ones that had greater descriptive and prescriptive qualities. Rather, disciplinary practices settled on positive and/or formal methods—rationalism, behavioralism, and other formal theories—as particularly apt to generate truth. Ironically, this move was primarily normative and political. The rediscovery of agency, morality and the virtues of the market coincided with the end of Portuguese colonial rule in Western and Southern Africa and the onset of the last anti-colonialist struggle against the white minority regimes reigning over Southern Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. By then, the vast majority of African countries were in the throes of political turmoil brought about by the twin events of the budgetary crisis caused by 1973 oil shock and the subsequent measures of redress proposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: structural adjustment, privatization of public assets, and currency devaluation. The implementation of these measures only added fuel to fire but Africanists laid the blame mostly on domestic ideological preferences, policy instruments, political actions, and public morality. After all, it was reflexively and thoughtlessly repeated, Asian tigers prospered concurrently with the African crisis!

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In selecting liberalism and capitalism as the key to postcolonial salvation, Africanists selectively pointed to the failures of policies of Africanization and economic nationalization pursued by Afro-Marxist regimes in the late 1970s: the Derg (in Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam); the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA (under Agostinho Neto); and the Frente de Libertaçao de Moçambique, Frelimo (under Samora Machel).2 It is thus that Ghana (under Nkrumah), Guinea (under Sékou Touré), and Tanzania (under Julius Nyerere) among other Afrosocialists emerged as symbols of an earlier era of failure whereas Senegal, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tunisia, and similar examples of economic liberalism were branded as successful models of development (Young 1983). As I show later, the contrast was baseless, but ideology obfuscated the quest for truth such that all the warning signs that the so-called successful models were headed for political trouble went unnoticed: the entrenchment of networks of clientelism, political corruption, and economic embezzlement.3 A proliferation of discursive categories denoting the new fall of Africa from grace followed in the 1990s. Robert D. Kaplan sounded the alarm with “The Coming Anarchy” (1994). The acclaim that this essay (not a study) received can be explained by anxieties around the link between liberal models of development and political disintegration. This anxiety generated its episteme which, although pretending to be rooted in empirical observations, was merely a return to the modes of inquiry developed in nineteenthcentury travel narratives by those who had visited the secluded and far flung frontiers of modernity. The paradox was inescapable as the majority of the states undergoing collapse and disintegration had been among the most loyal Western allies. The stakes, however, were quite high. One need not read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2008) to link profit-making under modern capitalism to the production of disasters and the management of scarcity and misery afterwards. In King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild (1999) exposes the conjoining of greed and terror in laying the foundation of the modern Democratic Republic of Congo. The voyeurism of travel narratives have their academic equivalent in studies that profess too highly the agency of African elites in bringing about misery upon their people as well as the coping mechanisms of those exposed to the pornographic display of ill-gotten wealth. Perhaps Jean-François Bayart’s The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (1993) best illustrates this new venture in Africanism. Bayart opens with the claim that structuralism and associated theories had stripped Africans of agency by overlooking the authentic dimensions of African politics. Despite his profession to adhere to historicity, objectivity, and subjectivity in political analyses, Bayart manages to stress the exotic, erotic, and even criminal dimensions of “African” politics (Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou 1999) without any reference to, say, the historical connections between the state, capital accumulation, and criminality beyond Africa (Tilly 1985). I share Mamdani’s view that Bayart’s

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efforts to restore agency to Africans merely serves to diminish “the significance of historical constraint in the name of salvaging agency” (Mamdani 1996: 10). Indeed, professing generosity and empathy for his subjects, Bayart effectively undercuts the moral character, rationality, and coevalness of observed subjects. Bayart is not alone in banalizing historicity through rejection of the spatialization of politics and underlying networks, structures, and flows. Following his study, titles have proliferated that indulge in depicting the specificity of African politics through caricature ranging from the vapid (Bayart) to the grotesque (according to FrimpongAnsah) (Frimpong-Ansah 1992; Parselelo 2007). I do not dispute that some African regimes may be construed as truly vapid (per Bayart), grotesquely insatiable and haunting (Frimpong-Ansah 1992), or that they are morbidly predisposed (Mbembe 2003). But, as a representation of the state, this view mistakenly conflates it with the ruling elites and events with the enabling processes and structures. In their exposé of a five-year Dutch study, for instance, Wim van Binsbergen, Rijk van Dijk, and Jan-Bart Gewald (2004) show that any analyses of “African agency” must be placed in the context of global and local processes that enable identity, including popular culture. To them, these processes are incomprehensible outside of transnational and therefore globalizing networks of production and distribution of material and symbolic goods. It follows that local processes of production of identity and culture are as internal as they are responses and appropriations of cultures produced globally across the world. Although it offers a simplistic view of agency based on questionable liberal notions of consent and autonomy (and even responsibility), this Dutch study militates against the view that the “global” and “local” are distinct and impermeable, and that processes and structures therein originate from different and mutually exclusive sites. It is inescapable that modern forms of global politics, as much as domestic factors, provide the context for corruption and violence in the African state. Thus, significant dimensions of African politics are more temporal than spatial, even if their empirical manifestations appear as spatial particularities. This is not to say that there is nothing particular or specific to Africa and African politics however defined. It is to argue that the emergence of Africa as a definable space is in itself a temporal phenomenon. Likewise, the operations of time require spatial dimensions and, in this sense, it is the convergence of particular spatial occurrences that give time its universality. Take the assertion that the U.S., France, and Great Britain remained global powers in the postwar period. To the extent that this statement is true, it does not merely suggest a natural state of affairs. Rather, it implies that the end of colonialism did not diminish the intention of these countries to intervene beyond their borders to protect—in their own words—national interests. This means that the exercise of national power by such countries impinges necessarily on the sovereign and territorial spheres of other countries, including the formerly colonized and now supposedly

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decolonized. In actuality, the self-professed global powers have established meaningful ties with “friendly” African rulers such that postwar articulation of American or French power, or their political practices, have no meaning without the spatial difference they establish with “Africa” in which one, the West, has universal will, while the other, “Africa” is expected to conform to that will as an expression of normativity. In short, Western and African political practices are materially and symbolically intertwined such that it is not possible to establish the vapidity of “African palaces” without some reference to broader processes and mechanisms, including connections between African palaces and say U.S. and French presidential palaces. In the case of France, these postcolonial connections have a name and a referent: la FrançAfrique. Such connections and the insidious political ties that formalize them give substance to the historical/temporal, societal/social, and regional/spatial forms of politics now designated as African politics. Not all studies of “African agency” have been naively unreflective. For instance, Mariane Ferme, an anthropologist who has spent years on the same grounds stomped by Kaplan for only weeks, offers a more reliable examination of the legacy of violence that elucidates the links between the forms of political violence emerging with state collapse and the different responses of various constituencies. In a study aptly titled The Underneath of Things (2001), Ferme offers a look into the history and legacy of greed as economic motivation and violence as means of acquisition from the time of independence to the present. From her study, one gathers that both the agents and victims of today’s violence and political corruption may be “native” Africans but that the structural and normative contexts of conflict are hardly “African.” Indeed, even the fruits of violence are consumed outside of the zones of conflict. For these and other reasons, Ferme admonishes observers to look anew at what may be missing, distorted, or purely invented in their analyses of the state and political violence when they do not include the concerns and perspectives of the “subaltern”: those farthest removed from the calculations of political protagonists and antagonists.

State, ideology and failure A major flaw in the theories of the African state which take Africa to be a coherent entity is that they assume that epistemological coherence can be obtained from geography, culture and, for some, ethnicity. Although not explicitly posited as such, such perspectives present a continent outside of history and thus unincorporated into modern political, cultural, economic and social movements. Paradoxically, the emergent pictures of Africa are themselves products of subjective relations to discipline and ideology. To be sure, postcolonial and pan-African critics rely equally on subjective elements of conscience and consciousness in their pleas for the incorporation of “objective” factors such as historical experience in any analyses. However, for these postcolonialists, the pictures of Africa change drastically when

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history—understood temporally and spatially—is introduced as a site of objective criteria against which subjective relationships are evaluated. For instance, the experiences of imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonial relations themselves, may be subject to interpretation but such events shaped the existence of the conquerors or hegemons and the conquered or subordinated alike. One talks of these experiences not merely as subjective but as a way to point to the actual dynamics, flows, and conditions that structured life, the necessities of life, and relations to themselves and others in the production, distribution, and consumption of material and symbolic resources. It matters therefore that, despite occasional evasions of power or reversals of fortunes between colonizer and colonized during the course of the colonial enterprise, regimes of law, politics, economy, and morality implemented by the colonizers were conceived as institutions with determinate rationalities and instrumentalities. The latter were intended to result in equally determinate spatial outcomes: one located in the colonial spaces of Africa and the other in the metropolises of the West (Grovogui 1996). In this context, supposed international regimes of law, economy, politics, and morality contained spatial peculiarities that helped to define the position and location of Africa in the symbolic structures and material processes of an otherwise global order (Rodney 1982). My other point is that the regimes and institutions introduced to/in Africa under empire and colonialism outlived decolonization. For instance, colonial regimes of property have recently found new applications in a global economy in which the position of Africa as provider of raw materials has been entrenched further under neoliberal arrangements. Such regimes are predicated on the idea that native African populations lack the faculty to constitute and claim property. The operative axiom is that populations unlucky enough to dwell in mineral rich zones are not expropriated when their lands are taken. One implication is that states may transfer ownership of the land to industry at no cost as subsidies are not recognized by neoliberal schemes that view the constitution of property as a legitimate function of the state—even if the underlying process may be judicial and extra-judicial, illegitimate, or morally dubious (Guyer 2002).4 It should be noted, again, that some African entities always benefit from the related institutions and practices. My concern is with the emergence and constitution of Africa as a space of so-called economic failure, political repression, cultural “backwardness,” and the like. The idea that Africa is integral to the global order since the onset of the slave trade is not surprising to many. However, this disposition has not dissuaded “Africanists” from viewing the continent as problematic and crumbling under the weight of tradition and incompetency. Again, this view has dissenters. James Ferguson (2006) has recently dedicated a treatise to the idea that scholars should explore more general questions about Africa and its place in the contemporary world. He takes as his point of departure the view that Africans have not been bystanders in the broader processes of the global order.

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Ferguson then opens with interrogations of globalization, modernity, worldwide inequality, and social justice, and shows the manners in which Africa is in fact a multiplicity of social and geographical locations with equally multiple communities with distinct identities, regimes of governance, and authority as well as practices of claim-making, whether in relation to the state, capital, or property. Ferguson makes the compelling argument that scholars should be able to speak beyond the academy about Africa’s position within an egregiously imbalanced world order. He shows that it is impossible to understand Africa outside of the strictures of the global, particularly the social relations that constitute global society as well as the rights and obligations flowing from such relations. From his perspective, the study of Africa is less compelling and empirically interesting when it focuses solely on the sovereign power of the state and bureaucratic procedures. The state is also an instrument of the production of values, interests, and norms and the related processes of distribution and consumption, which involve the citizenry in multiple capacities and relationships vis-à-vis the state but also the international system and its political economy. Consistently, the organization of society into administrative and productive units requires different modes of state intervention and governance that establish different spaces of possibilities for groups and classes within it. In effect, even in the era of globalization the constitution and maintenance of spaces depend on explicit and implicit forms of exclusion, often imagined according to views of who is deserving and undeserving of the goods produced by the state: public safety, protection and welfare, and constitutional rights and immunities. Since Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991), it is now commonplace that no region of the world is given and/or inert; nor is any space on the earth neutral, that is, immune from social relations. Rather, space is social, of relative order and disorder, and a site nonetheless of relationships of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and values. As Gillian Hart (2006) and others have shown, Lefebvre’s arguments are dedicated to understanding the resilience and reproduction of capital. Still, the production of space is also central to the enactment of the international order, and its distribution of power, authority and norms that give coherence to historic spaces according to political, legal, economic, and cultural rationalities. These norms are also affective in that they accompany theological, philosophical and ideological (including ethnographic) foundations, whose relationship to the distribution of power, authority and norms is often concealed. The constitution of Africa as a space is therefore the result of historically produced juridical and political regimes (as emanated for instance from the 1884–5 Berlin Conference); ideological perceptions (produced by travel narratives and ethnography among others); and affective dispositions (that shape responses to the needs and claims of the other). Similar regimes and resulting practices may be observable elsewhere but each region and locality

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maintains its specificity as a space. The African particularity is the institution by imperial and colonial powers of regimes of permissiveness leading to the creation of the slave trade as well as later imperial spheres of influence, protectorates, and colonies. These spheres, protectorates, and colonies were sites that allowed European usurpation of sovereign power, forced labor, taxation without representation, and horrendous crimes as modes of punishment in the event of resistance. As noted earlier, during the Cold War, superpowers gave cover and justification for the replication of the techniques of control and repression. The resulting permissiveness was matched with impunity derived from the privileges accrued by political power and Cold War alliances. Each alliance defined for itself the meaning and extent of the constitutional order, the rule of law, democracy, and the good life. Of course, the competencies of African leaders (or their possession of the requisite capacities to produce the goods), their performances (the ability to deliver the goods), and the outcomes of their policies (measured by the degree of satisfaction of the citizenries) varied greatly among states and alliances. Still, in appreciating African politics, the relations between competencies—or possessing the psychic, intellectual, and cultural requisites to enact and implement institutions—and performance seems less edifying than the relations between foreign alliances and outcomes. As suggested earlier, ideology-laden liberal scholarship had gleefully and scornfully noted that the state in the so-called socialist and communist camp lacked the rule of law, preyed on citizenries, expropriated land without compensation, instituted single party regimes, and thus deprived citizens of civil liberties. Even today, speaking in hindsight, Africanists still point to the degree of poverty (and now corruption) in the former socialist and Afro-Marxist states. For this reason, many show relief and satisfaction that states previously run as single-party regimes have now “democratized” and converted to market economies. Indeed, it is the case that previously so-called AfroMarxist states—Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, and Mozambique—have all renounced Marxism in favor of “free market economies.” It is also the case that in many of these countries, former party members have reconstituted themselves as agents of capital and organized themselves in mafia-like fashion to both capture rent (in the form of foreign aid and investment) and engage in trade (licit and illicit). The same storyline applies to the initial Afro-socialist countries— including Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Tanzania and Zambia—as well as late-comers to this group, such as Zimbabwe. The conclusion drawn from the above findings is often mistaken in regards to the link between ideology and success. Take the cases of Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia (after the break from the Soviet Union), and Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). Up until the mid-1990s, these countries were self-proclaimed liberal states and reliable Western allies. Each was firmly ensconced in the liberal political economy, providing needed natural and strategic resources to NATO

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member countries. They also granted much “freedom” to capital and its agents under liberal investment codes and corresponding regimes of property. Correspondingly, the constitutional order in these countries all but negated local conventions or voided them of any meaning while excluding significant portions of their populations from government and the benefits of the economy. In our collective post-communist condition, few analysts are willing to concede that these states’ performance did not live up to their citizens’ expectations. Fewer still would entertain the thought that the spectacle of postcolonial governance in these liberal states amounted to sanctioned permissiveness and immunities for state and capital; the dispossession of the majority of Africans of land, power and rights; and the destruction of the fabric of community and existing social life under distinct regimes of the market and production confined to specific products and/or economic zones. It may surprise some that the majority of African civil wars have occurred in the liberal states of Congo (Zaire), Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia; that the wars were localized in zones of production of commodities (particularly gems); and that relatively small militias sufficed to ensure the exploitation of the resources needed by the leadership of rebellious groups. The conflicts that led to war originated at the time of the structural adjustments mandated by the International Monetary Fund in late 1980s and early 1990s. Predictably, these conflicts intensified after the introduction of neoliberal policies and the subsequent dismantling of the structures and institutions of the welfare state. Formerly socialist single-party states appear to have fared differently. With the exception of Zimbabwe, these states seem to realize at least one dimension of the postBandung project of nation-building and to have succeeded in convincing the citizenry of the legitimacy of the common good and the advisability of its preservation even in the face of state failure to deliver it. Thus, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Tanzania, Zambia and others have faced great adversities but the institutions of society have prevented the total collapse of the state. Where generalized popular uprising occurred, it was aimed at the regimes that created the state but not the legitimacy of the commons per se. The resilience of the formerly Afro-Marxist states of Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, and Mozambique has been even more spectacular. Thus, for instance, Angola and Mozambique survived decades-long civil wars initiated by ideological rivals sponsored by Western powers bent on destroying the postcolonial state. The sponsored militias—known by their acronyms as Unita, in Angola, and Renamo, in Mozambique—nearly destroyed the foundations of society but the states survived and reconstituted under multiparty systems.

Conclusion The space constituted as Africa is traversed by events, structures and processes that adhere to multiple temporalities and are therefore subject to

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distinct dynamics. Specifically, since the slave trade, Africa has been integral to the world economy in its own particular ways—mostly as producer of human chattel and raw materials and thus seldom solicited as producer of values and norms of international governance. The capacities in which “Africa” and African constituencies have been introduced in the attendant political, economic, and moral regimes have been less than consensual. Nor, as is evident today, have they been favorable to the continent as a whole. This is not to negate so-called African agency. Africans have been actors of history, even in their own subordination. African leaders necessarily entered into alliances to secure their own survival. It is in this manner that external events such as the Cold War reverberated in the continent and thus affected the African state and politics. From this perspective, most African leaders who may be described as tyrants, autocrats, dictators, or worse were enabled in their actions through alliances with external powers (states) or forces (non-state actors). Thus, Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire), Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor (Liberia), Siad Barre (Somalia), Felix HouphouetBoigny (Côte d’Ivoire) and many others who set the stage for state collapse and civil war in their home states were all Cold War allies of the West. Unita (Angola) and Renamo (Mozambique) were also Western allies who bear the responsibility for their countries’ civil war. It is not only African partners to the West who brought misery and violence on their people. Sékou Touré (Guinea), Denis Sassou NGuesso (Congo Brazzaville), Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) and Didier Rastsiraka (Madagascar) were allies of the Soviet bloc. Perhaps fortuitously because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and barring Toure who died before the end of the Cold War, the so-called Afro-Marxists and Afro-socialists reluctantly bowed to political realities and initiated reform in the 1990s. Unlike Western allies, and with the exception of Sasou NGuesso, these formerly populist rulers of singleparty states managed to avert the collapse of the state and total civil war by bowing to popular pressure. It is my contention, therefore, that Africans have not been the primary or sole agents of the regimes of politics, economy, culture, and morality that have operated on the continent for the better of four centuries. Whether they were presented as universal, humanist, international, or global, projects of modernity conceived in the West and their institutions had rationalities and instrumentalities that precluded African subjectivity, individuality, and sovereignty. Their effects or modes of operation did not expire with decolonization. One of those resources currently brought into practice is the rule of law. Initially embodied by constitutions and legislation intended to establish political order and the protection of persons and property, the rule of law has been reconfigured recently by stripping away its legitimate function such as to enhance its market instrumentality in contractual relations. While the market efficacy of the related norms may be beyond doubt,

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their larger benefits are not self-evident and thus must be investigated. It can be established, however, that the jettisoning of distributive justice upon the dismantling of the welfare or developmental state in the 1990s may have had implications that have been insufficiently explored. It may even be that, under neoliberal arrangements, some African states have breached their own postcolonial pact to restore and protect life, society, culture, and the ways of life of Africans—all of which had been trampled upon under colonialism. At least rhetorically, this line of reasoning figured in the justification for insurrection provided by the Revolutionary United Front (Sierra Leone) and a myriad militias in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo to seize land, defend it, and employ captive populations in order to extract diamonds and other minerals which they sell as commodities to the global market. In conclusion, it is mistaken or misguided to establish conflict, state failure and civil wars as the most salient dimensions of African politics. The postcolonial African experience is more complex, as is the condition that generated it, and also includes successes. If those successes are largely absent here it is because this chapter was intended to respond to the disciplinary study of Africa. The condition of some of the successes was the setting aside of Western institutions and models of development. For instance, when a decade-long Sahel drought brought about an armed insurgency in Mali, its government jettisoned the colonial-era mystique of land tenure in favor of local traditions of land use in the interest of peace with its Tuareg population (Grovogui 2010). Continent-wide too, the disengagement of outside powers has resuscitated Nkrumah’s admonition that Africans take stock of their continent’s specificity, historical needs, and intellectual resources. Without defending his political methods, Nkrumah was right that Africans can and will have to forge their own paths. I suspect that generations of Africans will continue to join proud pan-African associations and organizations—be it the OAU, Ecowas, SADC, or Comesa—with the goal of promoting dignity and social justice commensurable with domestic and global realities. This endless quest for African solutions is what Nkrumah meant by “the rest shall be added unto you.” African conceptions of sovereignty, the state, power, and ultimately politics have all gravitated toward this end. It would serve political scientists to investigate the related dimensions of politics.

Notes 1 Again, these factors were crucial to Rostow’s second and third stages of development. 2 This view was most forcefully summarized by George Ayittey (1993). 3 See IMF official Erwin Blumenthal’s (1982) report on the year he spent in Zaire between 1978 and 1979. 4 This is what appears in Guyer’s affirmation about the right of the Chadian state to land.

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References Amin, Samir (1965) Trois expériences africaines de développement: le Mali, la Guinée et le Ghana, Paris: Presses Universitaires. —— (1966) L’ Economic du Maghreb, Vol. 2, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1967) Le Développement du capitalisme en Côte d’Ivoire, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1969a) Le monde des affaires sénégalais, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1969b) The Class Struggle in Africa, Cambridge, MA: Africa Research Group. —— (1970a) Le Maghreb Moderne, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1970b) L’accumulation à l’échelle mondiale, Paris: Editions Antrophos. —— (1971) L’Afrique de l’Ouest bloquée. L’économie politique de la colonisation, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1973a) Le développement inégal. Essai sur les formations sociales du capitalisme périphérique, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. —— (1973b) L’échange inégal et la loi de la valeur, Paris: Editions Antrophos. —— (1973c) Neocolonialism in West Africa, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Ayittey, George B.N. (1993) Africa Betrayed, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bates, Robert H. (1981) Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bayart, Jean-François (1993) The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, London: Longman. Bayart, Jean-François, Stephen Ellis and Beatrice Hibou (1999) Criminalization of the State in Africa, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Blumenthal, Erwin (1982) “Zaire: Report on Her International Financial Credibility,” typed manuscript, April 7. Decalo, Samuel (1976) Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Studies in Military Style, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ferguson, James (2006) Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ferme, Mariane (2001) The Underneath of Things: Violence, History and the Everyday in Sierra Leone, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Frimpong-Ansah, Jonathan H. (1992) The Vampire State in Africa: The Political Economy of Decline in Ghana, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Gavshon, Arthur (1981) Crisis in Africa: Battleground of East and West, London: Penguin Books. Gifford, Prosser and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) (1988) Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power 1960–80, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Grovogui, Siba N. (1996) Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Selfdetermination in International Law, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. —— (2006) Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions, New York: Palgrave. —— (2010) “Your Blues Ain’t My Blues: How ‘International Security’ Breeds Conflicts in Africa,” in Peyi Soyinka-Airelwele and Rita Kiki Edozie (eds), Reframing Contemporary Africa: Politics, Culture, and Society in the Global Era, Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, pp. 177–94.

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Guyer, Jane L. (2002) “Briefing: The Chad–Cameroon Petroleum and Pipeline Development Project,” African Affairs, 101(402): 109–15. Hart, Gillian (2006) “Denaturalizing Dispossession: Critical Ethnography in the Age of Resurgent Imperialism,” Antipode, 38(5): 977–1004. Hochschild, Adam (1999) King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, New York: Mariner Books. Jackson, Henry F. (1982) From Congo to Soweto: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa since 1960, New York: William Murrow and Company. Jackson, Robert H. (1990) Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Jackson, Robert H. and Carl G. Rosberg (1982) Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kaplan, Robert D. (1994) “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of our Planet,” The Atlantic Magazine. Online. Available HTTP: http://www. theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/02/the-coming-anarchy/4670 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne J. (1979) “Dictatorship and Double Standard,” Commentary Magazine, 68: 34–45. Klein, Naomi (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, New York: Picador. Laidi, Zaki (1990) The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of Rivalry, 1960–1990, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lake, Anthony (1973) The “Tar Baby” Option: American Policy Toward Southern Rhodesia, New York: Columbia University Press. Lefebvre, Henri (1991) The Production of Space, London: Blackwell. Mamdani, Mahmood (1996) Citizens and Subjects: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mazrui, Ali A. (ed) (1993) General History of Africa since 1935, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mbembe, Achille (2003) “Necropolitics,” Public Culture, 15(1): 11–40. Minter, William (1986) King Solomon’s Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa, New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges (1982) Class Struggles and National Liberation in Africa, Roxbury, MA: Omenana. —— (1986) The Crisis in Zaire: Myths and Realities, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. —— (1987) Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Africa: Essays in Contemporary Politics, London: Zed Books and Institute for African Alternatives. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges and Bernard Magubane (eds) (1983) Proletarianization and Class Struggle in Africa, San Francisco: Synthesis Publications. Parselelo, Kantai (2007) “In the Grip of the Vampire State: Maasai Land Struggles in Kenyan Politics,” Journal of Eastern African Studies, 1(1): 107–22. Rodney, Walter (1982) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Rostow, W. W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stockwell, John (1978) In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, New York: W.W. Norton Company.

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Tilly, Charles (1985) “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 179–87. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (1995) Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Boston: Beacon Press. Rodney, Walter (1982) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Rostow, W.W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Binsbergen, Wim, Rijk van Dijk and Jan-Bart Gewald (2004) Situating Globality: African Agency in the Appropriation of Global Culture, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Young, Crawford (1983) Ideology and Development in Africa, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. —— (1988) “The Colonial State and Post-Colonial Crisis,” in Prosser Gifford and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power 1960–80, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

7

Contextualizing rule in South Asia1 Siddharth Mallavarapu

Of the several claimants to the holy grail of International Relations (IR), perhaps the most serious and least rivaled contender is the idea of Westphalian sovereignty. Treated often as part of the collective unconscious of the discipline, the concept informs most theorizing about world politics. This remains at least partially true even of approaches that seek to retain a certain degree of distance by treating sovereign statehood as an object of critique. More often than not, a tendency to insufficiently problematize the key referent in the field of IR—sovereign states—remains. While there is increasing skepticism about the notion of a unitary state, there is less disagreement in IR about the supposed European lineage of sovereign statehood. Thomas Biersteker (2006: 157) suggests that [o]ne of the most important analytical challenges for scholars of international relations is to identify different meanings of state, sovereignty and territory, and to understand their origins, comprehend their changes of meaning, and analyze their interrelationships, and characterize their transformation. Biesteker’s question of “origins” requires us to systematically historicize processes of state formation in diverse settings. Such a historicizing exercise potentially serves two important objectives. First, it complicates received and canonical accounts of state formation particularly when these relate to political life in the semi-periphery and periphery. This complication could assume diverse forms, ranging from milder deviations to substantial divergences with regard to both the instantiation and subsequent reception of the state form in these milieus. Not unrelated to the first, a second dimension concerns the broader sociology of knowledge regarding scholarship on the state. Even a cursory reading of the diverse strategies of framing the problematic of state formation in South Asia reveals a recurring reference to blind spots and biases in the mainstream rendition of this etiology. These blind spots emerge from an overreliance on colonial historiography, exclusion of alternative narratives, neglect of the quotidian aspects of political life, narrowly constructed

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political archives, and an unwillingness to engage the dramatic, theatrical, and “rhetorical” registers of political contestation (Bose 2003; Das 2004; Kaviraj 2006; Sharma and Gupta 2006; Subrahmanyam 1998). My mandate in this chapter is limited. I focus specifically on debates surrounding rule and the state by examining different snapshots of South Asian history from the pre-colonial past to the postcolonial present. My intent here is not to rely on or privilege a particular chronology or narrative but to gesture towards the themes animating these diverse phases of South Asia’s not so distant past. Each phase has tended to reflect dominant leitmotifs of one kind or another and often these have coalesced in diverse political configurations. At the outset, I should note that I employ the label “South Asia” with a degree of reluctance, given its area-studies provenance. However, I recognize that the label provides a shorthand for a region that is of particular interest to my intervention. In the spirit of Bierskeker’s remark, I will reopen for inquiry two interrelated empirical stories. First, I examine the debate on the exceptionalism of the Indian state. Although the literature on the Indian states does explore variations in patterns of rule and spatial imagination, I find it difficult to square with either Mohammed Ayoob’s claim about developing states as immature versions of Westphalian ones or Ashis Nandy’s invocation of South Asian difference. Second, I examine closely a conversation about rule and territoriality in the Indian Ocean. Studies of the Indian Ocean suggest the importance of frontiers as much or more than boundaries; flows of influence and goods rather than closed spaces; multiple and overlapping identities, instead of Westphalian nations; and overlapping patterns of authority instead of territorial sovereignty. In conclusion, I revisit mainstream assumptions about sovereignty and raise further questions regarding what we may potentially learn from a more geographically dispersed account of the instantiation of the state form and the ensuing nature of political rule.

International relations, sovereignty and stateness A few years ago, while thinking about the “social epistemology” of statehood in a postcolonial society like India, I was struck by two primary images of the state that circulate among scholars in the region (Mallavarapu 2005a). According to one position, articulated strongly in the work of scholars such as Mohammed Ayoob, the state in South Asia needs to be viewed more benevolently considering the limited time that states have had to consolidate rule, at least relative to their European counterparts. The broad lesson Ayoob hopes to teach is that we must not be too harsh or premature in dismissing South Asian states because they are likely to deliver on their promises and consolidate themselves with the passage of time. Further, the constraints of statehood in South Asia have been very different from the manner in which states evolved in the European context. In other words, states in South Asia are currently in their “adolescence” and

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with the passage of time they will make a successful “transition” to full adulthood (Ayoob 1989, 1992). A second line of argument, best represented by the work of scholars such as Ashis Nandy, makes the case that the South Asian postcolonial state is nurturing an illusion that it can match up and successfully replicate the Westphalian model of statehood. Nandy argues that Indian political elites are keen to believe and attempt to convince Indian society that the postcolonial state will over time look more and more similar to the Westphalian state and in that emulation will lay its claim to success. However, Nandy remains skeptical of such a stance and argues that modernizing political elites are mistaken in their belief that grafting Westphalian institutions onto Indian politics and society will serve as a fix for problems within the region. He instead argues that the quest for indigenous traditions of political rule, building on models advanced by anti-colonial nationalist figures such as Gandhi, might provide us a much surer recipe to societal and overall political well-being (Nandy 1987). Despite the reservations of Ayoob and Nandy, there is a tendency to treat the state as a given. We might attribute this to the strong disciplinary sway of realism in the South Asian variant of IR, but it is important to recognize that not all systems of rule need be premised on realist understandings of territoriality (Mallavarapu 2005b). For example, in his criticism of the Waltzian treatment of sovereignty “as a necessary adjunct of anarchy,” John Gerard Ruggie points to at least three exceptions to what has come to be treated as the norm (Ruggie 1998a: 147; see also Mishra 2008a). First, Ruggie draws attention to “kin-based systems” that were not constituted on the basis of their territoriality. Second, even where territoriality serves as an organizing principle for rule, not all forms of it require the permanence or fixity accorded to state boundaries. For example, Owen Lattimore demonstrated the presence of “nomadic property rights” in the context of the Mongol tribes. Finally, one might also mention that “even where systems of rule are territorial, and even where territoriality is relatively fixed, the prevailing concept of territory need not entail mutual exclusion” (Ruggie 1998b: 178–9). Other elements are also crucial in arriving at a map of political rule. Ruggie adds material environments (ecodemographics, relations of production, relations of force); the matrix of constraints and opportunities within which social actors interacted (the structure of property rights, divergences between private and social rates of return, coalitional possibilities among major social actors); and social epistemes (political doctrines, political metaphysics, spatial constructs). (Ruggie 1998a: 193) Between Ayoob’s claim of a temporally contingent “third world” political learning and Nandy’s invocation of a distinctive South Asian “dialect” of

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political practice, I remain with some caveats more persuaded by the latter thesis (Ayoob 1989, 2011; Nandy 1998). Discussions of state formation in and around IR still almost invariably refer to the Western European experience. Arguably, the key scholar in this area is Charles Tilly. To be fair, Tilly is cautious when it comes to making any claims about state formation outside of the Western European experience that remains his principal locus of attention. He identifies six prerequisites that he treats as crucial to give us a handle on how states form and subsequently consolidate themselves to survive if not flourish. He argues that the most general conditions which appear in the European experience, to predict survival and state-making [include]: (1) the availability of extractible resources; (2) a relatively protected position in time and space; (3) a continuous supply of political entrepreneurs; (4) success in war; (5) homogeneity (and homogenization) of subject population; (6) strong coalitions of the central power with major segments of the landed elite. (Tilly 1975: 40) While this thesis remains extremely important to the appreciation of the state-making processes of Western Europe, Tilly’s claims have come to be contested in other regions (Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia). The author himself concedes that in order to arrive at more “common properties and variations,” we need to step out of this particular box of human history and push towards examining comparative experiences in terms of state making. In candid self-confession, he acknowledges that this is a task that “we have not done with any zeal” (Tilly 1975: 12). Yet Tilly’s work carries the extremely important suggestion that we need to be alive to different indices of “stateness” if we are to arrive at some plausible comparison between state-making processes in different parts of the world. Here he identifies at least four such dimensions (Abrams 2006). These include “formal autonomy, differentiation from nongovernmental organizations, centralization, and internal coordination” (Tilly 1975: 34). All these dimensions are amenable to some form of qualitative and quantitative scrutiny and this makes them attractive for scholars interested in empirically grounded cross-national comparisons. Two other facets are worth gleaning from a reading of Tilly’s work. The first concerns the possibility of a non-iterative process of state making that imitates the West European experience. The second dimension relates to an element of “unintendedness” when it comes to state design. In the context of the first claim, Tilly points out that while “Europeans played the major part in creating the contemporary international state system, and presumably left the imprints of their political institutions on it,” this does not derogate from the possibility that “[t]he European state-building experiences

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will not repeat themselves in new states” (Tilly 1975: 637–8, 81). He argues that “[t]he connections of the new states to the rest of the world have changed too much” (Tilly 1975: 81). In the context of the second claim relating to the un-intendedness of state making, Tilly points out that the major forms of political participation which westerners now complacently refer to as “modern” are for the most part unintended outcomes of the efforts of European state-makers to build their armies, keep taxes coming in, form effective coalitions against their rivals, hold their nominal subordinates and allies in line, and fend off the threat of rebellion on the part of ordinary people. (Tilly 1975: 633) Finally, the author is also willing to acknowledge, the emergence of political formations like the European Union may actually presage an era that might witness the demise of the classical state form (Tilly 1975: 638). Saskia Sassen takes up this theme in work of a broad historical sweep. Sassen makes it increasingly clear that varying historical influences shape different phases of globalization and, thereby, different relations and spatiality of rule. Her specific interest is “to historicize both the national and the global as constructed conditions” (Sassen 2006: 4). Though attentive to transhistorical components—“territory, authority, rights (TAR)”—she is alive to diverse “historical formations.” As Sassen reminds us in this connection: Recent scholarship has shown us the multifaceted rather than monocausal character of the earlier historical period that saw the emergence of territorial sovereign states. This is an important correction of the state-centric perspective that continues to dominate our understanding of the rise of territorial states and emerged partly as a function of the formation of national states. The effect has been a capture by the nationstate frame of much of post-sixteenth century history in the West. (Sassen 2006: 7) Thus, we should avoid very tempting generic theoretical claims when it comes to characterizing or explaining state formation processes. Sassen also introduces the vocabulary of “capabilities,” “tipping points,” and “organizing logics” in order to help us secure a better grip on foundational changes in particular places across time. Capabilities are viewed as “collective productions whose development entails time, making competition, and conflicts, and whose utilities are, in principle, multivalent because they are conditioned on the character of the relational systems within which they function” (Sassen 2006: 7–8). Tipping points are critical in order to arrive at the levers and mechanisms that induce change (Sassen 2006: 10). By “organizing logics,” Sassen has in mind the foundational attributes of

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a particular period. In order to establish a degree of continuity with the past, the author uses the concepts of “capabilities and tipping points [as] intermediations that [ … ] capture, or deduce, this feature of foundational change because they disaggregate the whole into capabilities that die with the death of the old order and others that do not” (Sassen 2006: 10–11). While the state form, Sassen concedes remains “the most complex institutional architecture we have ever produced,” what also matters from her perspective is the manner in which change comes to be lodged in national political arrangements (Sassen 2006: 1). The power of Sassen’s work may be that, despite its attention to diverse “assemblages,” it also provides us a set of categories within which similarities and differences in state formation might be examined.

South Asian exceptionalism Although not a general practice among IR scholars, there is growing belief in the value of historicizing the state form even among non-historians (Rudolph and Jacobsen 2006; see also Mishra 2008b). There are good reasons for this analytical move given the fact that there appears to be a fair deal of variation at different historical moments. Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta, for instance, point to an explicit bias in which “Western states are … often employed as the norm against which all other states are judged; the criteria for a ‘strong’ state are almost always those that apply to a specific subset of Western nation-states” (Sharma and Gupta 2006: 10–11). I intend to enter into the terrain of statehood in the South Asian context through some historical snapshots while examining some key debates that animate scholars. At the outset, I find instructive the distinction that has been made by one scholar with regard to frontiers, boundaries and borders. In an insight similar to Ruggie’s and Sassen’s, Paula Banerjee argues that “[f ]rontiers … are zones at the periphery of a political division that have been slowly replaced in the last two centuries by boundaries or lines of political control, which have subsequently become borders” (Banerjee 2002: 30). Sequentially speaking, frontiers surface prior to the terminology of boundaries and well before what we now treat as sovereign borders. If this is the case, we need to ask why it is that we rarely encounter the lineage of frontiers any longer. Frontiers do play a role in some historiographies of now model Westphalian states. More specifically, conflicting national locations that constitute geoculturally premised sociologies of knowledge reveal that American writers concentrated largely on the development of frontiers, while West European scholars expounded mainly on boundaries and borders. This is not surprising, since the difference in the political realities of the two regions encouraged this divergence in ideas. It was during

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the Cold War and the ever-increasing influence of the realists in geopolitics that borders acquired a whole new political significance. (Banerjee 2002: 33) The role of frontiers, at least in North American stories, may suggest an opening for more complex accounts of territoriality. Some scholars counterpoise these two possibilities—borders and frontiers—in their accounts of the exceptionalism of historical forms of South Asian rule. One incarnation of an exceptionalist argument begins with the claim that South Asians do not possess a strong cartographic sensibility (reference is here more to the imagination and practices of publics as opposed to the state per se). Banerjee herself asks, “[d]o we as South Asians lack a sense of borders?” She goes on to suggest that “South Asians historically have had more of an affinity with the local than the national” (Banerjee 2002: 39). Such a stance about cartographies is reinforced in another fascinating account of a lost continent submerged beneath the Indian Ocean, Lemuria (to which we shall return in greater detail), but Sumathi Ramaswamy also makes a more general point. She notices with justifiable astonishment that [t]he investment in the map form to demonstrate the catastrophic loss of their ancestral homeland by Tamil place-makers is especially surprising because even after about two centuries of dissemination of a modern geographic consciousness which is essentially European in its origin, it would be fair to say that India is not a cartographic-minded society in which maps are central to its modernity. (Ramaswamy 2005: 188) Though these authors evince a tone of cartographic embarrassment on behalf of their South Asian compatriots, it appears that something more interesting might be at stake: the manner in which spatiality is perceived by local populations as opposed to the manner in which modern states have come to construct spatiality in more strictly territorial terms. As James Scott has argued elsewhere, it took considerable spadework for political elites— including within the European world—to begin “seeing like a state” (Scott 1998). The institutionalization of scientific forestry in Germany serves as a classic example of how nature and space itself were transformed under a stricter regime of administrative control and use (Scott 1998). Similarly, processes of modernization in South Asia sought to replicate a modern administrative vision of nature and space quite in contrast with the popular imagination that prevailed prior, and perhaps in response, to the arrival of colonial rule. It is an appropriate moment now to turn our attention to the nature of rule in pre-colonial South Asia. Hermann Kulke advances an interesting argument about “encrusted” sovereignties in pre-colonial South Asia. Distinguishing between five models of state formation in the early medieval period, Kulke rejects

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“the application of the idea of a full-fledged early Indian state to the analysis of the early medieval or medieval Indian state” (Kulke 2006: 59). These five models add texture to our understanding of pre-colonial South Asian stateness and the spatiality of the political imagination: 1 Marx’s notion of oriental despotism and the Asiatic mode of production. This concedes to the “unchanging” state a strong central coercive apparatus for external warfare and internal exploitation of the village communities. In order to increase agrarian surplus the central bureaucracy took charge of large-scale irrigation projects. 2 The Indian historiographical model of a rather unitary, centrally organized and territorially defined kingdom with a strong bureaucracy. 3 The Marxist-influenced model of an Indian feudalism, of a decentralized and fragmented feudal state which however presupposes the existence of an earlier strong state weakened through the feudalization of society. 4 The model of the segmentary state, which allots the early medieval state in India a position on a continuum of governance formation between the tribal “stateless” form of government and a patrimonial state. 5 The patrimonial state, which depicts the Mughal empire as a householddominated patrimonial-bureaucratic empire rather than a highly structured, bureaucratically administered state (Kulke 2006: 2). This author also draws attention to more recent scholarship that lays emphasis “on integrative processes and structural developments within a given state system” (Kulke 2006: 2). Together, these pictures of pre-colonial South Asia offer much variability along the dimensions of state difference suggested by Ruggie, Tilly and Sassen: different degrees and types of centralization; different principles governing claims to authority; differing spatial imaginations; and variability in the fixity of borders and role of frontier dynamics. For example, the first three pictures of pre-colonial rule might be read as models of proto-states or pre-Westphalian polities in need of a stimulus, such as colonialism, that would lead them to greater centralization and a demarcation and securing of borders that would imply the authorization of rule in relation to territorialized state–society relations. The latter two pictures or models offer rather different spatialities that seem to defy characterization as protoWestphalian, instead implying alternative spatial imaginations and bases of rule. Though in some historical narratives the distinguishing features of pre-colonial South Asian rule or statehood were distinct from those that we have come to associate with modern statehood, such distinctiveness might be erased by the colonial experience. Is it important to ask, then, what changes the colonial period entailed? A defining moment, according to Nicholas Dirks, was the year of the rebellion, 1857, which also marked the transition from a non-ethnographic to an “ethnographic” state (Dirks 2006).

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Ethnography remained a formidable epistemic vehicle to collect information about subject populations and inaugurate the full surveillance state. According to Dirks, [m]ost official ethnography, later reported in manuals and then in ethnological catalogues, when it did not come from early missionary accounts, was born in the administrative and policing concerns of late nineteenth-century imperial rule, as the British struggled time after time with the problem of non-interference. (Dirks 2006: 239) With the rise of the capacity for surveillance, colonial states begin to “see like a state,” in Scott’s terms, and appear to be put on the path towards modern statehood and modern state-society relations. Dirks is not alone in attributing a special status to the 1857 rebellion (or Mutiny in most British accounts) in the consolidation of colonial rule. Peter Robb places colonialism into a narrative with Westphalian statehood as a clear endpoint: The colonial arguments about 1857 were thus in part arguments about the nature of India and the way it should be ruled. Indian arguments after Independence were similarly debates about Indian nationhood. They continue to this day. Is there a multicultural polity or a monocultural identity? The answer could be discerned in what happened in 1857–58, whether or not there was a “main movement” that was a “national” rejection of the “foreigner.” (Robb 2007: 1702) In another account of the same episodic moment, Aishwarya Lakshmi advances a similar claim with regard to the implications for spatiality as a consequence of the transition of rule from Mughal India to the British colonial masters. While the former period provided room for notions of an “adventure space,” colonial rule had culminated in a much more tightly circumscribed “domestic space” distinct from its predecessor. In particular, Lakshmi’s claims about the Mutiny novel as a genre bear reiteration:2 the Mutiny novel obscured memory of the picturesque and sacred aesthetics by a continued usage but in changed and historicized forms. The historicized picturesque and sacred aesthetics not only pre- rather than post-date the Mutiny in the novel, and hence like the taluqdari system appear to emerge from the “past”, obscuring their early 19th century usages but also becomes “evidentiary”: of the historical necessity and inevitability of British victory and Indian defeat during the Mutiny. Historicism’s marking of these aesthetics as historical winners

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But, it is important to add that the Mutiny novel also constructs the Indian space as a recoverable national territory—as part of a story in which the later independent state is pre-figured in the spatial imagination of the writer and reader. While there were already fundamental changes in the character of the state under way as a consequence of colonial rule, any prior remnants of South Asian exceptionalism appear to have been further diminished in the postcolonial context. As with the Mutiny novel, Ashis Nandy explains that elite and now middle-class perceptions of “the state as a moderator or liberator” contribute to the erasure of alternatives to the modern state imaginary (Nandy 2006: 286). This self-perception also carries with it particular implications for the pursuit of the state’s interactions with the wider external world. According to Nandy, [t]he culture of the Indian state no longer has a built-in-critique of the dominant style of international politics; Indian foreign policy is now squarely a part of what the Indian elite see as the only possible style of handling international relations. India’s ruling elite now looks back on the earlier idealism of the nationalist movement and that of the immediate post-Independence period as Gandhian or Nehruvian voodoo that has fortunately been lifted. Consequently, the “play” that Indian foreign policy once had, by being less than predictable in conventional terms, has diminished. (Nandy 2006: 291) Convergence of Indian foreign policy with the conventional expectations of the existing international society grows out of the erasure of alternative political traditions that might be recoverable as a basis for a different kind of engagement with the world. One must be cautious, however, about the interpretation of Indian “political traditions” as entirely exceptional. Subrahmanyam, for instance, flattens the difference between India and the rest of the world. He argues that “[e]mpires were built, and cities sacked; religious sites were desecrated, and political opponents were massacred. This was the way it was in our part of the world, just as it was in medieval Iran, the Germany of the Thirty Years War, or the empire of the Incas” (Subrahmanyam 2005: 15). Further, what we mean by “India” proves to be a contingent, rather than a fixed matter for all historical times and places. As Subrahmanyam eloquently puts it: I believe that we cannot periodize Indian history as if India were something apart from the rest of the world, following its own strictly

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internal rhythms until it is incorporated into the British empire. The advantage with the idea of the “early modern” is that it allows us to place South Asia in a set of wider historical conjunctures, which shift and vary to be sure and which at times involve different parts of South Asia more than others. (Subrahmanyam 2005: 4) Thus, while examining the emergence of states in South Asia, we must continue to historicize this process and examine different epochs in order to decipher fundamental shifts and transformations, commonalities and differences. The same lesson might be applied to the current era.

What the canon tells us about rule in the Indian Ocean How do all these formulations have a bearing on the specific empirical site I have chosen to analyze here, namely, the Indian Ocean? The Indian Ocean provides us with a rather interesting picture of the confluence of a whole range of material and ideational influences across history that made their presence felt in the life of the ocean. It provides a useful site to dislodge our conventional view of boundaries as well as an opportunity to revisit the varying meanings of sovereignty and rule in the context of the changing cast of dominant players in the politics of the ocean. Michael Pearson makes the point forcefully when he suggests that [o]ne of the great advantages of writing maritime history, or for that matter the currently fashionable world history, is that by definition one escapes the land/political borders which have shackled traditional history for so long. States fade into the background in this history, and we can look rather at “worlds” and “zones”. (Pearson 2003: 14) Bose vindicates this line of thinking when he persuasively argues that “[c]olonial frontiers etched on mental maps continue to obstruct the study of comparisons and connections of India across the oceans.” Investigating such connections potentially disturbs the “essentialized views of India that had been colonialism’s legacy.” One can “unravel the internal fragments” or “render permeable and then creatively trespass across rather rigidly drawn external boundaries” (Bose 2003: 146). It is important to begin with the principal claims of the canonical figure in Indian Ocean studies, Ashin Das Gupta, but I also pursue the body of sustained scholarship on this subject spurred by his work.3 Das Gupta reflected on a whole range of themes that inaugurated fresh maritime perspectives on the Indian Ocean as a scholarly field of inquiry. He chose “the Moreland hypothesis” of the ocean as a unified space for special attention and examined the exact implications of Vasco da Gama’s entry

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into the ledger of epochal transitions in the Indian Ocean. Though Das Gupta recognizes that “[w]e are following the trend of Moreland’s thought” in some respects—“the thing to notice there is the unitary concept of the Ocean”—he does not follow William Moreland uncritically. Rather, Das Gupta notes that “We use [the idea of the Indian Ocean] ourselves though not quite like Moreland. It may be that in using the expression ‘Indian Ocean’, we are guilty of the suggestion that this vast stretch of water is one” (Das Gupta 2004d: 239). Though Das Gupta provisionally accepted the Indian Ocean as a unit of study, Subrahmanyam points out that he remained skeptical of the supposed paradigm-shifting reception that greets Vasco da Gama’s entry into the orbit of the Indian Ocean and Indian Ocean studies. Das Gupta argues that, [w]hile on the one hand, we may conjecture that Vasco da Gama changed the course of Indian history, we could also conclude that he did not change anything at all … It is not difficult to show that medieval India did not recognize Vasco da Gama. But it is clear that there was a turn of events in the Indian Ocean from this time [1498] onwards. Much of that, though flowing from the arrival of Vasco da Gama, had really nothing to do with him. But ultimately all of these developments came together to produce a new age. Vasco da Gama’s arrival at Calicut ushered in the elements of a new age in alliance with the traditions that were already there. (Das Gupta 2004f: 243) Thus, Das Gupta’s focus on the Indian Ocean allows us to navigate between claims about historical, region-wide relations of rule, without presuming the telos of the current South Asian inter-state system or the dominance of the colonial impact in shaping contemporary rule in South Asia. He allows us to examine a broader space of relations in an interconnected region but without reifying the Indian Ocean as a trans-historical spatial imagination. The richness of Das Gupta’s reading of the Indian Ocean is on display in his encompassing vision of the “multiple faces” to which the ocean lent itself. These included various South Asian peoples as well as Arabs, Chinese, Malays, and Europeans. Noting the presence of these groups, however, does not mean attributing any permanent ownership when it comes to the waters of the Indian Ocean. Rather, [t]here is nothing wrong in studying naval encounters, provided we do not conclude that because there is a strong navy, the ocean in some sense “belongs” to the possessor of that navy. The ocean was vast and ships were slow to move. You could control the narrows and if your navy was unchallenged, your authority would be respected near

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your forts and near your ships. But the high seas did not “belong” to anyone and merchant-men could usually avoid getting caught. (Das Gupta 2004a: 226–7) In this way, Das Gupta shifts our attention from claims of historical ownership to varying and contingent patterns of rule, degrees of institutional centralization, and territorial demarcation. With considerable attention to historical detail, Das Gupta identifies key defining elements of different epochs and their bearing on relations of rule and space in the Indian Ocean. In the fifteenth century, the defining feature was the spread of “Islamization.” This sway of influence encompassed the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, Eastern Africa and the Indian ports of Cambay and Calicut (Das Gupta 2004b: 36–7). The sixteenth century witnessed further changes with the emergence of “continental monarchies” that largely reinforced the sway of Islam through altering authority patterns and the spatiality of rule. These “continental monarchies” included the Mughals, Safavids and the Ottomans with their corresponding, competing and sometimes overlapping areas of influence that reached as far as India, Persia, Iraq, Syria and Egypt. Das Gupta argues that the Portuguese were quite marginal to the sixteenth century as a consequence of the ascendancy of these polities (Das Gupta 2004b: 38). The thread connecting the previous centuries with the next does not break at the seventeenth century, the point at which Europe-centered scholars begin to speak of the rise of the nation-state system, where one witnesses the consolidated presence of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires in facilitating trade within the “domestic” space of the empires (Das Gupta 2004b: 44). It was only with the eighteenth century that we see the emergence of Europeans as a significant force in the political climate of the Indian Ocean. One of the consequences of the development was the growing rift between “Asian” and “European” during this period and the historiographic question of the “origins” of the Indian Ocean state-system (Das Gupta 2004b: 51). While there remain some unanswered questions pertaining to the period, the eighteenth century marked the growing dominance of the European presence in the ocean. Das Gupta acknowledges “that whatever may have happened to the feeder lines for the shipping in Indian Ocean, there can be no doubt that by the turn of the nineteenth century, not only was the European ship dominant in the ocean but that the Indian ship had sailed into oblivion” (Das Gupta 2004c: 191). Though this historical sketch might justify the claim that European rule imposed a state-centered political imagination on the Indian Ocean, Das Gupta’s work reminds us of the varying political imaginations at play—with differing bases of authority and spatial reach—that preceded and co-existed with the new European cartography. One example of the way alternative cartographies play into contemporary understandings of political space can be found in the work of

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Sumathi Ramaswamy. She opens up another fresh register by examining the status of Lemuria, the lost continent submerged beneath the Indian Ocean. Ramaswamy uses the trope of “loss” to investigate the discursive density and spatial imagination that builds up around Lemuria from both the vantage points of modern science as well as the diametrically divergent stance of occult traditions. It is important first to examine how Ramaswamy conceptualizes “loss.” While treating enchantment as a defining attribute that characterizes the pre-modern world, disenchantment becomes an attribute of the modern world of rationality. Her interest, then, is “in the preoccupation with loss as this manifests itself in the fascination with vanished homelands, hidden civilizations, and forgotten peoples and their ignored pasts that range from the passionate disinterest of the scholar to the melancholic yearning of the nostalgic” that brings in alternative understandings of social connection and legitimate rule. Engaging this point, she “suggest[s] that the high modernity has not been merely preoccupied with progress and advance, but also with loss and disappearance. Correspondingly, loss is good to think in regard to what it means to be modern” (Ramaswamy 2005: 1). A vital conceptual marker in Ramaswamy’s rendition of loss is the notion of “place-making.” According to her “[p]lace-making in the modern world … cannot argue the colonization of imagination itself, and the numerous contradictions and conflicted intimacies of power, contestation and resistance in an age dominated by capitalism, imperialism and the postcolonial condition” (Ramaswamy 2005: 5). Ramaswamy points out that “Lemuria assumes many different shapes on the labors of its place-makers as they imagine, remember, yearn for, and map this vanished place” (Ramaswamy 2005: 5). Lemuria itself becomes a site that is shaped but also resists the colonial/postcolonial cartography of nation-statehood. The imagination and the desires organized around Lemuria prompt us to think about the meaning of history itself as a mode of comprehending the past in South Asia. Ashis Nandy might be read as contributing to this debate when he warns us that history as a way of organizing meaning is complicit with Enlightenment ambitions and that mythology may be a better way of accessing the “pasts” of postcolonial societies. “History,” as conventionally understood, ranks societies according to its own pecking order of progress (Nandy 1995). Ramaswamy confirms Nandy’s suspicions about history as trope in the context of invocations surrounding Lemuria in Tamilnadu. In her own words, she suggest[s] that if occult labors of loss battle it out in the shade of the material sciences, Tamil labors of loss struggle in the shadow of professional history, which had emerged by the early years of the twentieth century as the dominant knowledge-form through which the past is reckoned and written about among those who deemed themselves modern. (Ramaswamy 2005: 149)4

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Ramaswamy thus focuses our attention on the contested meanings of territory that operate via both competing and co-existing imaginaries of modern history and occult tradition for those who bemoan the “loss” of Lemuria. Ramaswamy’s work allows us, then, to reflect on the question of contemporary borders. She points out that [t]he anxiety over borders is crucial to a modern territorial sensibility that emerges with the rise of the nation-states, the reach of whose sovereignty is crucially limited to a clearly bounded piece of Earth that they are sworn to police and defend. Geography aids and abets in the consolidation of this sensibility, and not surprisingly, the heyday of the discipline in Europe, as indeed elsewhere, coincides with the consolidation of the national idea. (Ramaswamy 2005: 167–8) However, there is also the constant presence of an “extra-territorial” imagination that is viewed with a certain degree of “illegibility” by modern states (Das and Poole 2004). Thus, a cartographic imperative throws up its own set of dilemmas for the advocates of Lemuria. While map-making offered its advantages of establishing credibility to the claims of the Tamils, it was no easy task to actually turn what was “fuzzy” into finite or precise demarcations without also losing something (Ramaswamy 2005: 168). Lemuria’s power as an image is precisely its capacity to work against existing fixed boundaries, while also supporting Tamil claims for autonomy within a cartography of borders.

Rule and spaces of flows More recently, Sugata Bose notes the advantages and challenges of a more complex cartography of boundaries and the making of histories when he explicitly explores the link between globalization and the Indian Ocean. Making the case for “micro-histories,” Bose, not unlike Sassen’s emphasis on difference within broad patterns, cautions us that we must not miss the forest for the trees. He observes that “[t]he significance of these interregional ties in the modern history of the Indian Ocean arena and the ways in which they unraveled in the 1930s can be best captured not with an exhaustive history, but with a series of micro-histories.” He suggests that our examination of these “‘slices’ of history” should “avoid an exclusive obsession with the particular that leaves the whole out of view as well as sidesteps an allencompassing meta-narrative on networks of capital and labor that is insensitive to actual life experiences.” What we arrive at via this method is a “larger” vision that brings “together the histories of mobile people and some of the commodities with which their fortunes were linked” (Bose 2006: 79).

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Thus, when one thinks of the “boundaries” of the Indian Ocean, it would be wrong to ascribe any static or closed frames of reference. Bose argues that [t]he spatial boundaries of the Indian Ocean have varied according to the nature of cultural, economic, and political interactions under consideration and have certainly altered over time. For the period of 1500 to 1800 it is plausible to suggest outer boundaries drawn by the East African coast north to the Red Sea and extending east all the way along the Asian coast through the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the Strait of Malacca. It can be argued that in the early nineteenth century southern Africa and even western Australia were drawn more emphatically into the orbit of human history of the Indian Ocean. (Bose 2006: 10) Nonetheless and more critically from our perspective, the author retains the distinction between frontiers and boundaries. He notes in this regard that “[i]t is not that pre-colonial states did not possess notions of territorial boundaries. But frontiers between states were more often than not nebulous zones not amenable to sharp demarcation. Where borders were identified more precisely, markers such as boundary stones became points of reference not only in specific instances of need or dispute.” Like Ramaswamy, Bose argues that colonialism spread a “generalized cartographic anxiety over territorial possessions” (Bose 2006: 56). This cartographic anxiety might appear as an immaturity of the states of the Indian Ocean. But Bose and Ramaswamy forcefully suggest that territorial nation-statehood has coexisted and continues to co-exist with more fluid “frontiers” rather than replacing them. Indeed, Bose’s narrative consciously reminds us of the eclectic influences that were integral to the make-up of the Indian Ocean, shaping the spatiality of both pre-colonial and postcolonial identities. Rather than a history unfolding within fixed borders, we have a “traveling history of mobile peoples and ideas.” Rather than clearly separable national identities, we find “the broad contours of cultural liminality both within and beyond the nation – an organization of peoples that was only one of many expressions of imagined communities in the age of global empire” (Bose 2006: 280). This liminality is also reflected in the nomenclatures that have been employed to identify geographical zones across colonial and postcolonial histories. Bose stresses that “[t]he concept of space in pre-colonial patriotism could be simultaneously finite and infinite, restrictive and expansive.” For example, “[t]he name Hindustan for India could … refer to the north Indian Gangetic plain or to the whole of the subcontinent, which itself has fuzzy boundaries.” This fuzziness is not resolved by modern Indian statehood: “Modern Indian nationalism, far from being exclusively derived from

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discourses on the European territorial nation-state, drew significantly on elements of this legacy of patriotism and kept it alive through continual, creative innovation” (Bose 2006: 150). As with Lemuria, what seems, by Westphalian standards, to be competing imaginations of political community co-exist or, perhaps more strongly, thrive side by side. Bose’s discussion allows us to return to the debate on the universality and relativity of statehood and the state-system initially broached by Ayoob and Nandy. To some degree, Bose refuses this opposition. He suggests revisiting the histories of the Indian Ocean in terms of “competing universalisms” instead of contested “cultural relativisms.” As he puts it: A discerning historical investigation makes clear, however, that universalism was hardly a quest over which European modernity had any kind of monopoly. Local, regional, and national cultures in different parts of the globe were not just jealous guardians of their own distinctiveness, but also wished to participate in and contribute to larger arenas of cultural exchange. (Bose 2006: 270) We find ourselves no longer on the terrain of putatively universal Westphalian notions of political rule, but with competing, generalizable political imaginations. Finally, drawing insights from the world of critical geopolitics, Sanjay Chaturvedi and Dennis Rumley bring to bear a more current reading of the politics of the Indian Ocean Rim community and the impediments flowing from state-centric models in a regional framework (see also Mishra 2008b). They point to the “challenge” facing both states and non-state actors “to develop a normative vision of ocean governance and management, cognizant of the ‘transparency’ of the ‘boundaries’ both horizontal (as programmes) and vertical (as among levels of governance: local, national, regional and global)” (Chaturvedi and Rumley 2004: 303). In their view, this requires a “much larger oceanic vision” than that suggested by intergovernmental or inter-state action. They argue that “the Indian Ocean needs to be re-imagined as encompassing not only ‘spaces of places’ but also ‘spaces of flows.’” This means liberating the Indian Ocean region “from the prison of old cartography, a cartography that cannot map the globe-girdling networks of flows in the form of corporations, trade and communication infrastructure” (Chaturvedi and Rumley 2004: 300–1). If this returns us to Das Gupta’s ambiguous acceptance of the Indian Ocean as a fluctuating unit, it also updates his project by recovering the Indian Ocean as a politically relevant space. This space, it must be stressed, still appears as a frontier more than a border—a space of competing and overlapping authority—but it is girdled by very contemporary flows, mediated by contemporary actors, such as corporations, and carried by a modern communication and transportation infrastructure.

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This vision of a space of flows may justify Bose’s expressed skepticism about the role of states in erecting a broader “oceanic vision.” While bringing to attention recent developments such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), he observes that while Nelson Mandela, the initial propagator of the idea, “had the right idiom,” he ended up with “the wrong instruments” to turn that vision into a reality. Mandela “had touched a historical chord that harked back to a kind of cosmopolitan harmony, but a regional organization made up of nationstates did not possess the skills to play that music” (Bose 2006: 281).

In lieu of a conclusion We have traversed some distance from where we started. I would like to raise some persisting questions that relate to the empirical study of the Indian Ocean. The intent of the case examination was to illustrate the myriad globalizing influences and competing claimants to the ocean’s sovereign authority across different swathes of our recent history. With regard to the broader question of state formation, the classic IR literature tends normally to treat the West European experience as the basis for more generic theoretical claims. Waltzian structural realists, for example, are averse to historicizing the state form as they treat all states as “like units” (Spruyt 2002: 127–49). The primary intent of historicizing the state is to retain greater skepticism about generic claims that are not sufficiently sensitive to particular local histories. Forms and spaces of rule are not inevitably mirror image reproductions of each other. It is interesting to note in the context of rule that South Asia witnessed specific strategies in the precolonial period that were rather different from the colonial and subsequent ongoing postcolonial phase. Depictions of the state as “segmentary” or as “patrimonial” differ substantially from our more received notion of the Westphalian model of statehood. Likewise, an examination of the Indian Ocean challenges the dominance of borders over frontiers in the negotiation of identities and the governance of flows. With the colonial period, South Asia drifted closer to the Westphalian model we have come to associate with the modern state. Indeed, the emergence of a full-fledged bureaucracy and the accompanying paraphernalia of statehood were rather different from what was witnessed in the preceding period of South Asian history. However, the fundamental issue here was the colonial domination over political subjects through a variety of strategies that ranged from the ethnographic impulse, subsequently institutionalized in the desire to “enumerate” communities, to setting up a much more intrusive state apparatus with the principal aim of political subjugation of once colonized populations (Kaviraj 2003; Mishra 2008b). Though the postcolonial state could no longer lay claim to the colonial project of political subjugation, it tended to retain and borrow heavily from the administrative sensibility and make-up of the earlier colonial apparatus. This is markedly

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different from the nature of transformation that characterized the shift from the pre-colonial to the colonial period. With regard to the postcolonial state, there are two dominant images that have principally competed for wider legitimacy. While the image of state “benevolence” tends to ascribe a certain sanctity to the existing state form and suggests that in due course we will also come to perfect our states similar to Westphalian states, the view of state “malevolence” makes precisely the obverse argument that the postcolonial state is always going to be chasing a mirage unless it re-examines other political alternatives derived from its own indigenous background (Mallavarapu 2005). My choice of the Indian Ocean to explore plural meanings of globalization, rule and territoriality was meant to reveal the contingent nature of some of our human constructs. Maritime boundaries are particularly interesting to study because there is already an intrinsic “fuzziness” to the nature of these demarcations. It is in this context that Ashin Das Gupta’s skepticism about the Moreland thesis positing an organic unity of the Indian Ocean needs to be revisited as part of a resilient folklore about the ocean that every epoch compels us to view through fresh lenses yet once again.

Notes 1 I am deeply beholden to Arlene Tickner and David Blaney for their incisive comments on earlier versions of this chapter. I also benefited considerably from prior conversations with Anindya Saha. Vineet Thakur ably provided research assistance during the final stages of my investigation. The usual disclaimer applies. 2 The rebellion or mutiny spawned a vast literature in English, both in Great Britain and in India. 3 In a non-hagiographic but nevertheless glowing tribute to Das Gupta, it has been observed that he “was a somewhat solitary figure in an intellectual sense, for though he virtually founded a field in its true sense – namely, that of Indian Ocean studies between 1500 and 1800 – he explored it in a way that was all his own” (Subrahmanyam 2004: 2). Das Gupta’s scholarly corpus was also not without its critics. As Subrahmanyam himself notes: [i]t may of course be argued that Das Gupta posed the problem of the relationship between Europeans and Indians in too narrow a fashion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By focusing exclusively on political and commercial relations, it may be maintained that he neglected the cultural dimension of the problem to a certain extent. (Subrahmanyam 2004: 15–16) However, the overall verdict was that by all reckoning he remained “one of the rare distinguished specimens of liberal historiography in the second half of the twentieth century” (Subrahmanyam 2004: 19). 4 Not all share this optimism. Building on the work of Yael Zerubavel and others, Subrahmanyam rejects “the view that where history is unhealthy, other ‘traditional’ forms of memory act as antidote” (Subrahmanyam 2005: 99).

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Ruggie, John G. (1998a) “Political Structure and Dynamic Density,” in John G. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization, London: Routledge, pp. 137–54. —— (1998b) “Territoriality at Millennium’s End,” in John G. Ruggie, Essays on International Institutionalization, London: Routledge, pp. 175–98. Sassen, Saskia (2006) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scott, James (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sharma, Aradhana and Gupta, Akhil (2006) “Introduction: Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age of Globalization,” in Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta (eds), The Anthropology of the State, Malden: Blackwell, pp. 1–41. Spruyt, Hendrik (2002) “The Origins, Development, and Possible Decline of the Modern State,” Annual Review of Political Science, 5(1): 127–49. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1998) “Reflections on State-Making and History-Making in South India, 1500–1800,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 41(3): 382–416. —— (2004) “Introduction: The Indian Ocean and the World of Ashin Das Gupta,” in Uma Das Gupta (ed), The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant 1500–1800: Collected Essays of Ashin Das Gupta, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. —— (2005) Explorations in Connected History: From the Tagus to the Ganges, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Tilly, Charles (ed) (1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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The Latin American nation-state and the international Fernando López-Alves

A distinguishing feature of the Latin American state and of its relations with civil society has been the almost permanent absorption and incorporation of global sources of influence, including ideologies, institutional design, economic models and development strategies. An offspring of the first wave of globalization (circa 1870–1914), the state has developed historically in tandem with external variables that, in many countries in the region, have included foreign military intervention. It is no wonder, then, that scholarship too has long emphasized the intimate (and dependent) relation of the state with the global system of economic and political power (Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Similar to dependency theory and to the thinking developed by the Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA), more recent analyses of globalization and neoliberal reform have reinforced the idea that regional states are inextricably tied to the ups and downs of the international environment. Notwithstanding widespread acknowledgment of foreign influence on the state, “homegrown” literature has also insisted on the centrality of this actor as a key social, economic and political actor, and for good reason. Two hundred years of independent history have confirmed that regional states have never completely lost control of political power and/or policymaking, even after neoliberal prescriptions for economic reform that came into vogue during the 1980s called for reduced state intervention and the weakening of governmental regulation of the economy. In fact, contrary to what might be expected, on distinct occasions global factors have actually strengthened the state’s autonomy instead of reducing it. In this chapter I will argue that because the Latin American state consolidated during the first wave of globalization, its historical development has been noticeably different from that observed in other developing regions, such as Asia and Africa. By exploring those aspects that distinguish the region’s experience with and reflections on the state, my main objective is to show that the case of Latin America provides an interesting contribution to thinking about the state and nation-state, both in International Relations and in other fields.

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My argument unfolds in several steps. First, I explore the Latin American state in historical perspective, highlighting the ways in which the absorption of foreign liberal ideas in both politics and economics led to both emulation (albeit partial) of external models and acute awareness of the importance of local (state) control over national resources and development. Second, I suggest that unlike most other regions (Europe, Asia, and most of Africa) from their very inception weak states in Latin America created “the nation” and struggled to eliminate subaltern identities. For the most part, they followed a modern and at the time fashionable “one nation/ one state” model aimed at the creation of “nation-states” rather than “national states.” This offers a sharp contrast with stronger European states, in which preexisting nations (Germany, Hungary) built up their own states. The Latin American experience also differs from the United States, where the “American nation” also seems to have preceded the state. Third, I show that the strong and permanent presence of “the international” as a crucial ingredient molding regional states has led to a marked divide in the scholarly literature: on the one hand, external variables have been seen as a positive force; on the other, they have been depicted as a negative influence that has historically weakened the state, deprived it of sovereignty and made it dependent. While such disagreement about the potential effects of global forces can be found elsewhere (including Africa and the Middle East), in Latin America this debate has shaped more than a century of scholarship. Finally, I argue that the Latin American social sciences have not experienced the ups and downs of their United States counterparts regarding the role, importance, and character of the state as a political, economic, and social actor. Instead, scholarly emphasis on the state across disciplines has been a permanent feature of academic practice, largely due to its historical weight in Latin American society. This has produced a different kind of scholarship in which even those analysts harboring hardcore neoliberal positions have been hard-pressed to argue for a nearly stateless society in which the market reigns completely.

The Latin American state in historical perspective Perhaps more so than in other parts of the world the “international” has been ingrained upon the evolution of the Latin American state during its entire historical trajectory. The convergence of its post-independence birth and consolidation with the first wave of globalization meant, among other things, that institutions of government were shaped directly by nineteenthcentury liberal thinking. The strong influence of liberalism has been widely acknowledged in the Latin American literature on the state (Chiaramonte 1971; Peloso and Tenenbaum 1996). As authors such as Carrizola (1977), Halperín (1980), and Olarriaga (1947) have remarked, a vision of the state that mirrored the British and French traditions offered a model that

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became dominant throughout the region. So powerful, in fact, was the presence of liberal international doctrines that alternative projects of state formation were doomed from the very beginning. Instead, liberalism and republican rule were largely perceived as the preferred and only viable path to state making. However, the tendency to adopt international models and paradigms did not translate into the growth of twisted or cloned versions of modern Western states in Latin America. Foreign influence was not restricted to imitating the “goodness” of liberal doctrines in Europe and the United States. To begin with, strong European states could host many diverse nations and cultures and still be able to rule. Latin American ones, as will be discussed subsequently, could not. European states practiced colonialism and were potential threats to their Latin American counterparts, especially given their hunger for mining and landed resources. Latin American states could do nothing of the sort; they were considerably weaker and hardly able to expand or to seize neighboring territories. Therefore, despite much literature about the desire of state makers in Latin America to imitate European states or the federal U.S. system, they were fully aware that they lacked the needed resources to truly mimic either model. While European and North American liberalism remained a crucial and influential import, local conditions created a homegrown reading of state and nation. Latin American liberalism embraced important portions of the history of anti-colonialism and the creation of subaltern forms of identity. This is a major reason why, after the wars of Independence (circa 1810–30), a return to colonial rule or some sort of monarchical arrangement seemed both impossible and undesirable. Namely, when it came to designing and planning for the new republican states, the model offered by Spain (another import) seemed too poor a foundation. Instead, creating truly new nations and identities was deemed urgent. By the end of the 1870s official identification with the ex-colonial master was considered something to stay away from. In 1874, in his address to the Argentine Congress, President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento famously claimed that “Felipe II, (and) the Inquisition [ … ] are not precedents upon which we can introduce the practice of liberty [ … ] or national decor” (Sarmiento 1874: 376). Referring to Spain, he added that “there are racial traditions that need to be eradicated (because) they represent a legacy that reinforces the bad habits that we wanted to avoid when we became independent [ … ]” (Halperín 1980: 125). It was precisely this view of the negative inheritance left by the Spanish that paved the way for the adoption of British-sponsored liberalism, creating also an identity vacuum that was to be filled by a new Creole version of national identity that incorporated external factors into “the national.” Across the region, local variants of the nation-state included fashionable models as to how to construct identity and how to glue it to the state. Latin America followed accepted international patterns of state making that did not favor the Spanish experience. For example, the U.S. press would often

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criticize Spanish influence and praise regional presidents for their efforts to do away with it: “Spain had bestowed in Spanish America a tradition of dictatorship solely supported by terror [ … ],” thus influencing the new countries to “become tyrannies of a type elsewhere extinct in the world” (The New York Times 1869: 3). The weight of imported liberal thinking was such that Latin America allowed for grass roots organizations to form and pressed for the separation of church and state. In the case of the secular–religious divide the adaption of liberalism was quite different in the region than in the Middle East, or even Europe and North America. States in Latin America took the separation of church and state quite literally, in some cases generating fast, sweeping processes of secularization. In contrast, this process took much longer in Europe, while in the United States such a divide did not make much sense, given that religion was considered part of civil society and beyond the jurisdiction of the state. In Latin America, however, it fell to the state to enforce the separation of the two spheres. In terms of economics, Latin America also adopted straightforward liberal economic thinking that defined its relations with the global market. However, as happened with liberal political doctrines, even though regional states designed their economic institutions in tandem with the prevailing international economic doctrine of the times, public policies in this realm resembled only partially those sponsored by Britain and later the United States. In the 1930s and 1940s, this situation changed when the accepted international institutional models favored stronger, larger, autarkic states that could intervene in the economy and manage natural endowments. Populism became quickly fashionable and, as normally occurs, local versions of populism evolved into homegrown traditions. As suggested above, external influence upon the state-building process was not restricted to providing models for emulation. Rather, European colonial expansion triggered a keen awareness of the value and control of natural endowments for the proper functioning of the state, and contributed to creating an imaginary of the nation-state in which the control of natural resources occupied center stage (López-Alves 2011). Thus, ingrained in the very definition of the Latin American nation-state one encounters conceptions of the “international” that are both positive and negative. While foreign powers provided models on the bases of which regional leaders measured their own institutions, they also triggered critical discussions and debate, and occupied an important place in the imagination and practice of state makers. Britain is a case in point. Its “informal empire policies” were at the same time admired and dreaded, its trade policies revered and mistrusted, its cunning use of trade viewed as both fashionable and feared. Germany, a less frequently cited case, became a model of industriousness and efficiency for countries throughout the region (until World War II), while German culture was viewed as invigorating and successful, as opposed to the “decadence of Latin nations” (Terán 2008: 74–5).

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Before discussing in greater detail both the optimistic and the deleterious readings of the international that are apparent in Latin American treatments of and experiences with the state, I turn briefly to the relationship between state and nation, another feature that distinguishes the region from other parts of the world.

State and nation Contrary to countries such as Germany, in which the German nation preceded the construction of a German state in 1871, in Latin America the state remained largely responsible for building the nation. Indeed, several decades after Independence and notwithstanding their poor capacity and reduced autonomy, regional states acquired prominence as makers of social, political and economic life, and of culture and identity in general. Although they were severely constrained by domestic and international factors, states nonetheless embarked on nation-building, creating the “nation” part of the nation–state equation. One could argue that this led to a somewhat paradoxical situation: in terms of their strength, Latin American states did not—and do not—measure up when compared to their European and U.S. counterparts; however, they have traditionally assumed the role of major institution and identity maker. In consequence, the nation-state emerged as part of the state’s own development agenda. This agenda included linking institutions of government with heterogeneous populations that the state tried to lump together under the label of a “single and unifying nation.” It is important to point out that the way nation and state combined in the region set Latin America apart from the European national states of the time as defined, for instance, by Charles Tilly (1992: 2–4). While the national state model was never popular in Latin America, the nation-state was (López-Alves 2011). In the early twentieth century the “one state, many nations” formula remained the reality in most of Europe. Conversely, Latin America favored the “one state, one nation” formula that, worldwide, stood more as the exception than the rule. State makers perceived that the coexistence of diverse identities within one state was problematic and Europe provided sound reasons for this perception. There, nations that had consolidated long before the rise of the modern state and that lived under its rule kept clashing with one another. In consequence, the predominant thinking in Latin America was that forging a single nation from the onset under the jurisdiction of one state seemed the most convenient and effective nation building strategy and the model upon which to construct state institutions. A considerable amount of literature from Latin America and elsewhere has documented the ways in which states for the most part succeeded at eliminating competing nationalities (Ramos Mejía 1945); Restrepo 1952, 1963; Rojas Mery 1946). They did so by exterminating and marginalizing

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native peoples, imported Africans and the poor. States aimed to eliminate, sabotage, and ultimately exclude indigenous groups and other “undesirables,” forcing them to live “outside” the nation that the state created. Latin American elites also tried to reduce the influence and physical presence of such groups by designing immigration policies that aimed at “purifying” the population by attracting the desired kind of white European immigrant. The Argentinean, Uruguayan, Peruvian, and Brazilian states are cases in point; Colombia also tried similar policies, with less success. Yet pre-existing identities and cultures remained a voice and a solid presence. Present-day Ecuador and Bolivia come to mind as prominent examples, as do Peru, Mexico, and Guatemala. Lord Acton’s argument that nations (in the sense of countries) become stronger precisely when they gravitate toward multiple centers of power represented by different nationalities and cultures did not resonate in Latin America. Acton claimed that A state which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself; a state which labors to neutralize, to absorb or expel them, destroys its own vitality; a state who does not include them is destitute of the chief basis of self-government. (cited in Dahbour and Ishay 1995: 117) Latin American states acknowledged diversity but they perceived it as something that had to be reduced to a minimum. For example, Brazil has always been considered an example of racial-social engineering, comparable to South Africa and the South in the United States, but different because officially it tried to eliminate “race” as a divisive factor within the desired nation (Marx 1998). Indeed, a distinguishing feature of the Latin American state was that it sought to eliminate—or ignore—racial, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic differences to create the desired modern nation that would unite both Creoles and immigrants (Zelarayan 1999). States in Argentina and Peru used universal male conscription into the army as an instrument. Immigrants and natives from the rural areas were “socialized” through military discipline into the cultural, linguistic, and political standards of the nation (López-Alves 2000: 300–4). In the first decade of the twentieth century, Carlos Escudé argues, the state took an “extremist” approach to the creation of national identity in an effort to integrate the international into what was considered “Argentinean” (Escudé 1990). Something similar occurred in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia. Political parties were also used as instruments of “Europeanization.” Some of them attracted large numbers of immigrants, and acted as instruments of modern socialization that incorporated foreign influences into the making of the “national,” such as the Colorados in Uruguay or the Liberales in Colombia. As in Europe, states “invented tradition” (Hobsbawm 1983); yet the Latin American state was responsible for “inventing tradition” in several ways

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simultaneously. It disguised and transformed the indigenous past, it wrote a substantial part of national history, and it created a tradition of advocacy of modernity in order to gain international recognition and legitimacy. International factors became a key component in the construction of the nation in two different senses. First, the state took elements and contents from the external environment and transformed them into “ingredients,” so to speak, of the nation. I have already alluded to the role of liberal ideology as a key component of the nation-state, and mentioned that the United States, Canada, France, England and, to a lesser extent, Germany, were regarded as models not only of institutions and power centralization but also of national identity and strength. Second, a less frequently mentioned foreign influence came from the considerable numbers of immigrants that resided in Latin America at the time of nation-state making. Especially in the case of those that occupied positions of economic power and influence, immigrants themselves participated in the conceptualization of what the nation ought to be, what it meant in different locales, and what the state’s role should be in terms of integrating immigrant communities. Latin American historians and—to a lesser extent—social scientists have analyzed the power and importance of this foreign influence in the construction of the nation and in the very definition of national identity (Barrán and Nahum 1967, 1978; Devoto 2006; Germani 1955). In sum, in Latin America indigenous and national communities did not (or could not) create their own states. Rather, the “national” state forged a dominant idea of the nation and produced one state for all those who qualified for citizenship. The “community of sentiment” that Max Weber identified with “the nation” was, with several degrees of success, constructed by the state.

The international as a positive force As highlighted previously, liberalism was, and has, been widely accepted as a positive force in Latin America. In the process of building the state, many local and indigenous traditions were eliminated or left aside. The new ruling elites claimed to exercise power in the name of change and newness. Europeans were considered a superior race, and thus, imports from the United States and Europe as “civilizing” forces in a context of lawlessness and weak property rights were welcomed. For most Latin American elites, therefore, the “international” was largely associated with order, “civilization,” sophistication and modernity. Even those societies in which Creoles of indigenous descent occupied the upper echelons of the political pyramid subscribed to this view. Mexico remained, many times, an exception; nonetheless, in the end, this modernizing view took hold of the Mexican state as well. Somehow fulfilling the later hopes of mid-twentieth-century modernization theory, modernity had to be imported. In it, whiteness and European industriousness were to be given preference.

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Many political leaders and thinkers considered that Latin America confronted an uphill battle in its adoption of liberalism, European culture and republican rule. In a sort of Manichean view, two sides confronted each other: the positive influence of the international and the backwards sway of the local. Like Argentine President Sarmiento, they also viewed the region as a struggle between “civilization and barbarism” (Azuaga 1966). In the region, Europe was widely seen as a model. Unlike Latin America, it had industrialized and had proven successful in establishing durable institutions. This was perceived as a sign of the superiority of European culture and inventiveness. Industrialization is not always a good indicator of regime openness or democracy; yet it transformed European society in a way that many in Latin America felt desirable (López-Alves 2000). For those who saw external factors as a positive influence the slow but steady victory of republican rule and liberalism over other more authoritarian forms of government was welcome news. As many regional authors have long argued, state formation in tandem with competition and war between civilian factions that soon formed political parties, produced a particular context in which Latin American versions of liberalism took shape and consolidated (Ansaldi 1988; Barrán and Nahum 1979; Botana 1998; Halperín 1972; Ozlak 1985). One of the most cited cases is Costa Rica. But in the Southern Cone comparable instances of advanced liberal reform are observable. For instance, by 1917 Uruguay had established the first welfare state of the Americas and its constitution had granted women the right to vote (Reyes and Vázquez Romero 1986: 122–56). As some Latin American scholars have claimed, by the 1910s and 1920s, Colombia, Uruguay, and Chile had achieved party systems that represented, from a liberal standpoint, a cutting edge design (Saldias 1977; Torres 1978; Vázquez Carrizosa 1986). In the 1990s, the second wave of globalization was once again celebrated as a positive external influence in Latin America. The state had grown too big, bureaucracies too inefficient, the public budget too high, and allocation of resources too irrational. Globalization and neoliberal reform were viewed as necessary corrective measures. Many Latin American states in fact competed among themselves, for the benefit of international agencies, to see which adopted privatization and downsizing better and faster. The neoliberal fever that shook Latin America from Mexico to Argentina in the early 1990s was metaphorically seen as a welcome and purifying force. Most governments in the region partook in the building up of an imagery of efficiency and technological advancement associated with international forces and, especially, global markets. This relationship parallels to a large extent the close connection that existed between the Latin American state and globalization in its infant years, as highlighted previously. States shrank and privatized public services. They tried to adjust to foreign capital competiveness in the domestic market, reformed taxation, eliminated bureaucracies and changed their existing relations with civil society.

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They redesigned institutions and followed neoliberal policies quickly and aggressively, And also altered their relations with domestic private capital and the rural sectors. This is nothing new, except for the fact that international consensus about neoliberal doctrine was enforced by international institutions (World Bank, IMF, IDB) that did not exist at the time of formation of the Latin American state and its adoption of liberalism.

The international as a destructive force In opposition to the more celebratory views of foreign influence identified in the previous section, an important group of authors both in Latin America and elsewhere have traditionally seen the international as a negative force. Political scientists, overall, have been fairly neutral on this issue, neither condemning external factors nor welcoming them as potentially positive. In the region, literature on the state coming from political science, a discipline enormously influenced by its U.S. counterpart, overall has preferred a national, domestic focus rather than an international take on the state (Lanzaro 1986; Leal 1984). Those few scholars that pointed to the role of external factors tended to depict their impact on the state in an ambivalent light. In the late 1970s, however, Guillermo O’Donnell broke with this tradition by including international explanations in an innovative model of the authoritarian state. This author greatly contributed to the debate on the role of the state in Latin America with a theory that blended domestic and external variables. O’Donnell was responding to what at the time remained a prevalent paradigm: modernization theory. Modernization theory had claimed, among other things, that underdeveloped countries experienced sequences of political development that somehow led them to reproduce the path already taken by developed ones. Developed countries, the engine of modernization and development, infused their entrepreneurial culture, their technology and their capital into the periphery (developing countries); those peripheries, almost in a Marxist sense, could hardly resist the advances of capitalist development and were forced to get rid of “traditional society” and modernize. O’Donnell’s work, based on the Argentine case during the 1970s, questioned established interpretations about both the Latin American state and modernization. It also challenged prevalent readings of the nature of military rule in Latin America (O’Donnell 1979a, 1979b). His bureaucratic authoritarian model allowed plenty of room to incorporate international factors and pressures when studying the state. Namely, the author argued that external forces did not always have positive effects on the state. Contrary to modernization theory that regarded them in a positive light, mainly as drivers of development and state autonomy, in O’Donnell’s reading these positives could easily become negatives. On this count, the author joined an established scholarly tradition in Latin America, yet one not

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forged within the political science discipline which, somehow surprisingly, continued to favor domestic factors in its analyses of the state. Sociologists, historians, and economists showed a greater proclivity to incorporate global contexts and international market forces when talking about the state. In the mid 1980s, the work of Oscar Oszlak (1985) on the Argentine state pioneered an increasing interest in state formation, in which international factors and influences figured prominently. While this author’s contribution remained within a tradition that emphasized domestic developments, the international constituted a key factor in Ozlak’s interpretation of the formation of the Argentine state, and more often than not one that created dependence and loss of state autonomy (Ozlak 1985). Dependency theory and the ECLA school are classic examples of Latin American traditions that stress external factors in explaining development, regime type and the state formation. The argument of both was that an international market and economy in which industrial goods rendered higher returns than those of agriculture and mining had set Latin America behind in the development race. The international did not bring prosperity and development to Latin America. Rather, it furthered other interests and had negative consequences for the state. While some precepts of U.S. modernization theory were absorbed by, and integrated into, this literature, dependent development stood, together with O’Donnell’s, as one of the most coherent and radical critiques of U.S. arguments about modernization. In contrast to modernization thinking, Latin American authors critical of the benefits of global influence argued that the international did not promote development, democracy, better distribution of wealth or progress. Rather, for the most part, diverse international factors were viewed as an obstacle to real development and growth. They did not empower Latin America in relation to a global system that the region could hardly influence, shape, or, much less, control. Rather, they made the Latin American state dependent. It embodied foreign capital interests and the power of the core states; states that had succeeded at capital accumulation precisely at the expense of the less developed areas of the world. These appeared condemned to rely mostly on agricultural and mining exports. In many ways a precursor of world systems theory, dependency also argued that the international division of labor favored the developed core of the global system and relegated most other countries to a second or third tier in the scale of development. Capital accumulation in the periphery was not impossible, but it remained dependent. Dependentistas spoke of a structural trap that had been historically set up by the most powerful capitalist states. The Latin American state would, according to dependency theory, remain pretty much unable to effectively overcome dependent development precisely because of an international barrier that stood in its way. Revolution, some radical dependencia theorists claimed, both at the local and regional scale, could offer the only and valid hope.

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The influence of dependency was, of course, enormous, both in Latin America and beyond. For the purposes of my discussion, one aspect that stood out in this literature was the idea that the state, despite being a prisoner of international forces, still made decisions and channeled influence (Cardoso and Falleto 1979; Sunkel and Paz 1970). States admittedly lost autonomy and for the most part were forced to play the international game as dictated elsewhere. The international negatively affected the state by contributing to the consolidation of alliances between the powerful landed and mining classes with foreign companies, which only reinforced the state’s loss of autonomy and capacity. For many dependentistas, U.S. treatments of the state were part of an “imperialistic” literature designed to trick Latin America into believing in the fairness of an international system that only fostered false hopes and mirages of development (Claps 1987). Dependent development theory in Latin America, however, was not reduced to dependency theory. In other approaches to development the international took more benign forms and did not always emerge wrapped in a dark cloak. The so-called “lands of recent settlement theory” (LRST) is a good example. This literature, for the most part stripped of the radical views that characterized some of the dependency literature, departed from the premise that vast areas of Latin America, like the United States, had been basically “empty” lands ready for European colonization. This situation offered as many opportunities for development as it had in North America. Comparisons uniting Latin America with more successful cases such as Australia and New Zealand seemed to reaffirm this claim. LRST comprised eclectic but nonetheless connected pieces of research on development, the state, and trade.1 While LRST theory stressed the significance and hindrances of dependent development and underscored the negative consequences of wild capitalist development in the core, unlike dependency it also suggested that it was actually possible to overcome underdevelopment even within the structure of the reigning global system of power. LRST had an illustrious precedent in Frederick Jackson Turner’s (1920) classic interpretation of the United States frontier. Latin American and Australian scholars further developed this theory, giving rise to what was called “staple theory,” which argued that staple export economies could be compared, and a corrective to dependent development could be found. Thus, the economies of Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canada, could offer ideal contrasting mirrors to the export economies of Latin America. The U.S. South presented a promising comparative scenario as well. Unlike dependency theory, the LRST argument did not focus exclusively on the influence of economics and global markets. Culture too figured prominently as an independent variable. In the case of staple theory, the importance of European cultural influence in some of these lands of recent settlement, such as Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, or Chile, was stressed. Proponents of this argument claimed that this facilitated the construction of promising comparative bridges,

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especially with Canada, the U.S, Australia, and New Zealand. Without explicitly saying so, LRST and staple theory perceived the influence of European culture as a foundational positive in the development equation (Di Tella 1989; Waisman 1989). Historians in Latin America offered another corollary to dependency theory, especially the Cardoso and Falleto (1979) and Sunkel and Paz (1970) variants. This literature developed more in accordance with the historical trajectory of the state, as described previously, and highlighted a combination of international and domestic factors (Botana 1979; Carrera 1983; Halperín 1980; Quintero 1989, 1990). It acknowledged the state’s key role in economic development and institution building, but stressed that external factors shaped its foreign and domestic policies and acted, most times, as negative influences. Therefore, state capacity and autonomy were deemed to depend not only on domestic coalitions but also on international political and market contexts. How did the negative and the positive of external influences correlate in this literature? For some historians, the international had many dark sides but, at the same time, these aspects could turn into positives, such as an increase in state autonomy from the landed classes. The painstaking work of historians such as José Pedro Barrán and Benjamin Nahum (1967, 1978), for example, pointed to the central importance of international factors in building state capacity and autonomy. These two authors analyzed the influence of the British Empire in Latin America as a major independent variable to explain state development and autonomy. Their counterintuitive argument was that increasing British influence encouraged and made possible higher degrees of state autonomy, which in turn encouraged the development of a rather autonomous political class (Barrán and Nahum 1979). This “class” subsequently gained enough strength to limit the influence of landowners and big owners of capital upon the state. Although I have organized this discussion around more positive and negative accounts of the impact of the international on the regional state, it is important to note that Latin American scholarship does not break down so easily. Rather, regional scholars have developed a range of arguments that might be placed on a continuum of positions.

The Latin American state: never “out,” always “in” Concern about the state, its power to enforce rules, its capacity to act as an autonomous actor and its tendency to bend to the interests of the more powerful have been constants in the Latin American literature. However, concerns about the capacity of the state to carry out its major objectives have not diminished the strong conviction of regional scholars that the state remains the most powerful actor in social engineering, the most important piece of the political system and the key player in economic policy.

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Contrary to United States and European scholarship, where starting in the mid to late 1980s calls were made to “bring the state back in” (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985), in Latin America it never left the radar of scholarship completely. Against the historical centrality of the state, it is no wonder that even the most radical versions of neoliberalism could not ignore it or hope for its disappearance. In fact, neoliberals in the region fought a state that remained very much alive and that resisted this type of policy change. As a consequence the state was never completely outside the analytical picture. Moreover, scholarship in the region today has begun to intensify attention upon this actor once again (Domingues 2009). The ups and downs of U.S. literature on the state and globalization are for the most part alien to Latin American scholars.2 Tellingly, studies focusing on Latin America but produced outside the region exhibit an overall tendency to view the state as a prisoner of global forces or as a weakened institution unable to cope with pressures emerging from financial capital and global markets. Even in texts that study cultural change in relation to globalization, and that include contributions from both U.S. and Latin American scholars, the state has basically been forgotten (Joseph 1999). In contrast to the above, many regional scholars have consistently argued for the centrality of the state. Not only have states rarely been considered a dying institution, they are regularly portrayed as crafters and makers of society. They have also been regarded as the shapers of the specific contours adopted by globalization in the region. According to this reading, states have remained the main actor in foreign policy making and public policy implementation, even under the most radical privatization (Borón 2000; Dessein and López-Alves 2006; López-Alves 2002; Smith and Korzeniewicz 1997). This is not to say that no regional scholar has ever argued in favor of the shrinking of the state. Some Latin American authors have agreed that the state needs to retract and watch markets and politics from afar rather than actively intervening (Chudnovsky 1997; Salazar 2004); however, overall, such voices have remained a minority. It can be argued that Latin American economists have made the most radical claims about the death of the state in the region. But in that field too, especially when compared with the disciplinary equivalent in the United States, arguments of this sort have resonated with only a handful of supporters (Sánchez 2003). Because of its radical neoliberal reform policies, Argentina drew a lot of attention and became the poster child of Latin American globalization. However, even in this case scholars regarded the state as a central force of economic restructuring and policy implementation during the reform period, including junctures when it became corrupt or inefficient (Borón 2000: 55–67; Mahon and Corrales 2004). Indeed, by 2007 no one doubted that the Argentine state had been and would continue to be the major agent of policy design and implementation (LópezAlves 2007).

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While in the early 1990s most writing from Latin America focused on the major themes of the day—privatization and state reform—the discussion adopted a different tone than in the United States. Atilio Borón (2000) and other political theorists, for instance, contended that neoliberalism and the reform of state institutions that it brought about were there to stay. But they also argued that this constituted a harmful development for the region, and offered alternative formulae to radical neoliberal privatization. Regionally, most scholars agreed with neoliberal doctrine in the sense that smaller and more efficient states were deemed necessary. However, they also claimed that the full predominance of the market over the state was close to science fiction (Borón 2000). The market was too unpredictable, while it was believed that states ought to have a role in the regulation of business transactions, the distribution of wealth and in assuring some balance between those who gained and those who lost from the market so that entire sectors of society would not be driven to extreme poverty. Only the state could intervene to halt a process that could mean the total disappearance of the traditional working class. In other words, no argument about the vanishing of the state was made, and for good reason. Many in the United States and Europe also pointed out that states, and not just market forces, contributed to create and shape globalization. But this literature enthusiastically considered markets as the major independent variables that could mold, in the most efficient manner, both states and society (López-Alves 2002, 2003; Serbin 2003; Smith and Korzeniewicz 1997). Such a position never gained a stronghold in Latin America. While few questioned the pressures of international markets or the effects of global incentives on institutions, politics and society, scholars consistently looked to the state as the center of gravity in decision-making. In fact, it was often remarked that at the end of the day the state itself was in charge of implementing the very neoliberal policies that trimmed its structures and agencies! If anything, the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s have confirmed that states have never been too weakened or shrunken to completely lose control of political power or policymaking. The state continues to produce the international agenda, to structure political coalitions and to organize the most important economic strategizing.3 One could indeed argue that without the agency of the state, globalization never would have transformed Latin American societies in the way it did (López-Alves 2003; Serbín 2003). Moreover, without the collaboration of state bureaucratic agencies, financial capital, both foreign and domestic, could never have extended its influence and power. States added a needed agency to the incentives of global markets and to the flow of financial capital. Therefore, early globalization literature—and even work published after the mid-1990s—has been proven wrong in its underestimation of the state’s role (Agnew 1994; Guehenno 1995; Kobrin 1998). By the same token,

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a venerable and old-fashioned scholarly Latin American tradition has been confirmed correct. This “tradition” comprises a heterogeneous body of work that includes historians, social scientists and anthropologists.4 Even in strong versions of dependency theory, as mentioned previously, the state did not fade from scholarly analyses, but was rather one of its centerpieces. Cardoso and Falletto (1979), as well as Sunkel and Paz (1970), assigned the state a central role in carrying out dependent development and in managing financial and international capital investment. In the minds of Latin American scholars, therefore, the state remains a vibrant if somewhat hampered actor in an era of global capitalism.

Conclusions In a sort of Hegelian way and despite its major shortcomings, the state in Latin America was perceived as the only force that could build the nation, construct modernity and set up a context for market transactions. This belief seemed to confirm Hegel’s controversial axiom: “The state is the actuality of concrete freedom” (Hegel 1952: 160). For some, that freedom was undermined by myriad kinds of external interference, while for others the state gained higher degrees of freedom largely because of such influence. Throughout their process of formation, the post World War II period, and the second wave of globalization, regional states adapted to the ups and downs of the business cycle, followed international guidelines in terms of state reform, and aggressively structured economic policy and institutional design in accordance with global paradigms. While states in other parts of the developing world followed similar paths, in Latin America the “international” became a permanent feature of the regional landscape much earlier and thus shaped both the state and the scholarly literature in distinctive ways. A first lesson to be derived from the trajectory of the Latin American state is that the enormous influence of international factors does not invariably translate into a weakening of the state, neither in its capacity nor its autonomy. Homegrown literature has long pointed this out. For the vast majority of Latin American scholars there has never been a question that the state, regardless of its dependence on external developments, is a vital and lively actor, both in practice and in theory. A second lesson is that strong states are not a prerequisite for building nations. In terms of autonomy and capacity, after more than 200 years the Latin American state does not earn high marks, especially in comparison to European states and even its North American counterparts. Nor has the state achieved a harmonious relation with civil society. Despite periods of economic prosperity and social peace the interaction between it and its constituencies has, for the most part, transited through a rocky road of perilous ups and downs. Nonetheless, national identity was almost totally constructed from the top down rather than the other way around, and based

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upon a state-invented tradition. This does not mean that the experiment has been totally successful: divided identities remain an important feature of the region and during the last decade projects designed to preserve the foundational myth of one single identity under one single state have been seriously challenged (especially in Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Bolivia). Nevertheless, the one state, one nation model has remained in place for most of the history of the modern Latin American state. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century—spanning a period no longer than 80 years—weak states in Latin America were able to construct nation-states, a task that Africa, most of the Middle East, and even Europe at some points in its history did not successfully complete. The exclusion of peoples whose identity did not coincide with that chosen by the state in constructing its desired civil society also took different forms from, say, the United States. No “Indian reservations” were built or rights to “Indian lands” granted. In Europe, rulers tried to accomplish similar goals by using varied strategies, including war and extermination. Yet national identities did not go away, and still today the one state, one nation model remains somewhat controversial, as expressed in the experiences of the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and France. Finally, a third lesson is that modernization processes that lack an industrial revolution and create situations of dependence upon the international can still generate states capable of centralizing power, managing social engineering and building national identity. The distinct experiences of both Africa and the Middle East with state making underscore this important comparative difference.

Notes 1 I refer, for instance, to the work done during the late 1970s and 1980s by a group of scholars that encouraged comparisons between Latin America and other regions. It emerged out of collaboration among Latin American, Australian, and North American scholars. See, among others, Fogarty, Gallo, and Diéguez (1979) and Fogarty (1985). For a different political economy perspective, see Schwartz (1989). 2 Studies focusing on Latin America from a globalization theory perspective have ranged from political economy, cultural, or institutional perspectives, to simply surveying the “reactions” of the region in response to globalization. In other words, the emphases have widely varied and the topics have differed, forming an eclectic although valuable collection. Among others, see Robinson (2003). On the limitations and characteristics of the literature of globalization on Latin America and the scarce importance attributed to the state, see López-Alves (2007). 3 Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru are blatant cases in point. 4 A number of books authored by Latin Americans on the state and its role in development can be considered “traditional” examples. Among others, Martínez (1946); Melo (1978); Romero (1994); and Terán (1987). In the early 1980s, Chilean scholar Claudio Veliz (1980) wrote The Centralist Tradition of Latin America, which became a point of reference for much work within

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this “tradition.” See, as well, what has earned the status of “classic” in work on the state as a maker of the nation (Halperín 1980, 1982). The work of Oszlak (1985) has for a long time been considered one of the strongest arguments for the centrality of the state in social engineering and international policymaking. See also the central role attributed to the state, especially in Brazil, in Domingues (2009).

References Agnew, John (1994) “The Territory Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory,” Review of International Political Economy, 1(1): 53–80. Ansaldi, Waldo (1988) Estado y sociedad en la Argentina del siglo XIX, Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina. Azuaga, Luis (1966) “Civilización y barbarie en los ojos de contemporáneos,” Revista de Anales Históricos, 2: 11–23. Barrán, José P. and Benjamin Nahum (1967,1978) Historia rural del Uruguay moderno, seven volumes, Montevideo: Banda Oriental. —— (1979) Batlle, los estancieros y el Imperio Británico, Montevideo: Banda Oriental. Borón, Atilio (2000), El búho de Minerva, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Botana, Natalio R. (1979) El orden conservador: La política argentina entre 1880 y 1916, Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. —— (1998) El siglo de la libertad y el miedo, Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. Cardoso, Fernando H. and Enzo Faletto (1979) Dependency and Development in Latin America, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Carrera Damas, Germán (1983) “Sobre la cuestión regional y el proyecto nacional venezolano en la segunda mitad del siglo 19,” in Marco Palacios (comp), La unidad nacional en América Latina, México: El Colegio de México, pp. 22–39. Carrizola, Eduardo (1977) Liberales desde el principio, Bogotá: La Oveja Negra. Chiaramonte, José C. (1971) Nacionalismo y liberalismo económicos en Argentina, 1860–1880, Buenos Aires: Solar Hachette. Chudnovsky, Daniel (1997) “Beyond Macroeconomic Stability in Latin America,” in John H. Dunning and Khalil A. Hamdani (eds), The New Globalism and Developing Countries, New York: United Nations University Press, pp. 125–54. Claps, Manuel (1987) Historia de las ideas políticas en América Latina, Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria. Dahbour, Omar and Micheline R. Ishay (eds) (1995) The Nationalism Reader, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International. Dessein, Daniel and Fernando López-Alves (eds) (2006) Siete escenarios para el siglo 21, Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. Devoto, Fernando J. (2006) Historia de los italianos en la Argentina, Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos. Di Tella, Guido (1989) La formación de la Argentina moderna, Buenos Aires: Instituto Di Tella. Domingues, José M. (2009) La modernidad contemporánea en América Latina, Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores.

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Escudé, Carlos (1990) El fracaso del proyecto argentino: educación e ideología, Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Editorial Tesis. Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Reuschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds) (1985) Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fogarty, John (1985) “Staples, Super Staples, and the Limits of Staple Theory: The Experiences of Argentina, Australia, and Canada Compared,” in D.C.M. Platt and Guido Di Tella (eds), Argentina, Australia, and Canada: Studies in Comparative Development, 1870–1965, New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 1–18. Fogarty, John, Ezequiel Gallo and Héctor Diéguez (1979) Argentina y Australia, Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella. Germani, Gino (1955) Estructura social de la Argentina; análisis estadístico, Buenos Aires: Raigal. Guehenno, Jean-Marie (1995) The End of The Nation State, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Halperín Donghi, Tulio (1972) Revolución y guerra: formación de una elite dirigente en la Argentina criolla, Bueno Aires: Siglo XXI Editores. —— (1980) Proyecto y construcción de una nación, Caracas: Italigráfica. Hegel, Georg W.F. (1952) The Philosophy of Right, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric (1983) “Inventing Tradition,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–14. Joseph, Gilbert M. et al. (eds) (1999) Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kobrin, Stephen (1998) “Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy,” Journal of International Affairs, 51(2): 361–86. Lanzaro, Jorge L. (1986) Sindicatos y sistema político: relaciones corporativas en el Uruguay, 1940–1985, Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria. Leal Buitrago, Francisco (1984) Estado y política en Colombia, Bogotá: Siglo XXI Editores. López-Alves, Fernando (2000) State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, Durham, NY: Duke University Press. —— (2002) Sociedades sin destino: América Latina tiene lo que se merece? Buenos Aires: Taurus. —— (2003) “Globalization and its Ideologues: Lessons from the Beginning of the 21st Century,” in Andrés Serbín and Carlos Oliva (eds), Cuba, el caribe y la globalización, São Paulo: Universidad Estadual Paulista, pp. 80–105. —— (2007) “Uncertainty, the Construction of the Future, and the Divorce Between Citizens and the State in Latin América,” in Fernando López-Alves and Diane Johnson (eds), Globalization and Uncertainty in Latin America, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 47–76. —— (2012) “Visions of the National: Natural Endowment, Futures, and the Evils of Men,” in Miguel Centeno and Agustin Ferraro (eds), Republics of the Possible: Latin America and Europe in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming. Mahon, James E. and Javier Corrales (2004) “Pegged for Failure? Argentina’s Crisis,” Current History, 101(652): 72–5. Marx, Anthony (1998) Making Race and Nation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Melo, Jorge O. (1978) Los origines de los partidos políticos en Colombia, Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, Colcultura. The New York Times (1869) “Enlightenment in South America,” September 20, p. 3. O’Donnell, Guillermo (1979a) El estado burocrático autoritario: Argentina 1966– 1976, Buenos Aires: Universidad de Belgrano. —— (1979b) “Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy,” in David Collier (ed), The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 285–318. Olarriaga, Francisco (1947) El modelo del estado liberal en Chile y Ecuador, Santiago: Editorial Nuevo Mundo. Oszlak, Oscar (1985) La formación del estado argentino, Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano. Peloso, Vincent and Barbara Tenenbaum (1996) Liberals, Politics, and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth Century Latin America, Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press. Quintero, Inés M. (1989) El ocaso de una estirpe: La centralización restauradora y el fin de los caudillos históricos, Caracas: Alfadil, Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana. —— (1990) “La muerte del caudillismo en tres actos,” Tierra Firme, 8(29): 41–53. Ramos Mejía, José M. (1945) Rosas y su tiempo, Buenos Aires: Orientación Cultural. Restrepo, José Manuel (1952) Historia de la revolución de la República de Colombia, seven volumes, Paris: Librería Americana. —— (1963) Historia de la Nueva Granada, volume 2: 1845–54, Bogotá: Editorial el Catolicismo. Reyes, Washington and Andrés Vázquez Romero (1986) Crónica general del Uruguay, four volumes, Montevideo: Banda Oriental. Robinson, William I. (2003) Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization, London: Verso. Rojas Mery, Eulojio (1946) Independencia de Sudamérica hispana: su grandeza y miserias. Montevideo: C. García. Romero, Luis A. (1994) Breve historia contemporánea de la Argentina; A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Salazar, Luis (2004) “Donde está el estado?” Revista de Ciencias Sociales Foro Abierto, 2 (3): 22–30. Saldias, Adolfo (1977) Historia de la Confederación Argentina, Three volumes, Buenos Aires: EUDEBA. Sánchez, Omar (2003) “Globalization as a Development Strategy in Latin America?” World Development, 31(12): 1977–95. Sarmiento, Faustino (1874) “Mensaje del Presidente de la República Domingo Faustino Sarmiento al abrir las sesiones del Congreso argentino” May 1874, Senate Proceedings, National Library, Buenos Aires, p. 376. Schwartz, Herman M. (1989) In the Dominions of Debt: Historical Perspectives on Dependent Development, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Serbín, Andrés (2003) “What Do We Mean by Globalization? Consecuencias para América Latina y el Caribe,” Foro Abierto, 1(3): 3–15.

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Smith, William C. and Robert P. Korzeniewicz (eds) (1997) Politics, Social Change, and Economic Restructuring in Latin America, Boulder, CO: North-South Center Press, Lynne Rienner Publishers. Sunkel, Oswaldo and Paz, Pedro (1970) El subdesarrollo latinoamericano y la teoría del desarrollo, México: Siglo XXI Editores. Terán, Oscar (1987) Positivismo y nación en la Argentina, Buenos Aries: Puntosur. —— (2008) Vida intelectual en el Buenos Aires de fin de siglo, 1880–1910, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Tilly, Charles (1992) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Torres Velasco, Javier (1978) Los partidos políticos en Colombia, Bogotá: ANIF. Turner, Frederick J. (1920) The Frontier in American History, New York: Henry Holt and Company. Vázquez Carrizosa, Alfredo (1986) El poder presidencial en Colombia: La crisis permanente del derecho constitucional, Bogotá: Editorial Suramericana. Veliz, Claudio (1980) The Centralist Tradition of Latin America, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Waisman, Carlos (1989) Reversal of Development in Argentina: Postwar CounterRevolutionary Policies and Their Structural Consequences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zelarayan, Carolina (1999) “La construcción de la identidad nacional a través de la figura del poder y de la lucha civil en 3 novelas de Manuel Gálvez,” in Nilda M. Flawia de Fernández, (ed), Argentina: discurso e identidad, San Miguel de Tucumán: Instituto Interdisciplinario de Literaturas Argentina y Comparadas, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNT, pp. 31–40.

Part C

Globalization

9

Reading the global in the absence of Africa Isaac Kamola1

To judge from recent academic output, sub-Saharan Africa, wrapped in a cloak of impenetrability, has become the black hole of reason … One consequence of this blindness is that African politics and economics have been condemned to appear in social theory only as the sign of a lack, while the discourse of political science and development economics has become that of a quest for the causes of that lack. Achille Mbembe (2001)

Globalization is now a major object of study within the social sciences. In less than two decades, a “mushrooming” literature developed (Applbaum 2000: 258) as it became an important academic “buzzword” (Hay and Marsh 2000: 1; Steger 2003: 1–2) and a “near-universal term” (Robertson and Khondker 1998: 26). However, despite an academic consensus that it exists, there remains little agreement as to what globalization is, beyond a complex, fluid and all-pervasive concept meaning “anything from the Internet to a hamburger” (Strange 1996: xii–xiii). Academic treatments of globalization as a phenomenon, however, often ignore the ways in which the concept is produced through the universalization of some lived material experiences and the marginalization of others. Understanding what globalization is, therefore, requires first identifying what is absent in the concept itself. One glaring absence in the globalization literature is “Africa.” African states, peoples, cultural practices, social organization, and economic relations are rarely discussed at all. When Africa is made present it is almost always as a problem (violence, corruption, debt, etc.) to be solved, rather than as a “place-in-the-world” (Ferguson 2006: 6). In short, academic treatments of globalization are rarely peopled by African subjects who “like any other human being … engage in meaningful acts” (Mbembe 2001: 6). While some scholars try to include Africa in conversations about globalization, I argue instead that as an object of academic study globalization is in fact produced in relation to Africa’s absence. This argument requires first developing a method of reading that treats knowledge as productive rather than merely reflecting an already existing world. Drawing on Althusser’s method of symptomatic reading I argue that

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texts can be read at two levels (Althusser and Balibar 1999). A first reading critiques a given text by identifying its absences and accounting for that which should otherwise be made present. This method of surface level reading assumes that an absence denotes an already existing (yet ignored) presence. According to a surface-level reading, Africa is already “global” and the literature merely needs to recognize it as such. Althusser, however, argues that texts also contain a second register—an unconscious—existing beneath the surface. A symptomatic reading unearths the text’s unconscious to analyze what these absences actually produce. A second reading of the globalization literature shows that the absence of Africa is not a correctable oversight but instead productive of the concept of “globalization” itself. The first section of the chapter draws on James Ferguson’s Global Shadows to illustrate how the absence of Africa can be read through a surface-level reading of the globalization literature. According to Ferguson, the absence of Africa can be ameliorated by offering a more “Africa-focused picture of globalization.” In the second section I subject three influential texts to a symptomatic reading (Held et al. 1999; Sassen 1998; Stiglitz 2003). Reading these texts symptomatically shows how each author produces a concept of globalization in relation to the absence of Africa. I conclude with an examination of how Africa’s invisibility within the globalization literature is actually symptomatic of a structure of academic knowledge production that marginalizes African scholars. To make this point I examine one continental academic debate that concerns whether an African Renaissance can address Africa’s marginal relation to globalization.

A first reading of the globalization literature Africa remains a significant and recurring absence within the academic literature on globalization “in epistemological and economic terms; African polities, economies, societies, and studies are [treated as] irrelevant … ” (Magubane and Zeleza 2004: 165). Because the majority of scholarly work focuses on “how contemporary Western practices and productions affect the rest of the world,” much of it treats previously colonized sites “rather simplistically or reductively” (Krishnaswamy 2007: 2). In this way, Africa is either completely absent from the literature or, when visible, presented as globalization’s problem and exception. As such, “even in the most ambitious and ostensibly all-encompassing narratives” Africa is often ignored altogether (Ferguson 2006: 25). When present, the continent is treated as globalization’s “shadow”—an ephemeral distortion (Ferguson 2006). In Global Shadows, Ferguson offers one of the most successful critiques of the globalization literature through a first reading. He documents how Africa, as a place-in-the-world, is largely absent and rights this wrong by reorienting the scholarly gaze to more deliberately focus on it. The numerous failed structural-adjustment programs as well as a relative lack of “Western factories and consumer goods” are cited as two possible reasons

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why scholars ignore Africa in studies of globalization (Ferguson 2006: 26). This absence, however, can be countered by greater inclusion of the continent in scholarly analysis thereby offering new and invaluable opportunities for understanding globalization. Ferguson writes that: a reading of recent interdisciplinary scholarship on Africa can help to reveal the quite specific ways in which Africa is, and is not, “global” and thereby shed surprising new light on our understanding of what “globalization” may mean at present. What we see … depends on where we are looking from. Looking at “globalization” from the vantage point provided by recent research focused on Africa brings into visibility things that might otherwise be overlooked and forces us to think harder about issues that might otherwise be passed over or left unresolved. (Ferguson 2006: 29; emphasis added) Significantly, he reads Africa’s location within the globalization literature using a number of sight and vision-related metaphors. In performing a first reading, Ferguson identifies that which he assumes already exists (i.e., Africa as “global”) but remains not-yet-visible. He then brings this already existing reality into focus by suggesting that we “bring into visibility things that might otherwise be overlooked.” The author convincingly argues that globalization studied with an eye towards Africa differs substantially from those accounts blinded to it. First of all, bringing Africa’s experience of globalization into focus challenges the “peculiarly poor metaphor” of globalization as “flows” and makes visible the way it operates as the “point-to-point connectivity and networking of enclaves” (Ferguson 2006: 47). Ferguson argues that an “Africa-focused picture of globalization” is not “simply a matter [of] adding a new piece to an otherwise intact picture” (Ferguson 2006: 49). Instead scholars should push for greater diversity of knowledge by expanding the perspectives from which globalization is viewed: seeing Africa as “global” offers a broader and therefore more accurate understanding. A first reading of the globalization literature assumes that academic knowledge reflects an already existing world. While making a number of critical engagements, it nonetheless accepts the “mirror myth of immediate vision and reading” and, in doing so, fails to “conceive [of] knowledge as a production” (Althusser and Balibar 1999: 24). In other words, presenting Africa’s absence as an academic problem to be solved by greater inclusion, Ferguson’s Africa-focused picture of globalization fails to analyze how this absence produces the concept of globalization itself.

Reading the academic literature on globalization symptomatically Althusser argues that Marx’s most significant theoretical innovation was conceptualizing knowledge as production. For Marx (and Althusser),

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knowledge does not simply reflect an already existing world but rather is itself an effect of social production taking place as a result of particular material relations. Contradictions and tensions existing within these social relations become embodied within texts’ unconscious thereby ensuring that they actually mean more than their authors consciously intended. Every text, therefore, contains multiple texts—the author’s intended argument as well as all the texts composed within the “silences, blanks and repressions” (Davis 2001: 303). In this way, textual critiques that only identify what an author ignores assume that perfect vision is possible. Althusser, however, argues that what is visible within a text is actually an effect of a whole apparatus of knowledge production. Reading a text symptomatically means treating absences not as analytical mistakes or oversights but rather as effects of the structured relations of knowledge production. Identifying what a text produces at its unconscious register is possible by reading its symptoms—i.e., those slips and stammers, absences and erasures, contradictions and tensions—that persist despite an author’s best effort to present the text as a coherent whole. Althusser arrives at his theory by tracing Marx’s reading of Ricardo and Smith. He notices that Marx identifies the absences in these authors’ texts not only to critique their limitations but also to identify what these authors produced without recognizing it. Marx argues that the classical economists actually produced the abstraction “labor-power” despite believing themselves to be merely reflecting upon the concept “labor” (Althusser and Balibar 1999: 22–3).2 Marx’s symptomatic reading, therefore, is not about making visible that which already exists (yet remains invisible) but instead about identifying those moments when an author produces a new concept without recognizing it. Ricardo and Smith failed to see what they produced because they remained concerned with the old “horizon” on which the “new problem ‘is not visible’” (Althusser and Balibar 1999: 24). This is because what can be seen (and what remains unseen) is itself the effect of “structural conditions” (Althusser and Balibar 1999: 25). Just as Smith and Ricardo failed to see their invention of “labor-power” within their horizon, Marx discovered it precisely because he was reading within a different conjuncture; one marked by a more advanced industrial capitalism, the completed enclosure of the commons and a greatly expanded wage economy. Today’s conjuncture is substantially different from the heyday of academic publishing on globalization in the 1990s. America’s imperial invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 economic crisis, and the colossal failure of financial integration to reverse growing planetary inequality make it possible today to read the globalization literature differently. Within this conjuncture, one can read the absence of Africa not as a mistake to be corrected by greater inclusion but as symptomatic of what it actually produced: an abstraction that presents the whole world as indistinguishable from Western liberalism.

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To make this argument I symptomatically read three major texts within the academic literature on globalization: David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton’s Global Transformations; Saskia Sassen’s Globalization and Its Discontents; and Joseph Stiglitz’s book of the same title. These texts, in addition to being widely cited, appear to approach globalization from wildly different intellectual perspectives. However, when the absence of Africa is read symptomatically, the three accounts have more in common than appears on the surface. While I lack space in this chapter to offer additional readings, I believe that these three examples typify the globalization literature more generally. It should also be noted that Africa is not the only absence within the globalization literature. A symptomatic reading of the absence of, for example, Central Asia, indigenous cultures, or anarchist social movements would undoubtedly reveal other insights into the production of globalization as a concept. However, I choose to examine the absence of Africa not only because of the surprising magnitude of its absence but also because Africa, when made present, seems to provide the greatest challenge to conventional conceptions of globalization. Producing globalization as liberal governance Global Transformations (1999) by Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton exemplifies an exceptionally exhaustive attempt at defining, measuring and classifying globalization. Written by some of the most respected and prolific scholars on the topic, this book is additionally important because it launched the transformationalist theory that conceives of globalization as “a long-term historical process which is inscribed with contradictions and … shaped by conjunctural factors” (Held et al. 1999: 7). Held et al.’s sprawling project contains voluminous historical and statistical evidence and is one of the most cited books on globalization.3 Like many studies, Global Transformations starts with the observation that globalization, despite the term’s wide usage, “lacks [a] precise definition” and therefore risks becoming “the big idea which encompasses everything from global financial markets to the Internet but which delivers little substantive insight” (Held et al. 1999: 1). While globalization clearly captures the “contemporary zeitgeist,” it remains unclear whether the concept “delivers any added value” (Held et al. 1999: 1). The authors address this problem by offering a sweeping and seemingly exhaustive analysis into the questions “what is globalization?” and how can it be “‘civilized’ and democratized?” (Held et al. 1999: 1–2). At a surface-level reading, Africa is glaringly absent. Despite the book’s sweeping ambition, the authors focus their attention on six “states in advanced capitalist societies (SIACS)”—the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and Japan—as a way to examine whether “globalization does impact … sovereign statehood” and to adjudicate competing claims about SIACS within the globalization debate more

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generally (Held et al. 1999: 30). Not only do Held et al. “map” the “shape” of globalization according to these six countries, but the conclusions drawn from this exercise are universalized to explain developments around the world. While great care is taken to show the history and complexity of globalization in the countries under study, much of the rest of the world— and most notably Africa—appear undifferentiated and one-dimensional. Africa does appear in various tables of data in which the continent as a whole is compared to other parts of the world on issues ranging from democratization, arms production, UN peacekeeping, foreign investment, international bonds issued, radio and TV ownership, and rates of deforestation (Held et al. 1999: 47, 118, 126–9, 194, 212, 213, 351, 358, 403). Presented as an undifferentiated continent, there are few references to specific African countries, no recognition of the multiplicity of lived material practices in Africa, and no engagement with the now vast African diaspora.4 Africa occasionally appears in Global Transformations but only as a peripheral site of enduring crisis. For example, the authors describe the sub-Saharan African economy in terms of “immiseration,” “desertification” and “social decline” (Held et al. 1999: 379). The continent’s historical contribution to globalization is presented exclusively in terms of European expansion which “was not truly global” until 1850 when it attained the “capacity to penetrate” Africa (Held et al. 1999: 418). Even passages addressing European colonialism refrain from examining the effect of European colonialism on African subjects, claiming that globalization affected Europeans more than Africans: “the greatest impact of these global [colonial?] encounters was on Europe itself” (Held et al. 1999: 420). While a first reading would ask how Held et al.’s description of globalization would differ if Africa was more present, a symptomatic reading would ask: What is produced in the absence of Africa? A symptomatic reading of three sections of Global Transformations illustrate how this text does not simply reflect globalization as it already exists but actually produces the concept of globalization as a social reality already primed for European-style liberal governance. The absence of Africa plays a profoundly productive role in Held et al.’s chapter examining the transition from empire to modern nation-state system to global governance. While recognizing the existence of ancient Chinese, Japanese and Islamic empires (Held et al. 1999: 33), the authors focus almost exclusively on European empires in their description of the transition from monarchical rule to territorial nation-states. At each turn the authors point out that, despite setbacks, liberal governance is on the march. In the Westphalian model, for example, they see the arrival of a political system “consist[ing] of … sovereign territorial states” and in which “[a]ll states are regarded as equal before the law” (Held et al. 1999: 37–8). The authors fail to mention that in the seventeenth century (and for many centuries since) European models of sovereignty applied exclusively to the metropole and

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not to the slave coast of Africa or the colonies. Held et al. then claim that the emergence of global governance originates in “the [imperial?] expansion of Europe” which brought about greater “interconnections between states” including the “pursuit and management of interstate relations through diplomacy” (Held et al. 1999: 38). In prioritizing interconnectivity over contradiction, the authors side-step the fact that most diplomacy during this period concerned expediting control over the colonies (i.e., the 1884 Berlin Conference) and most “trade” was between colony and metropole. The failure to examine slavery, colonialism, the plantation, the nonEuropean “other” or the many resistances to European expansion makes it possible to present the expansion of Europe as simply the unfolding of an increasingly liberal “global” order: the replication of an idealized European liberalism outside Europe. For example, Held et al. write that: The expansion of Europe led also to the dismantling of old, nonEuropean interstate connections. Key features of the modern states system—the centralization of political power, the expansion of state administration, territorial rule, the diplomatic system, the emergence of regular, standing armies—which existed in Europe in embryo in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were to become prevalent features of the global order. The main vehicle for this was, to begin with, the European states’ capacity for overseas operations by means of military and naval forces capable of long-range navigation. (Held et al. 1999: 39) The silence of the slave trade and the African colony is deafening as the authors claim that the destruction of monarchal authority is a direct effect of a growing merchant and plantation class made possible by “overseas operations” and “long-range navigation.” Later, Held et al. discuss the ways in which the British navy and military “reinforced London’s position as the centre of world trade and finance” without mentioning where (and how) this newfound wealth was procured. At a particularly instructive moment, Held et al. even argue that European countries routinely “clashed in colonial territories” to protect “the ‘jewels in the crown’” of their empires (Held et al. 1999: 39)—failing to mention that clashes between Europeans and the colonized often resulted in genocidal violence directed at indigenous populations. In short, Held et al. recount the expansion of European empire by omitting the slave trade, the plantation, and the African colony to focus instead on the rise of European powers as democratic, liberal states. They make this point explicitly when they write “[i]n Africa, for example, the imperialists succeeded best when they followed the recommendations of a British parliamentary committee” in adopting the policy of indirect rule (Held et al. 1999: 41). In other words, the colonized subjects are made absent in order

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to advance the argument that much is gained (i.e., more effective techniques of exploitation) when monarchal governments give way to democratically elected parliament. The chapter moves from this treatment of European empire to an examination of the rise of “global politics” after World War II when “the modern nation-state” became “the principle type of political rule across the globe” and “crystallized as liberal or representative democracy” (Held et al. 1999: 46). While Held et al. stand in awe of the “three ‘waves’ of democratization,” they remain completely silent about the bloody decades in which Africans, and other colonized peoples, fought wars of liberation against these very European “liberal” powers that Held et al. claim as central to the expansion of globalization. Africa remains absent even in the outline of global governance’s future. Held et al. conclude this chapter with the recognition that global governance resembles a “new medievalism.” Many examples could describe a “world of overlapping authorities and multiple loyalties,” including multinational companies operating as sovereign powers in mineral-rich Africa, religious groups and NGOs providing state-like services to the world’s poorest populations, or international financial institutions constraining the sovereign power of many African countries. Instead, Held et al. end their chapter with the European Union as the “prime illustration” of new medievalism (Held et al. 1999: 85). The authors, however, can treat this global new medievalism as exemplified in the European Union precisely because the concept of globalization they produce is already indistinguishable from the seemingly natural unfolding of (European) liberal values. In this way, global governance along the model of the European Union appears as the logical result of globalization’s teleological development. Conceptualizing globalization as the potential universal realization of European liberal institutionalism depends foremost upon rendering absent the very anti-liberal practices of colonialism and neocolonialism. In a second example, Held et al. produce the concept of globalization by enforcing a seemingly arbitrary distinction between “global” migration and “regional” migration. The authors argue that “Sub-Saharan Africa has generated significant global flows of migrants in the postwar era, mainly to ex-colonial states: Nigerian, Tanzanian and Ugandan Asians have migrated to the UK; Central and West Africans to France; Zairians to Belgium” (Held et al. 1999: 301). They contrast these migration patterns with “[r]egional labour migrations [that] have flowed primarily to Nigeria, South Africa, Gabon and the Ivory Coast” (Held et al. 1999: 301). Migration patterns between African countries and Europe are presented as “global flows” stemming from economic concerns—even from Algeria to France— while movement between African countries are presented as “regional flows” often stemming from violence (Held et al. 1999: 303; emphasis added). It is inconceivable to Held et al. that either European or other Africans would migrate to Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, or Botswana in order to seek greater economic opportunity. The distinction

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between global (i.e., economic) migration and regional (i.e. conflict-related) migration is made explicit when the authors claim that “global” migrations flows are “economically driven, leaving political borders untouched” (Held et al. 1999: 305). And again, “[w]hile Western Europe and the USA have been touched by … global migrations, the vast majority [of migrations] have been regionally concentrated in areas of conflict in Asia and Africa” (Held et al. 1999: 303; emphasis added). The authors are clear about their motivations in making this distinction: to differentiate “the slave trade and the movements of Asian labour … organized ‘from above’” and therefore based on violence from contemporary migration overseen by employment ministries, agencies, and recruitment firms that organize the “more spontaneous pressures for migration” (Held et al. 1999: 314).5 Since “global” migration is economically motivated it can be regulated by liberal institutions and integrated through consensual economic exchange, rather than conflict and violence. For example, Held et al. write that while the “regulation of the migratory process remains nugatory” institutions such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) have “sought to establish basic rules regarding the treatment of labour … But only in the European Union has any stringent international legal framework for labour been established” (Held et al. 1999: 314–15). Of course “global” migration could not be regulated by the ILO or EU—or by any institution—if one considers the displacement of people in Rwanda to Goma, from Somalia to Kenya, or from Sudan to Chad too as examples of “global” migration. The deployment of the arbitrary distinction between global/OECD/economic migration and “regional” migration produces globalization as an already integrated space of potential regulation and liberal governance, i.e., a world without contradiction that can eventually be governed by the rule of law and pacific capitalist spontaneity. A final example of how globalization is produced in relation to the absence of Africa can be found in the last chapter of Global Transformations where Held et al. present their argument for how “contemporary globalization” can “be ‘civilized’ and democratized” (Held et al. 1999: 414).6 The authors recognize that while “processes of globalization” are “physically uniting the globe” they are “not necessarily engendering the sense of global community on which the legitimacy of global democratic governance would depend” (Held et al. 1999: 451). They argue that the potential democratic governance of globalization is challenged by “accelerating globalization,” which may actually be “intensif[ying] and generat[ing] conflicts” (Held et al. 1999: 451). Possible threats to “global democratic politics” include the “‘Asian way’ of democracy” and those “African indigenous democratic traditions” that reinforce “cultural divisions and global fragmentation” (Held et al. 1999: 451). In fact, Held et al. recognize that there “is no shortage of commentators who foresee that the contemporary international system must, and must always, be understood in terms of endemic conflict and inequality” (Held et al. 1999: 451).

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Instead of giving voice to these unnamed Asian and African critics of liberal global governance, Held et al. instead offer “a more optimistic reading” of the prospects for a democratic global governance (Held et al. 1999: 451). Again, pointing to examples from Europe, they highlight the fact that “[j]ust over fifty years ago Europe was at the point of selfdestruction” but has since “created new mechanisms of collaboration, new instruments of human rights enforcement and political institutions” (Held et al. 1999: 452). In the final lines of the book the authors declare that “[o]ur political institutions will have to change if some of our more cherished notions … are to retain their relevance and efficacy in the millennium ahead” (Held et al. 1999: 452; emphasis added). In choosing to tell the optimistic tale of European liberalism rather than the damning critiques of “our political institutions” and “our cherished notions” by those who suffer (ed) them, Held et al. ensure that European-style liberalism appears as the exquisite (and only) model for global governance. The absence of Africa, in other words, makes it possible to present globalization as an already existing single social reality that, while containing surface differences, will eventually be brought together once everyone agrees upon European practices of liberal governance. In Global Transformations, the absence of Africa produces a conception of globalization in which the world already exists as a single, integrated social reality—a world brought about by the spread of European ideas rather than colonial occupation—within which the universal unfolding of liberal governance is both possible and desirable. According to this reading, everything from the spread of homo sapiens to the collapse of the Soviet Union (Held et al. 1999: 414, 427) form part of globalization because, in some way or another, they participate in the universal unfolding of liberal values. This claim, however, is only possible if the colonization of Africa, inter-continental migration due to violence and tribal identity are rendered absent and therefore not “global.” Producing globalization as finance capital Saskia Sassen’s book, Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money, is a collection of essays written over 15 years and published together in 1998. In addition to being widely cited, these essays have impacted the academic discussion of globalization by offering one of the most compelling examinations of its impact on particular, material locations.7 In showing the “placeboundedness” of “economic globalization” Sassen challenges the “national/global duality” which, she rightly argues, defines much of the globalization literature (Sassen 1998: xxix). In these essays, Sassen works around three recurring themes—migration within the global economy, a feminist analysis of globalization and a study of “global cities.” Reading Globalization and Its Discontents at its surface level, it is easy to identify the absence of Africa, African cities, and even African immigrants

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within U.S. and European cities. This absence is implicitly justified by Sassen who explicitly limits her analysis to observing how the “global economy materializes” in “strategic places” (Sassen 1998: xxv). This “global grid,” she argues, does not overlay the world equally but is centered in certain “global cities”: “the most powerful of these new geographies of centrality” are located in “international financial and business centers” such as “New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Sydney, Hong Kong.” She also indicates that the new global cities include “São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Taipei, Bombay, and Mexico City” (Sassen 1998: xxv; see also 182). The majority of her analysis, however, is drawn from the study of U.S. cities, and New York in particular. Sassen argues that, as central nodes in the global economy, global cities orchestrate the circulation of capital. Furthermore, the concentration of corporate wealth in global cities attracts immigrant and feminized laborers to fill the service jobs needed to support the wealthy financiers who manage the “global” economy. One could argue that Sassen wrongly fails to see Cairo, Cape Town, Addis Abbaba, Abuja, Lagos, Nairobi, or Johannesburg as major financial and business centers and that their inclusion would offer a more complete understanding of both global cities and globalization more generally. However, rather than debating whether these cities are important enough to make the list, it is more instructive to examine what their absence produces. When categorizing some cities “global,” and therefore rendering others absent, Sassen produces a concept of globalization as a smooth space of already actualized finance capital. The absence of Africa allows Sassen to conflate “global capital” with “finance capital.” Finance capital does not simply flow between cities, as portrayed by Sassen, but originates over time as wealth abstracted from particular relations of production. The accumulation of vast pools of finance capital does not simply materialize but results from production and extraction, much of it taking place in the periphery. In this way, one could argue that Kinshasa, with its nearly 10 million residents and no waterborne sewage system (Davis 2007: 139), is a “global” city precisely because it—like Brussels or New York—is a physical manifestation of the vast extraction of wealth from the Congo. In making cities such as Kinshasa absent, Sassen represents “global” capital as money that simply circulates between “global” cities, i.e., the circulation of an already highly abstracted wealth. The absence of Kinshasa, however, makes it possible to claim that the financial centers of New York and London are connected to each other but not to the colony. In focusing on a small handful of centripetal cities as the “placeboundedness” of globalization, Sassen treats capital as already finance capital. Africa’s absence makes it possible to treat certain cities as “global” while never confronting the question: Where does the surplus (i.e., finance) capital come from? Similarly absent in the author’s work is an account of the city in terms of its lived material practices. Mbembe and Nuttall argue that African cities

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offer an alternative to the “the ‘global city’ paradigm” because they challenge the “economicism and the poverty of its understanding of citiness.” They argue that Sassen’s concept of the “global city” ignores the degree to which the city “also comprises actual people, images and architectural forms, footprints and memories; the city is a place of manifold rhythms, a world of sounds, private freedom, pleasures, and sensations” (Mbembe and Nuttall 2004: 360). In most of Sassen’s essays a small handful of “global” cities—and often just New York—are universalized as examples of the frictionless circulation of already finance capital, not as lived spaces rendered meaningful by those inhabiting them.8 Representing the city as a frictionless conduit depends upon making absent the open-air markets and crowded bus stands—whether in Johannesburg or Brooklyn—and universalizing instead the experience of Wall Street traders and the industry serving them. The effect of universalizing finance capital as “global” capital—a move made possible by the absence of the African city—is clearly seen in Sassen’s examination of the “placeboundedness” of globalization: Including cities into an analysis of economic globalization allows us to reconceptualize processes of economic globalization as concrete economic complexes situated in specific places. A focus on cities decomposes the national economy into a variety of subnational components, some profoundly articulated with the global economy and others not [ … ]. Because it allows us to see the multiplicity of economies and work cultures in which the global information economy is embedded. (Sassen 1998: ixx–xx; emphasis added) That being said, conceptually placing globalization in the already “global” city excludes those places that are not part of the one-dimensional smooth world of finance capital. As such, her metaphor of the “global grid” connecting a small handful of global cities excludes the totality of social production and extraction by focusing exclusively on the recirculation of already extracted surplus value. While Sassen recognizes the great economic inequalities at work within this “global grid,” like Held et al. she arrives at the liberal conclusion that the “global city” could become “a space for concentrated regulatory activity” (Sassen 1998: 214). In other words, the inequalities within globalization are not addressed in the streets of Kinshasa but in the regulatory bodies also housed within global cities. This argument is not a critique of Sassen’s description of how major financial cities operate as nodes for the circulation of both capital and labor. In many ways her analysis is powerfully compelling and politically important. However, by conflating a network of financial centers with “globalization”—a move made possible through the absence of the African city—she effectively produces a concept of globalization defined exclusively in terms of the circulation of already valorized surplus value. When Sassen

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studies New York as a “global” city (rather than simply one particular, lived city that facilitates the mass circulation of financial capital) she equates globalization with New York. In consequence, globalization, as well as the process of making it more equitable, becomes conceptualized exclusively in terms of the financial core. Producing globalization as a finely tuned economic machine The globalization literature has always been heavily influenced by nonacademic and popular discourses and, as a consequence, travels farther into the public domain than most academic work. Few texts have been as successful in facilitating this cross-pollination as Nobel Prize-winning professor of economics Joseph Stiglitz’s book Globalization and Its Discontents (2002). This book has appeared on the national bestseller list, been translated into more than 25 languages, taught in numerous courses, and heavily cited in the academic literature on globalization.9 Part of the success of Globalization and Its Discontents owes to the fact that Stiglitz himself moved between academic and policy circles as a member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and as senior vice president of the World Bank. According to Stiglitz, this non-academic experience at the World Bank allowed him to see “firsthand the devastating effect that globalization can have on developing countries, and especially the poor within those countries” (Stiglitz 2003: ix). Even while bridging the policy and academic worlds, this book approaches globalization in ways similar to other academic treatments of the subject. Like other writers, Stiglitz assumes that globalization is “a fact of life” (Stiglitz 2003: 258) and therefore policymakers should focus on what globalization really is and avoid developing policy based on political ideology. To this end the author establishes himself as the objective observer, a true social scientist, who sees globalization as “the closer integration of the countries and peoples of the world” brought about “by the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the flows of goods, services, capital, knowledge, and (to a lesser extent) people across borders” (Stiglitz 2003: 9). He then focuses on the many institutions that have “accompanied” globalization— including the Jubilee movement for debt relief, the International Red Cross, international corporations, the United Nations, the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the World Health Organization—highlighting in each case the ways in which these organizations have benefited economic development (Stiglitz 2003: 9–10). Understood as a series of economic, political and social developments and their corresponding international institutions, Stiglitz suggests that the “phenomenon of globalization” has “been welcomed everywhere” because most people recognize that interconnection brings benefits. He oddly phrases this claim in the apparently self-evident observation that “[n]o one wants

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to see their child die, when knowledge and medicines are available somewhere else in the world” (Stiglitz 2003: 9, 10). Stiglitz argues that, while most people generally support globalization, protests in Seattle, Washington DC, Genoa and elsewhere attest to the poor management of the global economy in the hands of the “three main institutions that govern globalization: the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO” (Stiglitz 2003: 10). The IMF receives the brunt of the book’s criticism such that it might more accurately be called The IMF and Its Discontents.10 A first reading of Globalization and Its Discontents reveals a near total absence of Africa. Stiglitz recognizes that the book suffers from many limitations, claiming that it focuses exclusively on those issues that he dealt with during his tenure at the World Bank, including the East Asian financial crisis (Chapter 4), the Russian meltdown of the late 1990s (Chapter 5), specific U.S. trade policies (Chapter 6), and Poland and China’s successful refusal of IMF advice (Chapter 7).11 The only times Africa appears are in short anecdotes emphasizing larger points.12 That being said, Stiglitz provocatively mentions that some of his “most important theoretical work” was inspired while in Kenya as a young academic, although he does not indicate the specifics of this influence besides a general recognition that “good economic policies have the power to change the lives of these poor people” (Stiglitz 2003: xi). A first reading of this text would identify the oversight of structural adjustment policies in Africa as a limitation that, if corrected, could provide a more inclusive account of globalization. However, a symptomatic reading points to the absence of Africa as actually producing a concept of globalization as a currently off-kilter yet fundamentally well-running capitalist economy. In drawing examples primarily from the Asian financial crisis and the economic meltdown of the former Soviet Union, Stiglitz defines crises in globalization as resulting from short-term policy mistakes. It follows that these crises can be rectified by astute policy changes. In this way, the absence of Africa makes it possible to ignore colonization, the vicious legacy of structural adjustment as well as the decades of massive indebtedness experienced by many African countries. The author also ignores the well documented failure of the IMF and World Bank to bring about development in Africa (Ferguson 1994) or the complicity of the IMF and World Bank in promoting violence and genocide in Africa (Kamola 2007). While Mittelman rightly points out that for Stiglitz “structural problems are reduced to management issues” (Mittelman 2004: 132), the absence of Africa also produces a concept of globalization as a phenomenon that can be managed. In other words, the author represents globalization as a well-running machine that simply needs the vigilant oversight of a benevolent technician-in-chief. For example, Stiglitz concludes that globalization can be remade through better policymaking, facilitated through reforms to the Bretton Woods institutions—and particularly the IMF. In doing so, globalization can be

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“reshaped” in ways that allow it to be “properly, [and] fairly run” such that “all countries hav[e] a voice in policies affecting them.” Once these reforms take place “a new global economy” will exist which “is not only more sustainable and less volatile” but also allows “the fruits of this growth” to be “more equitably shared” (Stiglitz 2003: 22). In the last paragraph of Globalization and Its Discontents he writes that: The developed world needs to do its part to reform the international institutions that govern globalization. We set up these institutions and we need to work to fix them. If we are to address the legitimate concerns of those who have expressed a discontent with globalization, if we are to make globalization work for the billions of people for whom it has not, if we are to make globalization with a human face succeed, then our voices must be raised. We cannot, we should not, stand idly by. (Stiglitz 2003: 252) When Stiglitz claims that “we set up these institutions” and therefore “we” are responsible for changing globalization, he speaks as a technician with a long history of successes; a statement made possible through the absence of Africa. Like Held et al. and Sassen, the author points to globalization as an unquestionable singularity: “The barbaric attacks of September 11, 2001, have brought home with great force that we all share a single planet. We are a global community, and like all communities have to follow some rules so that we can live together” (Stiglitz 2003: xv; emphasis added). In order for this already “global” community to live together, Stiglitz suggests that everyone ascribe to new “rules” that are “fair and just,” that “pay due attention to the poor as well as the powerful,” and that “reflect a basic sense of decency and social justice” (Stiglitz 2003: xv). Such rules will ensure that “governing bodies and authorities work” to “heed and respond to the desires and needs of all those affected by policies and decisions made in distant places” (Stiglitz 2003: xv). The view that “we” the technicians of the “global” economy can fix the problems of those “in distant places” only makes sense if globalization is produced not as a set of economic relations rife with contradiction and exploitation but instead as an essentially harmonious—if sometimes out-of-whack—economic machine.

Producing globalization anew Symptomatic readings of the three texts discussed reveal that the absence of Africa within the globalization literature is not simply an oversight corrected by greater reflection on Africa’s actual position within an already existing global reality. Rather, Africa’s invisibility produces a concept of globalization in which some experiences are universalized and others ignored. In all three cases, and in the globalization literature more generally, the absence

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of Africa makes it possible for some social relations—the Internet but not the quarter of the world’s population without access to electricity, the Wall Street stockroom but not the Kinshasa slum, for example—to be considered “global.” Once some particulars are presented as universal and others rendered invisible, globalization comes to appear as an already coherent reality: a world of Internet users and stock traders. In this imagined world, political exclusions and economic crises are treated as unfortunate occurrences rather than symptoms of structural inequality and fundamental contradiction. When identified as the expansion of European liberalism, finance capitalism and particular institutions such as the IMF, globalization becomes conceptually produced as an already existing and coherent reality improved by better democratic governance, institutional reform and more well-regulated capitalist markets. However, the absence of Africa within the Anglophone globalization literature is not merely an effect of coincidence or oversight. Africa can be rendered absent because of the incredible asymmetries that undergird the production of academic knowledge. Scholars in North American and other Western universities are often well positioned to produce knowledge about globalization even as African scholars face considerable economic hardship and marginalization. In consequence, “non-metropolitan thought” remains “totally unreferenced” within a globalization literature “almost totally embedded in metropolitan academic routines of citation and affiliation” (Connell 2007: 379). In this context it becomes possible to “create a picture of global society by projecting traits already recognized in metropolitan society” (Connell 2007: 379). However, while very real material constraints severely limit how and where African scholars can produce and circulate academic knowledge about globalization, there are nonetheless vibrant intellectual communities, both on the continent and in the Diaspora, producing academic knowledge about the constitution of the world as “global.” One arena in which African scholars have actively engaged in the production of alternative conceptions of globalization has been the discussion around an African Renaissance and the possibilities that indigenous knowledge might offer a platform for African-centric approaches to economic and cultural integration. One watershed moment for this discussion took place at a 1998 conference in Johannesburg. The conference conveners recognized that this event was particularly notable because “Africans themselves” came together to “define who we are and where we are going in the global community” (Makgoba et al. 1999: i). Much of the conference proceedings focused on the ways in which African “history, culture and consciousness” (Makgoba et al. 1999: ix) have remained fragmented and marginalized and therefore require a renaissance within a postcolonial and post-apartheid context.13 Many conference participants criticized globalization as an outside force, and saw instead African language, culture, tradition and indigenous knowledge as the resources upon which to build an alternative.14

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Mahmood Mamdani’s presentation, however, shied away from presenting an already formed sense of “African-ness” as an alternative to Western “globalization.” He argued instead that what Africa means is actually highly contested and that an African renaissance first requires an African intelligentsia to rethink Africa as a place-in-the-world. He observed that, while Thabo Mbeki and others placed great faith in an African renaissance, the apartheid legacy still meant that South Africa lacked a vibrant African intelligentsia. He argued that “there can be no renaissance without an intelligentsia to drive it,” that “an African renaissance requires an Africa-focused intelligentsia,” and that the absence of such an intelligentsia has to do with the fact that “the institutional apparatus of learning in this country continues to be hostile to Africa-focused thought” (Mamdani 1999: 134). Under apartheid’s intellectual legacy, South Africa (i.e., “white Africa”) was separated from “Africa” (i.e., “black Africa”). This distinction remained institutionalized even in the post-apartheid University of Cape Town where Mamdani taught, by the fact that students studied “Africa” in the Centre for African Studies while South African (and European) literature and history were studied in the literature and history departments. Mamdani’s argument for an Africa-focused intelligentsia, therefore, called for Africans, universities and states to rework institutions of higher education in order to make them capable of producing knowledge that not only troubleshoots how Africa can adapt to a world imagined as “global” but also radically rethinks both Africa and Africa’s relation to the world in general. An Africa-focused intelligentsia would be positioned to produce Africa not as an already given reality besieged by globalization but rather as a dynamic, vibrant world capable of producing new and generative knowledge. In other words, the absence of Africa within the globalization literature should be read as a symptom of the fundamental inequalities concerning who is materially positioned to produce knowledge about globalization. One can imagine a world in which African universities, rather than being structurally adjusted and financially dismantled after independence (see Afoláyan 2007; Federici et al. 2000; Olukoshi and Zeleza 2004), were wellfunded and cultivated as intellectual centers charged with training large numbers of students, professionals, and academics. In this world African universities would have libraries stocked with the latest books and journals from around the world, computers and other necessary infrastructure, funding for inter-continental and international travel, presses publishing textbooks and journal articles read by academics around the world, a larger professoriate trained in African universities and grants funding research agendas overseen by African scholars themselves. In this world the lived history of colonialism, the struggles for African national liberation and the contemporary issues of debt, poverty and failed structural adjustment could not be rendered absent. This, unfortunately, is not the world we live in.

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Instead, the concept of globalization is produced within a highly asymmetrical political economy of higher education; one that renders Africa absent, presents globalization as a technical problem and proposes the solution to Africa’s marginalization as greater adherence to Western (that is “global”) ideas, markets and institutions. The contradictions, inequalities and violences constituting the social whole are reduced to exceptions, rather than constitutive facts. This now widely accepted portrayal of globalization, one produced through the absence of Africa, would be untenable if a large Africa-focused intelligentsia existed that was positioned to produce knowledge about the world (and Africa’s relation to it) as including colonial histories, financial austerity and political instability as well as vibrant cities, meaningful cultures and long histories of political resistance.15 I would like to conclude with the observation that today even critical approaches to globalization—for example, those proposing counter globalizations, alter-globalizations, anti-globalizations, or globalization from below—tend to reproduce Western and liberal conceptualizations (Connell 2007: 379). Therefore, being limited by a highly asymmetrical political economy of higher education, scholars should avoid the concept of globalization as no longer wielding much critical and analytical purchase. Seeing that globalization treats regulation, reform and civil society as the apex of its radical political potential, it is high time that they produce new abstractions that articulate difference and irreconcilability, struggle and exclusion, domination and emancipation as the terrain of politics. This is fundamentally different than calling for “more liberal” governance or “more equitable” capitalism. Like the theorists of underdevelopment, neocolonialism, pan-Africanism, third-worldism and world-systems realized decades ago, the social whole was—and continues to be—organized according to highly asymmetrical regimes of production, extraction and circulation.16 In addition to engaging in the hard political work of radically restructuring the inequalities shaping who produces academic knowledge, scholars can best participate in the production of new worlds not by working to resuscitate the hollow and complacent concept of globalization but instead by producing new concepts and abstractions that situate asymmetries and contradictions—and the political struggles against and among them—at the center of efforts to understand and theorize the social whole. For this project (and many others) African-focused intellectuals possess an incredible and indispensible world of knowledge, upon whose very absence the failed concept of “globalization” continues to be possible.

Notes 1 I would like to thank Raymond Duvall, Lisa Disch, Antonio Vazquez-Arroyo, Michael Barnett, Premesh Lalu and Serena Laws for providing comments on earlier versions of this article. Thanks also to David Blaney and Arlene Tickner for their excellent editorial comments. Special thanks to the Dartmouth

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Department of Government and Wesleyan University’s Center for the Humanities for housing me while revising this piece. For a longer explanation of Althusser’s concept of symptomatic reading, please see my analysis in Kamola (2010). This book has been cited 3,896 times according to Google Scholar (April 22, 2011). The same is true of references to Asia and South America although to a lesser extent seeing as more country-specific examples are drawn from these continents. This seems oddly to suggest that slavery is defined more by its violent character than its economic function. Note the use of scare quotes around “civilized” as if Held et al. are aware of the neo-colonial implications of associating globalization with “civilization.” This book is cited 1,425 according to Google Scholar (April 22, 2011). Paul Stoller (2002: 6) provides an interesting account of the “Africanization” of New York. He writes that: “Most writers who have discussed ‘the new immigration’ stress how it has resulted from the economic and social dislocations brought on by globalization. Their analyses are illuminating but seldom do justice to the stories of real men and women who have left their families to come to places like New York City to earn a living.” This book has been cited 6,857 times according to Google Scholar (April 22, 2011). Koechlin (2006: 261) argues that the book “is neither a primer on globalization, nor a careful political economic critique of neo-liberal globalization” but “rather, an intelligent, persuasive polemic against the IMF, neo-liberalism and, to some extent, against Joseph Stiglitz’s personal adversaries.” On this point Stiglitz (2003: xi) writes: “This book is based on my experiences … Many of the people I criticize will say I have gotten it wrong; they may even produce evidence that contradicts my views of what happened. I can only offer my interpretations of what I saw.” That being said, it is hard to imagine that between 1997 and 2000 the senior vice president of the World Bank was not also substantially engaged in discussions about structural adjustment policies for African countries. The most extensive attention to Africa comes in the vignette about the flawed advice the IMF gave to Ethiopia. Stiglitz (2003: 24, 25–34, 36, 253–4) also uses the “villages of Africa, Nepal, Mindanao, or Ethiopia” as examples of places where the “the gap between the poor and the rich has been growing” and where the number of people “living on less than a dollar a day” has been increasing. In another place he briefly identifies Botswana as an example of a country that has seen economic growth because it rejected IMF suggestions. And still later Stiglitz uses African cotton farmers to illustrate the negative consequences of U.S. agricultural subsidies. What African Renaissance means remains entirely unclear. In his prologue to the book, for example, Mbeki (1999: xvi) argues that it includes “human resource development, the emancipation of women, the building of a modern economic, social, and communication infrastructure, the cancellation of Africa’s foreign debt, an improvement in terms of trade, an increase in domestic and foreign investment, the expansion of development assistance, and better access for our products into the markets of the developed world.” For example, Mbeki (1999: xxi) declared that “we must recall everything that is good and inspiring in our past” in order to “secure our equitable space within a world affected by a rapid process of globalization … from which we cannot escape.” Stremlau (1999: 124) similarly argued that a successful African renaissance offers “the promise of evolving political frameworks that will allow the

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continent’s rich cultural diversity to flourish” thereby allowing the “inescapable forces of economic and technological globalization” to “be managed and eventually turned to advantage at all levels of African society.” 15 An excellent example of such work is Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe’s edited collection Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis (2008: 1) which, taking its departure from Sassen’s global city, offers “an exercise in writing the worldliness of a contemporary African city.” This task “requires a profound reinterrogation of Africa in general as a sign of modern knowledge formation” while calling “for a critical examination of some of the ways in which cities in general and African cities in particular have been read in recent global scholarship.” Similarly, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (2005: 164) seeks to confront the historical colonization of language and memory by calling on African intellectuals to abide “by their very calling as knowledge producers to create a common intellectual basis” from which Africa can “engage with the world.” Siba Grovogui (2006) displays the potential power of the engagement when he examines a group of French-African intellectuals during World War II as an opportunity to rethink foundational tenets of International Relations. 16 It should be noted that many African and Caribbean scholars were central to the creation of these arguments, including: Ake (1982); Amin (1976); Fanon (2004 [1963]); Memmi (1965); and Rodney (1982).

References Afoláyan, Michael O. (2007) Higher Education in Postcolonial Africa: Paradigms of Development, Decline and Dilemmas, Trenton, NJ and Asmara: African World Press. Ake, Claude (1982) Political Economy of Africa, London: Longman. Althusser, Louis and Étienne Balibar (1999) Reading Capital, London and New York: Verso. Amin, Samir (1976) Accumulation on a World Scale, New York: Monthly Review Press. Applbaum, Kalman (2000) “Crossing Borders: Globalization as Myth and Charter in American Transnational Consumer Marketing,” American Ethnologist, 27(2): 257–82. Connell, Raewyn (2007) “The Northern Theory of Globalization,” Sociological Theory, 25(4): 368–85. Davis, Colin (2001) “Althusser on Reading and Self-Reading,” Textual Practice, 15(2): 299–316. Davis, Mike (2007) Planet of Slums, London and New York: Verso. Fanon, Franz (2004) [1963] The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press. Federici, Silvia, George Caffentzis, and Ousseina Alidou (eds) (2000) A Thousand Flowers: Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities, Trenton, NJ and Asmara: African World Press. Ferguson, James (1994) The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. —— (2006) Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Grovogui, Siba N. (2006) Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Hay, Colin and David Marsh (2000) “Introduction: Demystifying Globalization,” in Colin Hay and David Marsh (eds), Demystifying Globalization, Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–17. Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kamola, Isaac A. (2007) “The Global Coffee Economy and the Production of Genocide in Rwanda,” Third World Quarterly, 28(3): 571–92. —— (2010) “Producing the Global Imaginary: Academic Knowledge, Globalization and the Making of the World” (Ph.D. Dissertation), Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Koechlin, Timothy (2006) “Stiglitz and His Discontents,” Review of Political Economy, 18(2): 253–64. Krishnaswamy, Revathi (2007) “Postcolonial and Globalization Studies: Connections, Conflicts, Complicities,” in Revathi, Krishnaswamy and John C. Hawley (eds), The Postcolonial and the Global, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 2–21. Magubane, Zine and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (2004) “Globalization and Africa’s Intellectual Engagement,” in Manfred B. Steger. Lanham (ed), Rethinking Globalism, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 165–77. Makgoba, Malegapuru W., Thaninga Shope, and Thami Mazwai (1999) “Introduction,” in Malegapuru W. Makgoba (ed), African Renaissance: The New Struggle, Cape Town: Mafubu Publishing, pp. i–xii. Mamdani, Mahmood (1999) “There Can be No African Renaissance Without an Africa-focused Intelligentsia,” in Malegapuru W. Makgoba (ed), African Renaissance: The New Struggle, Cape Town: Mafubu Publishing, pp. 125–34. Mbeki, Thabo (1999) “Prologue,” in Malegapuru W. Makgoba (ed), African Renaissance: The New Struggle, Cape Town: Mafubu Publishing, pp. xiii–xxi. Mbembe, Achille (2001) On the Postcolony, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mbembe, Achille and Sarah Nuttall (2004) “Writing the World from an African Metropolis,” Public Culture, 16(3): 347–72. —— (2008) “Introduction: Afropolis,” in Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe (eds), Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis, Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 1–36. Memmi, Albert (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized, Boston: Beacon Press. Mittelman, James H. (2004) “Feature Reviews: Globalization and Its Discontents,” New Political Economy, 9(1): 129–33. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (2005) “Europhone or African Memory: The Challenge of the Pan-Africanist Intellectual in the Era of Globalization,” in Thandika Mkandawire (ed), African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development, Dakar: CODESRIA Books, pp. 155–64. Olukoshi, Adebayo O. and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (eds) (2004) African Universities in the Twenty-First Century, Volumes 1 and 2, Dakar: Codesria. Robertson, Roland and Habib Haque Khondker (1998) “Discourses of Globalization: Preliminary Considerations,” International Sociology, 13(1): 25–40. Rodney, Walter (1982) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Washington, DC: Howard University Press.

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Sassen, Saskia (1998) Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money, New York: The New Press. Steger, Manfred B. (2003) Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2003) Globalization and Its Discontents, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. Stoller, Paul (2002) Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Strange, Susan (1996) The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stremlau, John (1999) “African Renaissance and International Relations,” in Malegapuru W. Makgoba (ed), African Renaissance: The New Struggle, Cape Town: Mafubu Publishing, pp. 101–24.

10 Globalization A Russian perspective Andrei P. Tsygankov1

Russia’s experience with West-initiated globalization has been peculiar. Immediately following the end of the Cold War, Boris Yeltsin’s choice was decisively pro-Western, and he sought to integrate Russia with Western institutions. Since the late-1990s, however, Russia has adopted different priorities and pursued a more selective approach to globalization. In economic and political affairs, the Kremlin insisted on preserving state sovereignty and the right to defend itself against harmful influences from the outside world, as well as to promote its own vision of globalization. From an admirer of the West, Russia has emerged as a critic that is actively seeking to expand its presence in global markets and join global institutions, while at the same time working to transform these institutions to its advantage. Russia’s theoretical engagement with globalization has been similarly peculiar. The engagement has taken place on two inter-related levels: the international and the domestic. Externally, Russian scholars of International Relations have taken issue with Western, especially American, interpretations of globalization; they note that globalization benefits those who are willing to accept the rules of the game, rather than challenge them. Internally, Russians have identified at least three different responses to globalization— full acceptance selective acceptance and radical rejection—and developed theories to justify these responses. Russia’s current intellectual mainstream with regard to globalization includes theories by realist thinkers and critical political economists. These theories correlate with (and are partly shaped by) the official attitude of selective acceptance of global economic and political rules. Whereas Russian realism and critical political economy are closer to the political mainstream, liberal and culturally essentialist IR advance attitudes of globalization’s full acceptance and rejection, respectively. This chapter seeks to explain the diverse reactions of academic and expert communities in Russia by placing them within the context of national foreign policy discussions and the intellectual debates within these groups. Following Hayward Alker and other scholars (Alker 1981; Alker and Biersteker 1984; Alker, Amin, Biersteker and Inoguchi 1998) I adopt a broad definition of international relations theory, viewing it as a systematically developed and culturally grounded image of the world. Accordingly,

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I analyze Russian IR debates in the context of the nation’s historical debates regarding its political, economic and cultural institutions. The chapter first identifies the political mainstream, the dominant choice of the nation’s political class, which appears as a nationalist or neo-mercantilist response to neoliberal globalization. It then describes Russian intellectual debates and international relations discussions in academia and expert communities regarding the nation’s interpretation of globalization. I conclude by reflecting on the causes of Russia’s reception of globalization and its divergence from the mainstream neoliberal vision.

Globalization and Russian nationalism The end of the Cold War produced expectations of increasing economic and political convergence across nations. The neoliberal concept of globalization anticipated that nations would redefine their interests to fit the standards of the newly emerging and West-defined open world economy (Friedman 1999, 2005; Ohmae 1991). Others expected global political convergence based on developing Western-style democratic institutions (Fukuyama 1989; Mandelbaum 2005). Many scholars have justifiably criticized these approaches as ethnocentric and unrealistic. Instead of West-inspired policy convergence, new cleavages and divergences emerged. The world of globalization brought new poverty and socio-economic divisions (Murphy 2001). It created new areas of violence and lawlessness, reactivated arms races, and enacted new and intensified some old processes of cultural reformulation, including ethnic nationalism (Mansfield and Snyder 2007). Instead of finding protection under Western hegemony, nations often sought refuge in reformulating their interests to better protect their national societies and reorient themselves towards regional initiatives (Helleiner and Pickel 2005; Mansfield and Millner 1997; Stalling 1995). In both global and regional organizations, thay also redefined their interests consistently with their historical pasts and their images of national selves. Russia’s adaptation to globalization has also followed national historical patterns, rather than the expected model of global policy convergence. Instead of further embracing of Western economic and political influences— something that the new Russian leadership had experimented with during the 1990s—it pursued a course of selective openness managed by an increasingly strong and nationalistic state. In economic affairs, the Kremlin insisted on the need for Russia to direct its own development path and reserve its natural resources for its own development. An emphasis on sovereignty indicated the state’s determination to have an upper hand in deciding the conditions on which Western companies could participate in Russia’s economic development. In a world of growing energy prices, the emphasis shifted from providing macroeconomic discipline and tough fiscal policies toward the desire to capitalize on Russia’s reserves of natural gas and oil. As viewed by Vladimir Putin, the role of the energy sector was to

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work with the state to promote these objectives. According to this perspective, relying on market forces is essential, but insufficient: “Even in developed countries, market mechanisms do not provide solutions to strategic tasks of resource use, protecting nature, and sustainable economic security.”2 The state therefore was to shape policy outcomes by actively seeking to control social resources, coordinating the activities of key social players and assisting the country in finding its niche in the global economy. In political affairs, Russia has sought to shield itself against what it views as harmful influences of the West’s global democratization pressures. Since the end of the Cold War, Russian officials have been among the most vocal critics of military interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya that were justified on humanitarian grounds. In response to the political instability during the 1990s and the color-coded revolutions of 2003–5, the Kremlin insisted on Russia’s right to “decide for itself the pace, terms and conditions of moving towards democracy,” warning against attempts to destabilize the political system by “any unlawful methods of struggle” (Putin 2005). The principle of non-interference in Russia’s domestic developments only became stronger over time, and theorists sympathetic to the official agenda developed the concept of “sovereign democracy” (Tretyakov 2005; Tsipko 2006; Surkov 2006).3 The latter places sovereignty at the center of Russian political values, and the Kremlin’s leading ideologist Vladislav Surkov (2006) justified the concept of sovereign democracy with the need to defend an internally-determined path to political development and protect values of economic prosperity, individual freedom and social justice from potential threats, including “international terrorism, military conflict, lack of economic competitiveness, and soft takeovers by ‘orange technologies’ in a time of decreased national immunity to foreign influence.” The Kremlin has also trained its own youth organizations, restricted activities of Western NGOs and radical opposition inside the country and warned the United States against interference in Russia’s domestic developments. More recently, President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized the importance of improving relations with Western nations in part to facilitate investment and cooperation in the information technology sector. He established a good rapport with U.S. President Barak Obama and European leaders and he cooperated with the United States on Iran and the new nuclear treaty. Medvedev has also avoided tough language and worked on improving the image of Russia in Western business circles. In his address to the Federation Council in November 2009, Medvedev (2009) insisted that the effectiveness of foreign policy must be “judged by a simple criterion: Does it improve living standards in our country?” In his meeting with Russia’s ambassadors in July 2010, Medvedev (2010) further highlighted the need to establish “modernization alliances” with the United States and other Western nations. These differences of style and emphasis between Putin and Medvedev do not undermine the established policy consensus. Both leaders are not

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satisfied with the current “unipolar” structure of the international system that diminishes Russia’s global influence. Both seek to position their country for successful competition in the world economy, including by capitalizing on Russia’s rich energy reserves. Both remain pragmatically focused on exploiting opportunities outside the West and are eager to build flexible coalitions to promote Russia’s global interests. Finally, both are on record defending Russia’s right to “privileged interests” in the former Soviet region and are unapologetic about recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after the August 2008 war with Georgia. The larger society has been supportive of official emphasis on protection from outside interference and gradual state-driven modernization and stability. Most polls show Russians’ strong—around 80 percent—support for the Kremlin’s policies. In addition, Russians are most positive about such word-symbols as “order” (58 percent), “justice” (49 percent), and “stability” (38 percent), and least positive about the word “revolution,” with 22 percent viewing it in a negative light (Ros Business Consulting 2007). Furthermore, while most would like to restore the status of their country as a great power, few have illusions either about balancing the West’s global power or restoring a Soviet-like empire in Eurasia. Polls indicate that the general public predominantly connects great power status with economic development, rather than military buildup or revision of existing territorial boundaries. For instance, according to a poll by VTsIOM (All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center) taken on August 14 and 15, 2010, 49 percent of Russians believe that the main obstacle on the path to great power status is the lag behind leading countries in economic development; only 26 percent link it to powerful armed forces and 7 percent to reclaiming control over the territories of the former USSR (Interfax 2010).

Dominant approaches to globalization This official discourse defines Russia’s political mainstream and has greatly affected the nation’s intellectual discussions, including studies of international relations. Russian IR and social science in general can be understood as a form of social action shaped by locally meaningful ideological debates. For example, Russian debates have historically been among those viewing the nation’s future either as a part of the West or as an independent state or distinct civilization. Ideology in this context refers to a systematic presentation of relations of self and other.4 Overall, Russian IR discourse has been moving away from liberal approaches and toward those more sensitive to local conditions and state needs. Much of this development can be attributed to the country’s extremely painful economic reform carried out under the ideological banner of liberal transformation. Although a pro-Western vision shaped the reform, it was soon met with a formidable opposition, which advanced a different identity and pushed the country away from its original post-Soviet path.

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Realism Russian realists build on the idea of Russia as an independent state that— due to long historical experience as a great power—remains socially popular. In response to the decline of expectations associated with neoliberal globalization, Russians have revived the historically familiar ideology of a great power and a strong state. Following the two centuries-long conquest by the Mongols, Russia has developed a psychological complex of insecurity and a readiness to sacrifice everything for independence and sovereignty. Rather than insisting on economic globalization and political democratization, many Russian politicians have emphasized the state’s ability to govern and preserve the social and political order. Not inherently anti-Western, they seek to be recognized for highlighting the economic and military capabilities of Russia. This emphasis on independence finds its way into Russian realist IR theory. While borrowing some conceptual tools from the West, Russian realists use them creatively and preserve their intellectual independence. An example is their study of world order. Although the influence of American realist scholarship on these analyses is evident, some of the Russian approaches to world order are more dynamic and include, not unlike the British school tradition, the notions of norms and rules.5 Keeping their eyes on Russia, Russian realists have also differentiated between various types of unipolar and multipolar world order (Bogaturov 1998, 2003; Shakleyina and Bogaturov 2004) and security threats (Fenenko 2008). Russian realists tend to view globalization as a project favoring the strongest with little benefit for the weak (Kokoshin 2006; Utkin 2006). Russia has already suffered from globalization, in this view, and is now better off pursuing policies of restoring state power. This position is not isolationist and instead is similar to Vladimir Putin’s (2002: 4–5) eagerness to emphasize the economic nature of the contemporary world and the need for Russia to be successful in the geo-economic sphere; rather than military struggle, “the norm of the international community and the modern world is a tough competition—for markets, investments, political, and economic influence.” At least some Russian realists appreciate potential benefits from globalization but only if Russia manages to preserve its power and association with the most economically developed states. A good example that illustrates their reasoning is research on the international system’s structure and polarity, in which realists developed a variety of concepts differentiating between distinct types of unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar systems (Shakleyina 2003). Aleksei Bogaturov (1996, 2001, 2003) proposed to view the post-Cold War international system as “pluralistic unipolarity,” in which the unipolar center is a group of responsible states, rather than one state (the United States). Bogaturov saw Russia as a member of that group, arguing for consolidation of Russia’s position within the global center, as well as for discouraging the formation of one-state unipolarity. Such a view complicates the zero-sum perspective of many realist theories because Russia was

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expected to develop closer ties with some Western states, while resisting the tendency of others (the U.S.) to become predominant in the system. Realists have also been critical of the liberal notion of universal democratic ideas, questioning the significance of internal characteristics in the international struggle for power and security. Many in Russia see attempts to promote Western-style democracy globally as little more than an ideological cover for a struggle for world domination (Gadziyev 2008; Karaganov 2008; Volodin 2006). Rather than recommending the development of this kind of democracy, realists propose that Russia concentrate on strengthening its international position by consolidating regional ties and pursuing even-handed relations with Western and non-Western nations. With regard to regional order, realists have developed the notion of a post-imperial space to be influenced by Russia and its social groups— industrialists, businessmen, intellectuals and mass opinion leaders—without reviving the empire. The idea of empire or formal incorporation of any territory beyond current Russian borders is typically viewed by realists as anachronistic. For instance, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (1996) report referred to the idea of Soviet restoration as a “reactionary utopia.” At the same time, the report argued that Russia should assume a leadership role in regional integration. Realists also argued for flexible alliances in all geopolitical directions (Gadziyev 2007), which resonated well with the official discourse that has sanctioned the idea of “multi-vector” foreign policy since the mid-1990s. Thus the government’s official Foreign Policy Concept of 2000 referred to the Russian Federation as “a great power … [with a] responsibility for maintaining security in the world both on a global and on a regional level” and warned of the threat of a new “unipolar structure of the world under the economic and military domination of the United States” (Shakleyina 2002: 110–11). Critical political economy Another important response to West-centered globalization has come from traditionally well-developed critical theories of political economy. Since the Soviet era, Russian political economy has opposed Western liberal theories and their expectations of growing convergence in social and economic institutions across the globe. Although, strictly speaking, the post-Soviet political economy can hardly be called Marxist, it bears a family resemblance to earlier Soviet scholars’ critique of capitalism. The post-Soviet critical approaches are increasingly popular among scholars since they provide a sophisticated reaction to liberal globalization. As with realism, Russian critical approaches historically have developed their own distinct mode of theorizing international relations. For example, Karl Marx and German social democrats’ influences on Vladimir Lenin did not preclude the latter from developing his own highly original theory of international capitalist order and its transformation (Lenin [1976] 1904). Various Western

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influences on notable Soviet theorists, such as Nikolai Bukharin and Yevgeni Varga, also did not make them overly dependent on such influences. Soviet Marxists were also well aware of the dangers of intellectual dependence on non-socialist, “bourgeois” thinkers and did everything in their power to develop a theory of the exploitation of the weaker by the stronger.6 PostSoviet critical theorists too demonstrate sensitivity to Russia’s own economic, social and political interests in the world (Gorbachev 2003; Volodin 2006; Volodin and Shirokov 2002). Like realists, they remain critical of globalization. Unlike realists, however, political economy theorists concentrate their critique on “capitalist” institutions, instead of the national governments of the most advanced societies (Kagarlitski 2004). Russian advocates of a critical political economy perspective are ambivalent towards globalization. Although they disagree with liberals that Russia should follow pro-Western and pro-American policies, they see opportunities from globalization if Russia manages to find its own formula of social and political adaptation. In the absence of such a formula, critical political economists believe that Russia is doomed to become a third world country with low living standards for its population, political instability and a dependent foreign policy (Bogomolov and Nekipelov 2003; Ilyin 2004; Ivanov 2008; Pantin and Lapkin 2006: 423–34; Volodin and Shirokov 2002). In this regard, members of this school of thinking frequently discuss the role of cultural dialogue as a condition of Russia’s success. From the critical political economy perspective, the fact that the world is global does not mean that cultures are doomed to conflict. Instead, a world of cultures should strive to establish a regime of “unity in diversity,” under which nations are able to maintain an intense dialogue and cooperation by observing certain globally acknowledged rules, while still following their own internally developed sets of norms. In order to sustain this culturally pluralist system, new ideas are necessary to challenge the dominance of U.S.centered economic and political globalization (Alekseyeva 2007; Batalov 2005; Voytolovski 2007). Some scholars proposed the strengthening of the United Nations as a prototype for future world government, with the General Assembly as parliament, the Security Council as executive body, and the Secretary General as president of the world state. For example, former Gorbachev advisor Georgi Shakhnazarov (2000) argued that such a structure was necessary in order to address urgent global problems, such as growing militarism, depletion of world resources, overpopulation and environmental degradation, and to mitigate the selfish impulses of local civilizations. In his view, the Huntington-proposed restructuring of the Security Council in accordance with civilizational representation would mean throwing away all the positive potential of the United Nations and returning to the times of isolation and the rule of crude force in world politics. Instead, and for the purpose of preserving and developing the central governing structure of the world, Shakhnazarov proposed a stepby-step development of the United Nations that gradually incorporates into

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the Security Council those states that have acquired indisputable world influence, including Germany, Japan, and possibly even India, Brazil, and others. This critical discourse of global multiculturalism corresponds with official promotion of a culturally-sensitive modernization. The latter, again, is a response to the reforms of the 1990s that are generally viewed as excessively pro-Western and even aimed at perpetuating and expanding the cultural hegemony of the West. Critical political economists recommend transcending commonplace boundaries and dichotomies, such as either anti- or pro-Western, or European or Asian. Unlike pro-Western liberals, who commonly see the need for Russia to “return” to Europe in order to become more global, some critical scholars stress that Russia is already in Europe, already in the West, and already global.7 In these historical accounts, Russia has been a part of the West and of a global society longer than some other Western nations, including the United States. Therefore the challenge for Russia is not to be included in, but to develop a deeper awareness of itself as a legitimate member of Europe and of its special ties with the world. Put differently, Russia has to intellectually absorb the world/West, rather than let itself be absorbed by it. An example of such thinking is Gleb Pavlovski’s (2004) concept of Euro-East, which conceptualizes the region both as a part of Europe and distinct in its own right. The Euro-East shares with Europe values of market economy and a growing middle class, but because it is mainly preoccupied with economic and social modernization, the region has a special need to maintain political stability. Scholars working in the critical political economy tradition also view cultural dialogue as an appropriate foreign policy. To more socialist-oriented thinkers (Tolstykh 2003), cultural dialogue remains essential as a key humanistic principle that may set the world on the path of solving the above identified global problems of militarism, poverty and environmental degradation. More conservative thinkers, inspired by Orthodox Christian values (Panarin 2002), advocate a cross-religious synthesis of Western reason and Eastern myth. They see Russia as a natural place for such a synthesis and, therefore, as a model for the world. As politically distinct as these socialist and conservative schools of thought are, they share a vision of the world as an entity that remains divided along cultural and socioeconomic lines. Many in official circles find the proposed cultural dialogue promising for Russia. For example, in March 2008 President Putin sent a message to the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting in Senegal in which he said that “deeper relations of friendship and cooperation with the Islamic world are Russia’s strategic course” and that “we share concerns about the danger of the world splitting along religious and civilizational lines” (RFE/RL 2008a). Other officials presented Russia as a country, “which is on the junction of Europe and Asia and is a natural inter-civilization bridge”

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(2008b) and expressed desire to have closer ties with the Islamic world (RFE/RL January 16, 2008). Overall, the Kremlin values stronger relationships with Europe and the United States but not at the expense of Russia’s ability to act independently and develop ties with non-Western countries. In Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s terms, solutions for Russia should come from “network diplomacy rather than entangling military-political alliances with their burdensome rigid commitments” (Lavrov 2009).

Opposing approaches to globalization Liberal essentialism The meaning of globalization to members of Russia’s liberal IR community is so similar to mainstream interpretations in the United States that they can be referred to as liberal essentialists. The ideology of pro-West liberalism has inspired the Russian liberal IR community. Historically Westernizers placed emphasis on Russia’s similarity with Western nations and viewed the West as the most viable and progressive civilization in the world. Although the early representatives of this strain of thinking sought to present Russia as a loyal member of the family of European monarchies, since the second half of the nineteenth century they identified with the West of constitutional freedoms and political equality. Westernizers within the Soviet system saw Russia standing not too far apart from European social-democratic ideas and supported Mikhail Gorbachev’s agenda of reforming the Soviet system into a democratic or “human” version of socialism (gumannyi sotsializm). Finally, the post-Soviet Westernizers upheld the “natural” affinity of their country with the West based on such shared values as democracy, human rights and a free market. President Boris Yelstin and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev insisted that only by building Western liberal institutions and integrating with the coalition of what was frequently referred to as the community of “Western civilized nations” would Russia be able to respond to threats and overcome its economic and political backwardness. Given the often close relationship between knowledge and ideology, this liberal agenda found expression in the development of international studies in Russia.8 Liberal IR theories in Russia are heavily dependent on intellectual currents in Western liberal academia. Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the Highest School of Economics (Moscow) and St. Petersburg State University’s Department of International Relations are especially prominent in advancing liberal thinking. The concepts and theories that seem dominant in Russian liberal IR circles are the same concepts and theories that are familiar to Western, particularly American, academic audiences. Not only were these theories first developed in the West, but they have been received uncritically and without appropriate adaptation. Prominent theories in Russian liberal IR—democratic peace, international institutions and norms, transnational civil society, economic

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globalization, and others—have been introduced in the Russian context without sufficiently broad cultural reinterpretation that is required for local adaptation (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2007). This remains a key reason why these West-centered theories are narrow in their appeal outside several institutions in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Although liberals might have tried to be more creative in processing Western intellectual influences, Russia’s centuries-long liberal tradition that blamed the state for all social failures, including the negative experience of the 1990s, precluded them from developing a critique of Western practices.9 Their analysis of economic globalization and its social and political impacts is a case in point. During the 1990s Russia went through the most devastating depression in its history and therefore was hardly a successful testing ground for the theory of economic globalization. Yet in line with arguments of such champions of liberal globalization as Thomas Friedman (1999, 2005)—and even going farther than them—Russian liberals believe that globalization helps to narrow the gap between North and South (Shishkov 2003) and that it gradually replaces national security with international security (Kulagin 2007). The latter guarantees personal rights and freedoms that are still being suppressed by the state, especially in countries with authoritarian political regimes. Some Russian liberals go so far as to deny the significance of national interests and state sovereignty and insist that “policy aimed at preserving sovereignty and territorial integrity in the long run has no future” (Pastukhov 2000: 95–6; Sheinis 2003: 33). Still others, such as Yasin (2004), posit the incompatibility of Russian cultural values with economic globalization; he argues that “the West possesses the most productive system of values,” associated with Protestantism, whereas “traditional Russian values are in many ways attractive, but overall not very productive” (as cited in Fedorov 2004). These arguments supporting liberal institutions remain a prominent part of national discussions largely because of the global power distribution and Russia’s position of dependence in the international system (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2007). Due to this position of economic dependence and availability of Western research funds, the above-identified liberal institutions and media are strategically positioned to promote the West-centered globalization discourse. Many Russian liberals also advocate the notion of democracy promoted by neoliberal and neoconservative circles in the United States without considering local conditions and potential resistance to such democratization. Russian representatives of the democratic peace theory insist that Russia too would do well to adopt standards of Western pluralistic democracy if it wants to be peaceful and “civilized,” even if this means granting the right to use force to the only superpower in the world, the United States (Kremenyuk 2004). There is little reflection among these scholars10 on the nature of democracy or Russia’s social conditions and their compatibility with those of Western liberal democracies.11 Russian scholars of global democratization rely on Western ratings of democracy in their research, such

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as the one produced by Freedom House. They justify their choice of Freedom House as the “only currently available instrument of quantitative measurement of political regimes’ characteristics” (Kulagin 2004: 116). Democracy is understood to be a West-centered universal phenomenon, and cultural, historic and political foundations of its emergence and consolidation are excluded from analysis despite the fact that these foundations have differed considerably within and without the West.12 The majority of Russian liberal IR scholars do not even recognize the need to theorize cultural conditions of democracy. Nor do Russian scholars of democratic peace scrutinize the notion of peace which is typically associated with the absence of war between states, not with the avoidance of social and economic violence. They ignore that North and South continue to differ in defining democracy and peace, which may help to account for the theory’s frequent perception in the South as a justification of American imperialism.13 Unlike the critical political economy scholars, Russia’s liberal scholars of globalization offer little analysis of globalization’s historical, cultural and political conditions. Liberals tend to treat the world’s institutional development as predominantly West-centered. They describe the emerging world as “democratic unipolarity” (Kulagin 2002, 2008), implying its Western origins, and they believe that “[Francis] Fukuyama and [Robert] Heilbronner were basically correct in arguing the ‘end of history’ thesis which implied the absence of a viable alternative to Western liberalism” (Shevtsova 2001). Some within this group have no qualms with the hegemonic role given to the West, particularly the United States, to regulate and secure the contemporary world order. In the words of Victor Kremenyuk (2006), the emergence of a single superpower, which responsibility to maintain world order, played formation of world society … In many ways, it that was able to control anarchical elements in and made the rule of law more effective.

took upon itself the a positive role in the is the unipolar system international relations

Other scholars envision a world in which non-state actors, movements and networks are at least as powerful as states in shaping the contemporary world order (Barabanov 2002: 45–6, 49–50; Barabanov 2008; Lebedeva 2008), constituting a challenge to the very nature of a great powers-based international system. During 2004–5, Russia’s leading International Relations journal, Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy (International Trends), organized a discussion that sought to clarify concepts of international relations and world politics, the latter being reserved by some participants for capturing the growing role of non-state actors.14 Consistent with the Westcentered view of the world, Russian liberals also argue that non-state ties and interactions are especially developed within the zone of Western

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developed democracies and weak outside that zone. This is why the most economically developed nations remain “the center of the global civil society” (Baluyev 2007). The benefits of a world in which Western power and institutions dominate have been widely disputed even among Western liberals. For instance, some of them (Held 1995, 2000; Linklater 1998) have been critical of the inequalities of the traditional West-centered world, calling for new structures and institutions of governance at the supranational and transnational levels, including a radical global democratization transcending the existing system of nation-states. Arguably, even this radically new vision may not be sufficiently sensitive to various local communities with their “bottom up” perspectives of the world (Dallmayr 1999; Inayatullah and Blaney 2004; Jones 2006; Shani 2008). Despite these critiques, Russian liberals rarely question the benefits of the West-centered world. Instead, they tend to lay the blame on Russia’s leadership, its unwillingness to relinquish great power ambitions and its inability to successfully “adjust” to a globalized world. In their mind, there exist only two mutually exclusive paths: a pro-Western path, and a great power, nationalistic one. Accustomed to viewing reality in terms of such dichotomies, Russian liberals follow the line of some Western analysts in insisting that, if Russia is not a Western-style democracy, then it must be an empire, or if it is a great power, then it must be an anti-Western one (see, for example, Shevtsova 2003: 173–6).15 Or, as Kremenyuk (2006) put it, a Russia that is trying to resist the power of the U.S.-based unipolar order can only be viewed as located “outside the world society.” Such acritical adaptations of Western theories in the Russian context are often accompanied by policy recommendations that, should they be implemented, would only perpetuate Russia’s political dependence on outside actors. In line with their theoretical convictions, IR liberals have recommended steps that would undermine Russia’s military, economic and political independence. For example, Russian liberals advocated NATO membership, defended the alliance’s military intervention in Yugoslavia, and even advocated its expansion at the expense of Russia’s traditional sphere of geopolitical interests. They also argued in favor of state withdrawal and surrendering “state sovereignty to transnational corporations and international organizations, as do other civilized countries” (Yasin 2001), assuming that globalization and rise of transnational organizations can only mean the decline of states and their role in world politics. “The content of world politics is a transition from the system of individual states (the Westphalian system) to the system that will be mostly ruled by supranational and transnational institutions that would regulate inter-state relations” (Kremenyuk 2006). Some liberal scholars went so far as to propose to transfer parts of Russian territory to foreign states—the Kuril Islands to Japan in exchange for economic credits and Kaliningrad to Germany and Scandinavian nations (Shevtsova 2001). Others suggested that Russia would be better

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off transferring some attributes of sovereignty to large and resource-rich regions in order to turn them into the “gates to the global world” (Sergeyev 2001: 230). Still others encouraged Russia to abandon an independent foreign policy in favor of a “creative adjustment” to the Western dominance in the world (Trenin 2001). Although not all Russian liberals accept these recommendations or a West-centered vision of the world, the majority of liberals offer little critical engagement with American theories, treating them as the ultimate authority rather than a starting or an intermediate point in intellectual development. Cultural essentialism Yet another ideology that opposes the notion of selective adjustment to new world realities is a radical rejection of globalization that favors Russia’s economic and political autarchy and self-sufficiency. Those insisting on this perspective present Russian social values as essentially different from the West. Viewing Russia as a civilization in its own right, the so-called “civilizationists” date such status back to Ivan the Terrible’s “gathering of Russian lands” after the Mongol Yoke and to the dictum “Moscow is the Third Rome” adopted under the same ruler. Some representatives of this school advocate a firm commitment to the values of Orthodox Christianity, while others view Russia as an organic synthesis of various religions distinct from both European and Asian cultures.16 Scholarship inspired by this ideology is developed in military academies or conservative think tanks, often by scholars with an explicitly anti-Western and/or imperialist agenda (Dugin 2002; Russkaya doktrina 2007). The idea of an independent Russian civilization has inspired culturally essentialist scholarship. Rather than placing the emphasis on cultural syntheses and cross-civilizational dialogue, as critical political economists do, cultural essentialists promote the vision of Russia as a self-sufficient and autarchic Eurasian or Orthodox empire. The approach is distinct and predates modern IR theories as they have developed in the West. Much of Russia’s culturally essentialist writing dates back to nineteenth-century thinkers Nikolai Danilevski (1885) and Constantine Leontyev (1891), each developing their theories of “cultural-historical types” long before Oswald Spengler and Samuel Huntington developed similar theories in Decline of the West (Spengler 1921) and Clash of Civilizations (Huntington 1996). Cultural essentialists believe that globalization is nothing but a plot of the West against other civilizations, and they view the international system in terms of an irreconcilable struggle of cultures or a conflict of civilizations, not unlike the one described by Huntington (1996). Some, similar to this author, identify multipolar civilizational struggle (Nartov 1999; Zyuganov 1999, 2002), while others see an essentially bipolar geocultural conflict. Alexander Dugin’s (2002) concept of a great war of continents is of the

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latter kind. The bipolarity Dugin perceives is the result of a struggle for values and power between the two competing rivals—the land-based Eurasianists and the sea-oriented Atlanticists. The Eurasianist orientation is expressed most distinctly by Russia, Germany, Iran, and to a lesser extent, Japan, and the Atlanticist posture is well expressed by the United States and Britain. Unlike realists, cultural essentialists are not shy about defending a Russian empire, arguing that imperial rebuilding is critical in the global struggle against a U.S.-centered Atlanticist empire. Some essentialists (Dugin 2002) base their arguments strictly on geopolitical foundations, while others (Russkaya doktrina 2007) emphasize the role of religion and Russia’s Eastern Christianity in mastering political and cultural space in the region. Seeing little benefit from existing globalization, cultural essentialists propose to resist “imperialistic globalization” (Zyuganov 2002) by building a self-sufficient regional order closed to influences from the West. Eurasianists, like Dugin, view such order as a Russia-centered empire that has limited interaction with Atlanticist civilization. Similarly, Russian religious nationalists have advanced the notion of a Russian Orthodox empire. For instance, the recent influential volume Russkaya doktrina (2007) set out a regional order capable of resisting the West and becoming self-sufficient. In anticipation of the United States’ retreat from the region between 2010 and 2015, nationalists call for “a full-fledged political, economic and—ideally— military union in the manner of a Warsaw Pact” with China, India, Iran and other non-Western nations (Russkaya doktrina 2007: 297, 313). By comparison with other intellectual currents in Russia, the essentialists advocate the toughest possible foreign policy as a means to restoring Russia’s geopolitical status in the Eurasian heartland (Bassin and Aksenov 2006), as well as offering a new and attractive idea for the world (Russkaya doktrina 2007: 11; Kholmogorov 2006; Matveychev 2007).

Explaining Russia’s reading of globalization: in lieu of a conclusion Russia’s reading of globalization is different from that of the United States and suggests a substantial degree of local theorizing. The Russian reading is also more critical and defensive than the one frequently advanced by Western scholars of economic globalization and political democratization. At least three factors help to account for theories of globalization in Russia: the historical identity of a distinct European state, the negative experience with economic reforms during the 1990s and the country’s status as an energy producer in a world of currently skyrocketing oil prices. First, as a historical great power and a culturally distinct nation, Russia is unlikely to change in accordance with expectations of another (Western) civilization. Although many in Russia see the country as European, they also recognize Russia’s uniqueness and see the nation’s foreign policy challenge as integration with the West without losing cultural distinctiveness (Tsygankov 2008, 2011).

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Second, the country’s experience with globalization and economic reform during the 1990s has been devastating. After the Soviet disintegration, Russia shrank considerably in geographic size and the failure of Westernstyle shock therapy reform put most of the population on the verge of poverty. The country’s preoccupation with loss of prestige in the international system, poverty, crime, and corruption degraded it from the status of a country that, under Mikhail Gorbachev, saw itself catching up with the world of industrialized nations, to that of a more peripheral developing country. These changes led to a much more pessimistic outlook that further complicated engagement with Western globalization and made it more difficult for Western theories of globalization to travel in the national context. This also was the time that nationalism and neo-mercantilist geoeconomic thinking arose in Russia as a dominant political philosophy and a particular synthesis of liberal and culturally essentialist principles. It was geo-economic nationalism that increasingly shaped the political discourse and the policy agenda. Finally, due to high oil prices and the predominance of nationalist thinking, the Kremlin is now able to capitalize on its status as world energy producer and put forward a vision where Russia too is a maker of global rules. For example, in June 2008 President Dmitry Medvedev (2008) announced before the G8 meeting that “Russia is a global player” that wants “to take part in the rules of the game.” Medvedev blamed the United States for generating the global financial crisis and proposed an overhaul of the international economic order. Russia’s intervention in Georgia in August 2008, in response to the latter’s violence against a pro-Russian autonomy movement (South Ossetia), also indicates the Kremlin’s determination to defend Russia’s interests as it sees fit, without assistance from or consultation with Western nations. By mobilizing its energy power, the Kremlin has also contributed to reversing the colored revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. After being seriously hit by the global financial crisis, Russia has quickly recovered as an important international player. Overall, Russia’s case reinforces the view that academic theorizing is highly sensitive to developments in the policy world and tends to reproduce biases and expectations of the policymaking community (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2010). Unlike their Western colleagues, Russian academics have been in the business of responding to, rather than promoting the West’s global economic and political values. Russian realism and critical political economy are better positioned to assist the country in finding ways to coexist with and benefit from globalization because these approaches take seriously the challenge of international adjustment under the conditions of global structural inequality. They are in a position quite different from cultural essentialists that deny the very legitimacy of coexistence with Western globalization, and from liberal scholars that do not recognize structural inequality as a key obstacle to Russia’s successful adaptation to the international system. It seems clear that concepts and theories of

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pluralistic unipolarity, cultural dialogue and Eurasian regional order will continue to be well received by Russian IR audiences. It remains to be seen, however, what form Russia’s distinct contributions to IR theory may take in the future and whether they will resonate with the larger international audience.

Notes 1 Some of the themes of this chapter are explored in greater detail in Tsygankov (2005), and Tsygankov and Tsygankov (2007, 2010). 2 The passage is from Putin’s Ph.D thesis, “Mineral Raw Materials in the Strategy for Development of the Russian Economy,” defended in 1999 (as cited in Larsson 2006: 58). For various overviews of Russia’s energy thinking and policy, see Balzer (2006), Hill (2004), Larsson (2006) and Stulberg (2007). 3 Not all in the Kremlin share the notion of sovereign democracy. For an alternative perspective from the current President of Russia, see Medvedev (2006). 4 For development of this argument, see Tsygankov and Tsygankov (2010). For a recent theoretical discussion of ideology, see Freeden (2006) and Gerring (1997). 5 See Konyshev (2004, 2005) for a detailed analysis of U.S. neorealist scholarship and its influence on Russian academia. 6 As E.H. Carr observed in 1977, the “study of international relations in English-speaking countries is simply a study of the best way to run the world from positions of strength. The study of international relations in African and Asian universities, if it even got going, would be a study of the exploitation of the weaker by the stronger” (quoted in Barkawi and Laffey 2006: 349). 7 For instance, Dmitri Trenin (2006: 63, 167), while granting Russia a right to pursue a distinct path, assumes that the country needs to “become” a part of Europe and the “new” West. Russia, he says, has been historically European, yet it often “fell out of” Europe as a result of failed reform efforts. If this is the case, then what Russia really needs is to “return” to Europe, rather than preserve its identity and distinctiveness. 8 The sociology of knowledge tradition has drawn attention to the fact that scholarship is grounded in certain social conditions and may reflect ideological and cultural premises. For contemporary IR scholarship focusing on social foundations of knowledge, see especially Crawford and Jarvis (2001), Hoffmann (1977) and Wæver (1998). 9 For review and critique of these tradition, see especially Panarin (1999), Solzhenitsyn (1974) and Vekhi (1991 [1905]). 10 For a sample of representative work on global democratization, see Davydov (1999) and Kulagin (2002, 2003, 2008). 11 Outside the democratic peace scholars, such reflections do exist. See, for example, Kapustin (2001), Torkunov (2006) and Volodin (2006). 12 Ido Oren (2002) showed, for example, that the definition of democracy within the United States changed dramatically at least twice during the twentieth century—from good governance under Woodrow Wilson to fighting poverty during the Great Depression to elections and pluralistic institutions in the 1960s. On contested meanings of democracy in the United States, see also Foner (1998). 13 On the North-South division in viewing democratic peace, see Tickner (2001: 103). 14 Such was the position of Marina Lebedeva (2004), who initiated the discussion. Lebedeva was then engaged by several other participants, whose presentations

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have been published by the journal. The materials of the discussion can be found at . 15 For an early statement of this viewpoint, see Brzezinski (1994). 16 On Eurasianism and its influence in the contemporary Russia, see Bassin and Aksenov (2006), Shlapentokh (2007) and Solovyev (2008).

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Balance of Power or a Global Pax Democratica?),” in T. Shakleyina (ed), Vneshnyaya politika i bezopasnost’ sovremennoi Rossiyi, 1991–2002 (vol. 1): Moscow: ROSSPEN, pp. 145–61. —— (2004) “Rezhimnyi faktor vo vneshnei politike postsovetskikh gosudarstv (The Regime Factor in Foreign Policy of the post-Soviet States),” Polis 1: 115–24. Kulagin, Vladimir (2007) Mezhdunarodnaya bezopasnost’ (International Security), Moscow: Aspekt-press. —— (2008) “Netlennost’ avtoritarnosti? (The Eternal Authoritarianism?),” Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy 6 (1). Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Larsson, Robert L. (2006) Russia’s Energy Policy: Security Dimensions and Russia’s Reliability as an Energy Supplier, Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency. Lavrov, Sergei (2009) “Interview of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs with the BBC Russian Service,” April 23. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 30 May 2009). Lebedeva, Marina M. (2004) “Mirovaya politika (World Politics),” Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy 2. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). —— (2008) “Politicheskaya sistema mira: proyavleniya “vnesistemnosti” (The Political System of the World: Expressions of non-Systemic Qualities),” in Marina Lebedeva (ed), “Privatizatsiya” mirovoi politiki: lokal’nyye deystviya – global’nyye rezul’taty. Moscow: MGIMO, pp. 53–66. Lenin, V. (1976 [1904]) “Imperialism,” in Selected Works (vol. 1), Moscow: Progress. Leontyev, Konstantin (2005 [1891]) Vizantizm i slavyanstvo (Byzantium and Slavs), Moscow: Dar’. Linklater, Andrew (1998) The Transformation of Political Community, Oxford: Polity Press. Mandelbaum, Michael (2005) The Ideas That Conquered the World, New York: Public Affairs. Mansfield, Edward D. and Helen V. Milner, (eds.) (1997) The Political Economy of Regionalism, New York: Columbia University Press. Mansfield, Edward D. and Jack Snyder (2007) Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Matveychev, Oleg (2007) Suverenitet dukha (Spiritual Sovereignty), Moscow: Pokoleniye. Medvedev, Dmitri (2006) “Dlya protsvetaniya vsekh nado uchityvat’ interesy kazhdogo (For Everyone’s Prosperity, one has to Consider Everyone’s Interests),” Ekspert, 28 (522), July 24. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). —— (2008) “Speech at the 12th Petersburg International Economic Forum, Saint Petersburg, June 7”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). —— (2009) “Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsiyi (Address to Federation Council of the Russian Federation), November 12”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 30 January 2010). —— (2010) “Speech at meeting with Russian ambassadors and permanent representatives in international organizations, July 12”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2011).

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Murphy, Craig N. (2001) “Political Consequences of the New Inequality,” International Studies Quarterly 45 (3): 347–56. Nartov, Nikolai A. (1999) Geopolitika, Moskva: Iuniti. Ohmae, Kenichi (1991) The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy, New York: Harper-Perennial. Oren, Ido (2002) Our Enemy and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Panarin, Aleksandr (1999) Rossiya v tsiklah mirovoi istoriyi (Russia in the Cycles of World History), Moscow: MGU. —— (2002) Pravoslavnaya tsivilizatsiya v sovremennom mire (Orthodox Civilization in the Contemporary World), Moscow: Algoritm. Pantin, Vladimir I. and Vladimir V. Lapkin (2006) Filosofiya istoricheskogo prognozirovaniya: Ritmy i perspektivy mirovogo razvitiya v pervoi polovine XXI veka (The Philosophy of Historical Forcasting), Dubna: Feniks. Pastukhov, Viktor (2000) “Natsional’nyi i gosudarstvennyi interes Rossiyi (The National and State Interest of Russia),” Polis 1: 23–33. Pavlovski, G. (2004) “Rossiya vsye yeschye ischet svoyi rol’ v mire (Russians Still Search for their Place in the World),” Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 31: 6. Putin, Vladimir (2002) Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Address to Federation Council of the Russian Federation). Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’ 5: 3–11. —— (2005) “Poslaniye Prezidenta Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsiyi (Address to Federation Council of the Russian Federation), March”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). RFE/RL (2008a) “Putin Wants ‘Deeper Friendship’ with Islamic World,” March 14. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). —— (2008b) “Minister Hails Ties to Muslim World,” January 11. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Ros Business Consulting (2007) “Russians like Order and Justice. Ros Business Consulting, March 28”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed April 15 2009). Russkaya doktrina (2007) Russkaya doktrina (The Russian Doctrine), Moscow: Yauza. Sergeyev, Viktor (2001) “Ekonomicheskiye tsentry sily na poroge XXI veka (Economic Centers of Power in the Beginning of the 21st Century),” in Anatoly Torkunov (ed), Mir Rossiyi na poroge XXI veka, Moscow: ROSSPEN, pp. 224–31. Shakhnazarov, Georgi (2000) Otkroveniya i zabluzhdeniya teoriyi tsivilizatsi (Insights and Errors of Civilizational Theory), Moscow: Sovremennyi gumanitarnyi universitet. Shakleyina, Tatyana A., ed. (2002) Vneshnyaya politika i bezopasnost’ sovremennoi Rossiyi, 1991–2002 (Foreign and Security Policy of Contemporary Russia, 1991– 2002) (vol. 4), Moscow: ROSSPEN. —— (2003) Rossiya i SShA v novom mirovom poryadke (Russia and the USA in the New World Order), Moscow: Institute SSha i Kanady. Shakleyina, Tatyana and Aleksei Bogaturov (2004) “The Russian Realist School of International Relations,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 37 (1): 37–51.

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Shani, Giorgio (2008) “Towards a Post-Western IR: The Umma, Khalsa Panth and Critical International Theory,” International Studies Review 10 (4): 722–34. Sheinis, Viktor L. (2003) “Natsional’nyeye interesy i vneshnyaya politika Rossiyi (National Interests and Foreign Policy of Russia),” Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya 4: 33–46. Shevtsova, Lilia (2001) Vystupleniye (Presentation) in Rossiya i Zapad, Foundation “Liberal’naya missiya,” January 28. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). —— (2003) Putin’s Russia, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Shishkov, Yuri (2003) “Globalizatsiya – vrag ili soyuznik razvivayuschikhsya stran (Globalization – A Friend or Foe of the Developing Countries),” Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya 1: 3–14. Shlapentokh, Dmitri (2007) “Dugin Eurasianism: A Window on the Minds of the Russian Elite or an Intellectual Ploy?” Studies in East European Thought 59 (3): 215–36. Solovyev, Eduard G. (2008) “Russian Geopolitics in the Context of Globalization,” in Douglas W. Blum (ed), Russia and Globalization: Identity, Security and Society in an Era of Change, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press-Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, pp. 287–306. Solzenitsyn, Aleksandr (1974) Iz-pod glyb (From under the Rubbles), Paris: Imca-Press. Stallings, Barbara (ed) (1995) Global Change, Regional Response: The New International Context of Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stulberg, Adam N. (2007) Well-Oiled Diplomacy: Strategic Manipulation and Russia’s Energy Statecraft in Eurasia, New York: CUNY Press. Surkov, Vladislav (2006) “Suverenitet – eto politicheski sinonim konkurentnosposobnosti (Sovereignty is a Political Synonym of Competitiveness),” Moscow News, March 3. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Tickner, J. Ann (2001) Gendering World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press. Tolstykh, Valentin (2003) “Global’nyye vyzovy i poiski otveta (Global Challenges and Search for a Response),” in Mikhail Gorbachev (ed), Grani globalizatsiyi, Moskva: Al’pina, pp. 361–444. Torkunov, Anatoli (2006) “Rossiyskaya model’ demokratiyi i sovremennoye global’noye upravleniye (The Russian Model of Democracy and Contemporary Global Governance),” Mezhdunarodnyye Protsessy 4 (1), June 17. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Trenin, Dmitri (2001) The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization, Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center. —— (2006) Integratsiya i identichnost: Rossiya kak ‘novyi Zapad’ (Integration and Identity: Russia as a “New West”), Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center. Tretyakov, Vitali (2005) “Suverennaya demokratiya. O politicheskoi filosofiyi Vladimira Putina (Sovereign Democracy: on Putin’s Political Philosophy),” Rossiyskaya gazeta, April 28. Tsipko, Aleksandr (2006) “Obratno puti net (there is no way back),” Literaturnaya Gazeta, No. 19, May 1–3. Tsygankov, Andrei P. (2005) “The Return to Eurasia: Russia’s Identity and Geoeconomic Choices in the Post-Soviet World,” in Eric Helleiner and Andreas Pickel

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(eds), Economic Nationalism in a Globalizing World, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005, pp. 44–68. —— (2007) “Finding a Civilizational Idea: ‘West’, ‘Eurasia’ and ‘Euro-East’ in Russia’s Foreign Policy,” Geopolitics 12 (3): 375–99. —— (2008) “Self and Other in International Relations Theory: Learning from Russian Civilizational Debates,” International Studies Review 10 (4): 762–75. —— (2011) “Preserving Influence in a Changing World: Russia’s Grand Strategy,” Problems of Post-Communism 58 (1): 28–44. Tsygankov, Andrei P. and Pavel A. Tsygankov (2007) “Sociology of Dependence in International Relations Theory: A Case of Russian Liberal IR,” International Political Sociology 1 (4): 307–24. Tsygankov, Andrei P. and Pavel A. Tsygankov (2010) “National Ideology and IR Theory: Three Incarnations of the ‘Russian Idea’,” European Journal of International Relations 16 (4): 663–86. Utkin, Anatoli (2006) Novyi mirovoi poryadok (The New World Order), Moscow: Algoritm. Vekhi, Sbornik statei (1991 [1906]), (Landmarks: Essays) Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya. Volodin, Andrei (2006) “Neliberal’nyye demokratiyi i politicheskaya effektivnost” (Neoliberal Democracies and Political Effectiveness),” Mezhdunarodnyye Protsessy 4 (1), June 20. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Volodin, Andrei G. and Georgi K. Shirokov (2002) Globalizatsiya: nachala, tendentsiyi, perspektivy (Globalization: Nature, Trends, and Prospects), Moscow: Nauka. Voytolovski, Fedor (2007) “Ideologicheskaya refleksiya mirovoi politiki (Ideological Reflection of World Politics),” Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy 5 (3). Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Wæver, Ole (1998) “The Sociology of a Not so International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations,” International Organization 52 (4): 687–727. Yasin, Yevgeni (2001) Vystupleniye (Presentation), in Rossiya v poiskakh strategicheskoi pozitsiyi. Foundation “Liberal’naya missiya”, January 14. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 April 2009). Yasin, Yevgeni. (2004) Modernizatsiya ekonomiki i sistema tsennostei (Economic Modernization and the Values System), Moscow: Vysshaya shkoly ekonomiki. Zyuganov, Gennadi (1999) Geografiya pobedy (The Geography of Victory). Moscow: publisher unknown. —— (2002) Globalizatsiya i sud’ba chelovechestva (Globalization and the Future of Humanity), Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya.

11 Arab scholars’ take on globalization Wafaa Hasan and Bessma Momani

The Arab Middle East is often characterized as being at the crossroads of globalization. Indeed, its very name in the English language, the Middle East, references its perceived middle position between Europe and the Eastern world. This chapter seeks to explore the ways in which this region’s academics reflect on globalization, as well as those reflections’ relationships to the socio-political and economic conditions in which they write. Such conditions include university standards in the Middle East, market effects on academic funding, and censorship and political repression. While Arab intellectuals describe how globalization is changing their region, they also resist the idea that these forces, in themselves, “embod[y] intrinsic value or inherent threat” (Ashrawi 2001:1). Hence, scholarly analyses often allude to it as a “mixed blessing” (Amin 2007: 95). We find that scholars tend to discuss these processes as dialogically complex between “external” and “internal” actors. In this way, we argue that the surveyed works view globalization as a phenomenon that is both imposed on and authored by domestic power structures (i.e., Arab actors). Moreover, it is perceived to both benefit the masses (primarily through the information communication technology revolution) and impoverish them (politically and economically). In other words, globalization is not seen as simply an external threat or as inherently harmful. Rather, it is understood as a complex process that realizes itself in sometimes contradictory ways. This nuanced understanding can be juxtaposed with the way in which Western International Relations (IR) scholars often describe Middle Easterners as culturally rejectionist and inherently resistant to cosmopolitanism, democracy, secularism, modernity and progressive social relations (Kedourie 1992; Rubin 2002). To explain the lack of connectedness to the global economy, continued political autocracy and religious revivalism, a number of Western IR academics in the 1990s took their cues from modernization and behaviouralist theories to point to cultural factors particular to the region as determinants of “Middle East exceptionalism” (Kedourie 1992; Rubin 2002). Journalists and scholars alike framed their descriptions in binary terms of “the clash of civilizations,” “Jihad versus McWorld,” or “Lexus and the Olive Tree” (Barber 1996; Friedman 2000; Huntington

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1998) and Western pundits argued that the Middle East was cultural anathema to a Western and, implicit in their analysis, a “good” way of life (Satloff 2002). However, Arab academic discourse on globalization challenges this binary view and presents a different reading of how this is experienced and described locally. In this chapter, we argue that these scholars often approach globalization in a holistic and interdisciplinary way, frequently incorporating many elements of societal life into their assessments by speaking about spiritual, familial, economic, political and social transformations resulting from it. Moreover, the process of globalization is often explained through the discussion of contemporary political and social struggles, as well as with reference to a historical communal memory of colonialism. Globalization is either read into and through local struggles or it is altogether substituted, as a topic of discussion, by debates on local socio-political tensions and struggles. These dynamics, as demonstrated in this chapter, are representative of the nature and condition of scholarship in the Middle East. While we seek to analyze writings from scholars living and working in the Middle East, we are specifically looking at scholarship that is written in English and therefore circulated in the international community of scholars through academic search engines. International scholarly journals often emanate from the West and operate in English.1 The amount and variety of resources accessible to an international audience speak to the dynamics of knowledge production in a Western-based academic industry, but our method in collecting sources has provided us an ample sum of writings by Arab scholars. Of course, not all academics have the resources to publish internationally, so our analysis is unavoidably exclusionary and admittedly risks the homogenization of Arab views.2 This chapter attempts to understand the predominantly “holistic” approach employed by Arab academics when discussing globalization by contextualizing the conditions under which scholarship is written. We examine factors such as academic training, preferred research methodology and local universities’ institutional capacities in order to understand the sociology of knowledge production in the Middle East. Understanding, albeit only superficially, the how and why of knowledge about globalization also helps us to articulate the central role played by colonialism, foreign intervention, the struggle for statehood and nationalism in these scholars’ writings on this topic. The following section outlines some of the major socio-political and economic conditions that underlie scholarship in the Middle East. The context in which scholarly analyses take place is then related to the actual content of that scholarship, which is subsequently synthesized in the second half of the chapter. In general, it will be argued that regional views of globalization are complex, while the restrictive political climate, often emanating from the very processes associated with globalization, largely shapes the avenues available to intellectual meditation in this part of the world.

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Socio-political and economic conditions for scholarship Middle East academics describe the conditions for scholarship in terms of educational hierarchies linked to the prominence of Western institutions and the English language on the academic scene; the lack of funding for Arab universities; and the self, state-imposed and foreign enforced censorship that academics must endure according to Islamist, economic liberalization and Western agendas. They also reveal the role of historical memory (of colonialism and communal suffering) as a paramount consideration that molds the ways in which globalization is engaged with in academic circles. To understand the experiences of Middle East academics, it is important to first point out the major trends that characterize their training. In the 1990s, private undergraduate universities mushroomed across the region to accommodate the growing need and demand for undergraduate education. There remained, however, a dearth of internationally acclaimed graduate programs in the region. This often led accomplished undergraduate students to seek further education in the West, with a preference for American and British institutions (Habiby 1988: 14). Many of these academics travelled to the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom or other parts of Europe to pursue an M.A. or a Ph.D. Their subsequent careers have become international as they attend global conferences, lecture in universities all over the world and publish (albeit to a limited degree in comparison to foreign colleagues) in both local Arab and North American or European academic journals, newspapers, and so on.3 This academic and professional path led, and continues to lead, to a drain of young scholars who tend to look for better opportunities outside of the region. Due to recent pressures to increase the number of university instructors, there has been an upsurge of Arab universities granting Ph.D. degrees in the social sciences (Ibrahim 2000). Yet, the quality of these post-secondary granting institutions has remained poor. It is important to note that many Arab scholars themselves view their educational system as less rigorous than in the West, particularly in the granting of graduate degrees, and therefore often look to this part of the world for academic training and opportunities. Many Arab university departments are attempting to change this perception by creating their own academic journals and developing their libraries with local texts, although this process is still in its early stages and is greatly underfunded (UNDP 2002). These academics, then, have experienced the trends of globalization in their very academic training via a hierarchical structure rooted in the West and reliant on the ability of non-Westerners to travel for education. As the influential 2002 Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), notes, there are three deficits in the Middle East: a deficit of political freedom, gender equality and knowledge creation (UNDP 2002).4 In the latter case, the UNDP calls for “a powerful shake-up to improve quality

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[ … ] in the existing institutions of higher education” (UNDP 2002: 61). The report, written mainly by Middle Eastern academics living in the United States, attributes some of these problems to the lack of proper career incentives in Arab universities.5 Specifically, it highlights the need to increase salaries of university professors, increase research budgets and improve the training of career academics on the necessity of engaging in peer debates. Moreover, the UNDP also points out another recurring problem of corruption and failure to promote meritocracy, albeit prevalent in other labor markets of the Middle East: Competition must be established as an essential, ongoing condition in the filling of faculty posts; tenure should be confined to professors with exceptional performance; academic ranks higher than professor should be created; and the creation of scientific professional organizations for academics and researchers should be encouraged. The quality of higher education can be improved only by freeing the system from repetition, increasing its flexibility and making it more adaptable to the needs of development. (UNDP 2002: 61) It should be noted that the UNDP report attributes the weaknesses of Arab universities to the use of a neoliberal understanding of “development,” even as it itself employs a narrowly neoliberal framework as a remedy for the challenges faced by regional academics. Nonetheless, it also points to much needed improvements and funding of Arab universities. Indeed, many academics, particularly in Egypt, often work in universities because teaching is their passion and academic activity is held in high societal esteem. However, these scholars must often take on second jobs, for example in the government or in private research institutions, in order to make a sufficient income. University salaries, even in the case of foreign-educated academics, are simply not enough to live on. This has undoubtedly affected the possibilities for rigorous knowledge production in the Middle East. In addition to academic training and the state of institutional development, it is important to point out some trends in Arab scholars’ methodological approaches in the social sciences. Research in the region is heavily descriptive and qualitative, and is not complemented with work that is inductive and quantitative. Few Arab social scientists engage in empirical fieldwork, leading to an abundance of “endless theoretical debates without empirical findings” (Ibrahim 2000: 130). While on its own, empirical research per se does not guarantee rigorous scholarship, its use in both qualitative and quantitative inquiry can be helpful. Nevertheless, the lack of internal funding can hamper the ability of scholars to undertake field research. More importantly, perhaps, is that Arab academics point to the lack of real pressure on them to engage in international debates through

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publications and conferences. As Saad Eddin Ibrahim has noted, even when the administrative pressure for academics to publish is present, there are few quality controls in place. This is associated with the generalized lack of an aggressive, objective, peer-review process in academia. In the anecdotal survey of Arab universities conducted for this chapter, we were hard pressed to find regional academics who published in peer-reviewed journals within their respective professions. Additionally, there are few local journals and other research outlets in which scholars can publish their work, as well as an overall absence of institutional funding and support for scholarly research programs geared towards the publication of investigative findings (Tschirigi 2006: 3). In the social sciences, research on economics has been the most robust. While many of these studies focus on issues of a technical nature, such as intra-regional trade, labor markets and foreign direct investment, there have nonetheless been “passionate debates” about the impact of globalization (Ibrahim 2000). A number of conferences have taken place in the region, often supported or funded by regional research institutes that receive generous funding from external actors such as the World Bank and the Ford Foundation (Ibrahim 2000). Despite this, as Tschirigi notes, the presence of foreign donors has also marginalized Arab universities’ capacity to develop social science research and programs by steering research away from academic institutions and into non-governmental organizations and the private sector (2006: 2). Therefore, Middle Eastern academics writing about globalization are deeply and immediately affected by this topic in their professional lives too. Conditions for scholarship in the Middle East are also influenced by general changes in the region’s political and economic landscape. Like many parts of the world, globalization was experienced first and foremost in the market. Following decades of declining oil rents and rising commodity prices, by the 1990s many countries faced bloated state expenditures and declining incomes. Middle East governments came to the realization that they needed external support from foreign states, international financial institutions and foreign direct investment. A number of countries sought the financial support of the IMF and World Bank, as well as the international donor community, for a way out of their economic crises. Specifically, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Algeria adopted IMF/World Bank structural adjustment policies in the late 1980s and 1990s. Religious revivalism throughout the 1990s in the Middle East was a societal response to dual pressures: the decline of state services and patronage that ended with structural adjustment, and the continued decline of state legitimacy, accentuated by increased political autocracy and corruption. These dual pressures resulted in a resurgence of Islamic political movements in the region. Islamists’ slogans included “Islam is the solution” (in Arabic, Islam huwa al-hal), highlighting the belief that Islamic movements were the way out of political corruption, government and the elite’s

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Western indulgences, alliances with Western military forces, the failures of meritocracy and overall social injustices. Throughout the region, the real or perceived threat of rising Islamism is one that cannot be ignored. However, support for Islamist causes has become an issue that many academics, particularly those deemed to be of religious leanings, have had to avoid as a question of survival. Oftentimes, relationships between Arab states and Western anti-Islamist leaders have meant that the former repress the entrenchment of Islamist movements in the Middle East. Conversely, critiques of Islam in academia or popular culture are perceived to be equally provocative, and are normally repressed by Islamist movements. Moreover, criticism of highly sensitive political issues, such as peace treaties with Israel (as in the case of those negotiated by the governments of Jordan and Egypt) can lead to formal or informal censure by dominant institutions. Consequently, academics such as political scientists often teach ideas that do not incite criticism against their governments, or else risk political repression in extreme cases, such as Syria (Habiby 1988: 10), and political isolation in other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Accordingly, for the most part debates on globalization focus on technical or economic problems, or involve grand historical and loose theoretical debates that speak to broader issues. Discussions about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are also shaped in abstract terms and linked to more general themes of globalization. Although there are some writings on globalization in the region, there is real censorship in most Middle East academic institutions on topics that are deemed to be a threat to national security. For example, writing in 2001, Khalaf observed that little of “the critical thought of native Egyptian scholars—some of whom [had] misgivings about the [Mubarak] regime,” found its way into print (Khalaf 2001: 77).6 Censorship varies in method and degree from state to state. However, it should be noted that censorship pressures derive not only from the dominant institutions or governments, but also from fellow citizens entrenched in conservative religious establishments. Hence, self-censorship is also a key issue of concern and one that cannot be measured. Arab scholars often face considerable danger, as is the case with Nawal al Saadawi, a feminist-socialist academic from Egypt, who has been fighting cases filed against her by conservative lawyers for her controversial ideas on religion and government (http://www.nawalsaadawi. net). Her opponents argue that her citizenship be lifted and that her marriage be annulled for writing blasphemous ideas. Such restrictions on the scope and nature of free inquiry hinder the viability of an open community of intellectuals, free from overt political pressure and influence. Simultaneously a critique of Western economic influence in the region can often be perceived by Western actors living and operating in the Middle East as “radical” and thus “suspect,” and offer their own sets of risk when they elicit labels such “anti-American” or “anti-Western.” Such critiques are often read by Western academics into a binary analysis of freedom/ democracy/civilization against “hateful” anti-Western positions. Thus, the

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Arab is often not portrayed as a critic of his/her own internal establishments and existing sources of Western influence in the region, but solely the latter. The impoverishment of the university system, the economic vulnerability of Arab countries due to debt inequities on the global market (and by proxy, the economic vulnerability of the Arab masses), the rise of religious fundamentalism and the existence of censorship (self-censorship, state-imposed censorship and foreign-enforced censorship) have contributed to a general weakening of the status of both Arab universities and its academics. The scholarship that does exist often makes use of a multi-factorial approach to globalization, weaving various elements of social reality into its contextualization, and elucidating upon its complexity as a process. Historical memory and communal experiences with colonialism, which will be elaborated upon in a subsequent section of the chapter, constitute another of the key backdrops against which globalization has come to be understood, both in academia and by distinct sectors of Arab society. In consequence, culture, economics, politics, language, religion and both local and global levels of analysis are all put to use and often intertwined when scholars write about globalization. As elaborated later, we hypothesize that such a holistic approach to globalization is a direct result of the close links that academics have with their communities, which revolve largely around issues such as the construction of collective historical memory. Indeed, academics in the Middle East are not accorded the kind of apolitical objective status that one might envision in the West (although this myth is hardly fulfilled there either). On the contrary, there is an explicit and strong expectation that they engage in civil society or government work and that their research activities provide direct and “functional” contributions to socio-political and economic movements in the Middle East. As such, they also inevitably take on various social and community identities writing about globalization.

Complex approaches to globalization Arab scholars describe globalization as a complex combination of authoritarianism, capitalism and colonialism that coexists with a progressive revolution in information communication technology. As such, it corresponds to processes that are neither wholly external nor internal to the region. The binaries that Western writings often attribute to Middle Eastern thinking about globalization—in terms of it being wholly “bad” or “good”—are barely visible either, pointing to the extreme simplification involved in such readings. Finally, assessments concerning the “deficit of political freedom, gender equality, and knowledge creation” (UNDP 2002) are not developed in juxtaposition to the West, which already largely operates under such socio-political achievements. Rather, they are identified in tandem with the human rights crimes of the “West” and within the complex collaborative relations that exist between Arab and Western leaders.

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Nevertheless, it is also important to note that when Arab scholars talk about the perils of globalization (such as increasing poverty in the Middle East) they often exude a particularized sympathy with the leaders of Arab states and lament the restricted options under which they operate, given the desires of more influential superpowers. In the discussion that follows we discuss these academics’ complex approaches to globalization, as illustrated mainly through their articulations of the internal and external dynamics associated with it; the cultural transformations that it produces, described as both threatening and positive; and the ICT revolution, considered to be democratizing but also restricted to those with access to its technologies and by those who censor its contents. Between external and internal economic and political threats When local academics adopt positions that are critical towards globalization, they often argue that ordinary Arabs are alienated and caught between “formidable external and internal threats” (Barakat 1993: 274). Bahgat Korany, Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, and Halim Barakat, among others, have emphasized the position of the Arab masses between these two sites of polar forces, also discussing the dynamic relation that exists between Arab governments and global or Western powers. Western domination is characterized by consumerism (Nasser 1999: 2), capitalism (and the widening gaps between rich and poor), and a general subjugation of the Arab region to the West (Barakat 1993: 277). One author specifically describes globalization as the creation of a consumer middle class for “useless” products such as soft drinks (Amin 2007: 100). Politically, a number of regional academics discuss the Middle East as America’s target (Zughoul 2003: 133) and the site of historical incursions by the West for geostrategic reasons. These incursions were driven mainly by the need for oil and other resources (Korany and Dessouki 1991: 417). Following Zughoul and Nasser, several regional academics critique Arab governments’ records on fundamental human rights, including “freedom of conscience, expression, association and assembly” (Barakat 1993: 271) when speaking about globalization. They also critique the ways in which these governments practice neo-patrimonial governance (Korany and Dessouki 1991: 414) appropriate religious discourse as a mode of control and deprive their citizens of basic freedoms (Barakat 1993: 274, 277). In the extreme, the Arab state is depicted as an intrinsically repressive force (Barakat 1993: 276). More significantly, Western domination and state repression are often seen as having a mutually constitutive relationship. In this sense, while both Arab scholars and reductionist Western ones both point to the lack of democracy in the Middle East as a key problem, the two groups trace the sources of this absence in different ways. Namely, for the latter the entrenchment of anti-democratic regimes is largely attributable to the region’s own political culture, while the former places much greater

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emphasis on the role played by external factors, many of which are related to globalization. For example, external forces are seen to have strengthened patriarchal and authoritarian relationships that underlie this political autocracy (Barakat 1993: 275). Samir Amin argues that along with repressive governments and fundamentalists, globalization is blocking reform in the Middle East and preventing change or “revolution,” and that the West is “grateful” for this status quo (1989: 134). Moreover, while Arab regimes are threatened by contemporary upheavals that might marginalize their international power, they are at the same time perceived to have local legitimacy because they claim to face “external threats, concretely represented by Zionism and Western hegemony” (Barakat 1993: 276). The Middle East is described by English-writing Arab intellectuals as an active example of globalization, in which “differences between local, national, regional, and international politics become blurred” (Korany and Dessouki 1991: 417). While Arab masses are depicted as victims of powerful regimes, individuals, and Westerners, scholars importantly point out that these two poles of influence contain their own disparate power discrepancies. As a result, at times Arab governments are referred to with a certain degree of sympathy. In this regard, indigenous authoritarianism is portrayed as the result of the “struggle for independence” (Barakat 1993: 277), with which the pathologies of “internal” corruption are implicitly or explicitly linked, both directly and indirectly, to external pressures. Korany and Dessouki, for example, argue that Egypt’s foreign debt and its dependence on the United States inevitably force it to be less connected to the needs of ordinary people, and that it simply does its best to survive (1991: 421). Thus, even the most vocal critics of Middle East governments argue that Arab unity and responsiveness to the needs of their people is undermined because state survival has become the most immediate foreign and domestic policy objective (Korany and Dessouki 1991: 421). How this discourse will evolve in democratic regimes born after the “Arab Spring” of 2011 remains to be seen. Cultural globalization Arab writers who approach globalization from a cultural perspective constitute a second group of scholars. As in the case of existing scholarship on the economic and political facets of this process, there is a considerable amount of disagreement as to the effects of globalization in the realm of culture. While some portray it negatively as a cultural invasion, others, such as Sami Baroudi, are critical of nostalgic desires to preserve local traditional identities. Georges Tarabichi, an Arab philosopher, explains the first view: Globalization’s culture is definable as worldly—I do not say secular— while Arab culture is still scheduled to the religious calendar and inhabited by an apocalyptic preoccupation. Globalization’s culture,

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coming from a society characterized by abundance, has a hedonistic tendency based on maximizing the current moment or the limit of uninhibited consumerism. Whereas Arab culture, as a culture of a society characterized by scarcity, is still governed by the logic of contentment, abstention, material saving for bad times and spiritual saving for the afterlife. (2000: 60–1, emphasis ours) Tarabichi continues by juxtaposing the culture of globalization, which is based on “the presence of the body and does not hesitate to reveal and expose it, especially the female body,” to the culture of the Arab peoples which is based on “treating the body with shame and covering it, especially, also, the female body” (2000: 61). Similar to Tarabichi, Zughoul, Galal Amin, Hanan Ashrawi, Fauzi Najjar and Nasser all allude to the fear of cultural obliteration or the “denial of uniqueness” (Ashrawi 2001:4) and the cultural Americanization of the Middle East that transpires through the prevalence of international communications networks (Nasser 1999: 1). The globalization of culture, in many ways, is felt in the Middle East through the increased use and valorization of the English language. Zughoul speaks of the “melting global pot” and hearkens to a notion of Western domination when he refers to English as “a killer language” that “threatens the [Arabic] mother-tongue” (2003: 129, 132). For this author, the spread of the English language is detrimental to the psychological, cultural, and political underpinnings of the Middle East, and yet what these determents actually consist of is unclear and no detailed examples are provided (Zughoul 2003: 112–33). The global English-speaking culture of consumerism is sometimes associated with fear and negativity by association with “bad memories of unfair imperialistic experiences imposed upon Arabs and Muslims by the capitalist West” (Habib 2003). In addition to language, traditions are also viewed as under threat by globalization. For example, the loss or decline of Islamic practices such as Zakat (giving alms) is narrated as a form of Western domination in globalization (Amin 2007: 97).7 Galal Amin warns that the threat of cultural change in the Middle East is much more serious than that of economic globalization, and he describes the intruding culture as a consolidation of middle class consumers who purchase ideas or identities through “useless” commodities (Amin 2007: 100). Similarly, Najjar describes globalization as consumerism and worldliness, both ideas that are imported from the West. For some then, globalization is viewed as irreconcilable with Arab “moral and cultural values” (Nasser 1999: 1). Najjar argues, more generally, that it is a disruptive force that threatens regional cultures, and points to pan-Arabism as a possible remedy (1999: 2, 3). For this group of writers, globalization threatens to dominate Middle Easterners by undermining their distinctive “cultural personality” and destroying their heritage, beliefs and national identity (Najjar 2005: 91; Baroudi 2008: 111). This strain

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of scholarship is thus devoted to revealing the ways in which the culture of globalization and indigenous cultures are qualitatively different and at times even at direct odds with one another. The very same academics, with the exception of Zughoul and Najjar, simultaneously highlight a number of beneficial aspects of cultural globalization. In particular, they argue that it can create opportunities that must be seized, emphasizing the room for local agency in shaping the way globalization can affect their culture. Galal Amin, for example, asserts that cross cultural impacts are not inherently positive or negative and that their concrete effects depend on the “nature of the invading and invaded cultures” (2007: 97). The author goes further to argue that greater cultural diversity in the Middle East is beneficial (2007: 95). Similarly, Nasser claims that globalization allows peripheral, or indigenous, cultures to influence the dominant cultural norm: “Not only is the centrifugal flow of culture outwards from the core countries to those countries in the periphery, but there is also a centripetal flow of culture” (1999: 2). In other words, Arab culture can be influenced by globalization, but it can also exert influence upon cultural globalization. For Nasser, this cultural exchange can reaffirm and even strengthen local culture (1999: 2), for example, by bridging gaps with Arab diasporas around the world. This sentiment is further noted by Samir Khalaf, who writes extensively about “adaptive modernization” and argues for a dialogue between globalization and local cultures. In postwar Lebanon, Khalaf explains, “global expectations are being reshaped and rearranged to accommodate local needs and preferences” (2001: 25). For these academics, then, cultural trends brought about by globalization do not inherently bring an end to local cultures. Moreover, such dynamics can exert a diverse impact that varies tremendously, depending upon different factors such as social class and levels of education (Nasser 1999: 2). Following this line of thinking, Nasser and others argue that globalization is not a linear process with predictable outcomes: “it cannot be assumed that the course of change will parallel that which has occurred in Western culture” (Nasser 1999: 2). In this sense, the concept of “glocalization” (Khalaf 2001)—which suggests that a conversation between the global and the local is under way— becomes a relevant means of exploring impacts on local culture.

The ICT revolution As one of the more optimistically perceived aspects of globalization, regional academics have also examined the impact of the information communications technology (ICT) revolution on the Middle East. Prominent academic and Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi, author of Humanizing Globalization, refers to the communication revolution as a promoter of “global democratization” (2001: 2). Similarly, Tarabichi argues that the ICT revolution challenges domestic state censorship by offering an alternative medium for news, social networking, information and ideas

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(2000: 17). In a region marked with little political participation and few outlets for political discourse, it is understandable that regional academics are keen promoters of increased access to ICT. In many ways, the ICT revolution is seen as a significant part of globalization’s deliverables in the region. Indeed the use of Facebook and the Internet in mobilizing youth and protestors in uprising throughout the Arab world in 2011 is indicative of the force of ICT to change political dynamics in the region. For academics such as Ashrawi, there is substance in its purported dissemination of universal human rights and the empowering effects of communication technologies on the Middle East (Ashrawi 2001: 3), the “Arab Spring” of 2011 being no small example. In some ways, the technological revolution is viewed as a “leveling force of tremendous magnitude” and “a source of empowerment” (2001: 2). For Ashrawi and others, this new technology is a form of political empowerment that can foster democratization and new forms of citizenship. Not only is the ICT revolution perceived as an educational resource, it is also viewed as a megaphone for the Arab citizen who lacks a voice in public policy decision-making. Different authors talk of the ICT revolution as a tool for both critiquing domestic and global structures and for the empowerment of the masses. The fact that many Middle Eastern citizens do not have access to ICT— arguably one of the more positive by-products of globalization—is further complicated by the economic dislocation of vulnerable groups that are negatively affected by globalization. Moreover, and notwithstanding the political upheavals of 2011, Arab scholars remain skeptical of the extent to which authoritarian state power in the region can be challenged using ICT, as well as airing concern with the continued use of censorship or self-censorship in cyberspace. In other words, the ICT revolution, albeit welcomed, is by no means viewed as a panacea to political autocracy. Throughout the political uprisings in Libya, Bahrain, Oman, and Syria, for example, the use of ICT to mobilize the protestors was also used by repressive regimes to identify individuals associated with the rebellions. Nasser sees the ICT revolution as a product of globalization that works to both Americanize the Middle East and yet strengthen the international Arab community by keeping diaspora groups in constant cultural contact with their homeland (Nasser 1999). Specifically, Arab satellite programming has flourished throughout the region and beyond, helping to spur a new form of pan-Arabism among transnational communities (Zayani 2007). Consequently, Arab peoples today have a better appreciation and understanding of their neighbors than ever before. Undoubtedly, this common understanding has political consequences for state legitimacy where artificially constructed borders—a byproduct of colonialist designs rather than autonomous nation-state building—is challenging state governance. The ICT revolution can be a democratizing force, but regional academics offer a more nuanced assessment of its benefits by pointing to the challenge of access to ICT from less privileged socioeconomic groups.

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Economic liberalization and poverty As the discussion of ICT reveals, a significant number of Arab scholars have expressed concern with the record of low economic growth in the Middle East, especially when compared with comparable emerging market economies in other parts of the developing world. Several economists have pointed to the disappointing record of economic growth as a symptom of the remnants of the statist system in the Middle East (Al-Atrash and Yousef 2000). These economists specifically identify bureaucratic impediments and corruption as hindrances to growth and an impediment to realizing the benefits of globalization in the region. Indeed many of the political uprisings in the Middle East, throughout 2011, were attributed to the perceived lack of economic equity and rampant government corruption. A number of authors have idealized regionalization or economic integration among Middle Eastern states as a path toward more effective integration into the global system. Taking cues from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, Arab economists have generally supported the idea that intra-regional trade could bolster economic growth in the region and better integrate it into the global economy (see Al-Atrash and Yousef 2000; Laabas 2002; Osman and Montasser 2003). Nasser Saidi calls the potential of intra-regional economic integration an “Arab awakening” and a renaissance that is needed to pull the Middle East out of its economic and political stagnation (2006: 1). Here, intra-regional trade is often viewed both as a stepping stone toward globalization and a fulfillment of Arab nationalism. While multiple academics criticize the increased hardship imposed on the masses, particularly as a result of economic liberalization and globalization, many are also mindful of the structural constraints placed on their governments. They point out that their countries occupy a low place in the global pecking order of states. Nasser, for example, argues against “the material means of a global order consisting of leading nations and dependent ones” (1999: 2). Consequently, it is conceded that at times Arab governments may have to vacillate on issues important to its citizens and to social justice, simply to keep their economies afloat. As Belkacem Laabas notes, “the debate in Arab circles is no longer about Arab participation in a globalized world, but about how to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of integration into the new world economy” (2002: 1). The prescription for such problems offered by several authors is to continue down the path of economic liberalization. These economists, many of whom work in think tanks that are closely aligned to international financial institutions and foreign donors (particularly the European Union) generally speak favorably about economic globalization. So they argue that Arab countries’ failure to capitalize on the gains of globalization rests with governments themselves. Consequently, Arab economists and political economists have tended to argue that economic liberalization and integration in the global economy are inevitable if the Middle East is to prosper economically.

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These voices, however, tend to be connected to foreign interests that are also in favor of increased economic liberalization in the region. Nevertheless, there are other strong independent Arab voices that do not agree with furthering economic liberalization and globalization more generally. In contrast to the economists identified above, Korany, Dessouki, and Ashrawi have argued that economic globalization creates “negative dependency” in the international political and economic system. They also mention privatization, economic liberalization and consumer capitalism as further elements of Western domination (Ashrawi 2001: 3; Korany and Dessouki 1991: 416). Moreover, they have argued that economic liberalization hinders international solidarity on social justice issues in the Middle East. As such, these academics talk about economic globalization as producing “negative dependence rather than mutuality and interdependence” (Ashrawi 2001: 2). With a lens more attuned to the on-the-ground experiences of economic policies, they reflect on the pervasive conversation the Arab masses are having on the impossible and rising costs of everyday life. The new economic reality of the Middle East is one in which economic liberalization has ushered in privatization of once publicly subsidized resources and increased taxes on consumption goods, policies that have hardened economic life for average citizens. Critics of economic globalization have pointed to the complicity of the Arab elite in the global governance structure that undermines the interests of common people. Indeed, in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, the governments boasted rapid economic growth figures throughout the latter half of the 2000s. Yet, the Tunisian and Egyptian people blamed local elites for failing to distribute the countries’ wealth to the masses and instead lining the pockets of the leadership and their inner circle. Critical academics hence identify the emergence of a global elite as one important characteristic of the contemporary era of globalization, and argue that “the power and wealth of this elite is gained through the impoverishment of the developing world” (Ashrawi 2001: 2; Barakat 1993: 275). While there is a sense that the entire Middle East is in dire straits, the Arab elite have been spared economic dislocation. Instead, it is small producers who are unable to compete on the global market that have suffered most (Sweis 2002: 301). The toll of privatization on public resources, a key policy requirement of the 1990s era of structural adjustment policies in the region, has further stripped the Arab people of public income, but kept elite status and power intact (Amin 2007: 97). In an article devoted to describing globalization, Galal Amin argues that economic openness over the past 200 years is unlikely to have had a positive impact on income distribution in the Middle East. The gains of economic liberalization, he argues, have been experienced by a small segment of society (92). Globalization, Ashrawi echoes, means an “ever increasing gap between the new ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’” (Ashrawi 2001: 2). In discussing globalization, many Arab scholars are clearly consumed with the problem of poverty in the Middle East. The growing gap between

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rich and poor is a theme in their writings from all disciplines and is seen as an urgent matter. While prescriptive solutions to poverty may vary greatly, the sense of urgency is pervasive (Ashrawi 2001: 1; Nasser 1999: 1). In the early 1990s, Korany and Dessouki alerted their readers to the idea that the Middle East is “going to suffer, in an acute way, the brunt of world change” (Korany and Dessouki 1991: 417). In retrospect, many Middle East academics look negatively upon the 1990s era of structural adjustment imposed by international financial institutions, in particular due to its negative political and social effects in the region. Amin, for example, argues that the economic experience of “the last three decades in the Middle East tends to support a skeptical [ … ] view of the impact of globalization on growth, and especially of its impact on poverty alleviation” (2007: 94).8 Hence, these academics remain ambivalent about the neoliberal proposition that globalization ushers in democracy. They also point out that governments undergoing economic liberalization have often abandoned their responsibilities to less privileged groups of society (Amin, 2007: 96). Thus, while Arab governments and foreign actors promote a discourse that promises a higher standard of living, economic growth and prosperity for all, regional writing is not as optimistic about economic liberalization’s promise for the common Middle East citizen.

The role of historical memory The history of colonialism is ubiquitously emphasized in scholarly texts on globalization. For example, Galal Amin recognizes “indigenous causes of inequality of income, wealth and power,” but he also emphasizes power inequalities between Europe and the Middle East, attributing these to a 200-year-long process of globalization involving colonialism (2007: 89). Historical encounters with Western hegemons, especially Europe and the United States, inform Arab writings on globalization and constitute a centerpiece of their analysis of today’s realities (Barakat 1993: 271). A number of Arab academics living outside of the West Bank and Gaza reflect on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through the lenses of Western colonialism when theorizing. Sami Baroudi, a Lebanese sociologist, argues that colleagues who are generally sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians living under occupation are then understandably suspicious and disillusioned with the so-called successes of globalization. Indeed, there is a generation of Arab academics who see Israel and the United States as a force against regional unity, economic development, social advancement and democracy (Baroudi 2008: 120). Therefore, constant reference to contemporary sociopolitical struggles, such as the occupation of Palestine, constitute a frequent feature of writings on globalization. Many Middle East academics agree that, until major military conflicts are resolved, the discourse of globalization, in particular, the neoliberal argument that it will bring about widespread democratization, will not bear fruit. Hanan Ashrawi (2001) goes

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further to argue that a global culture of democracy is threatened by current conflicts and the threat of war in the region. According to this author, the problem inherent in the Palestinian–Israeli peace process has much to do with the asymmetry of power among the parties involved, the bias of the mediator, the informal nature of the process and attempts to detach it from international law, and the failure of the sponsor to address the historical causes of the conflict (2001: 6). Thus, for Ashrawi, this more than 60-year-old Middle East conflict is not only a psychological barrier, discouraging Arabs from trusting the democratic aspect of globalization, but it is also seen as a symptom of its processes. Again, regional conflict here is not simply viewed as a project for globalization and its democratic processes. Rather, it is considered a symptom of globalization and specifically, external political involvement and interests in the Middle East (Baroudi 2008: 109). Many Arab authors implore their Western colleagues to acknowledge the “real impact of Arab historical memory” of military invasions and colonial occupation in order to understand why many Western cultural influences are viewed with suspicion (Perthes and Khoury 2005). For example, Amin argues that A long history of a great variety of colonial experiences and foreign domination, from outright military occupation to manipulation through foreign aid, the Arabs should be immune from believing the current rhetoric of “war on terror”, “bringing democracy to the Arab World”, “bringing more freedoms to women”, and so on. Many Arabs rightly suspect that behind all these modern slogans lie such goals as having greater control of the oil wealth of the Arab World. (Amin 2007: 100) The impoverishment of the Arab people by processes of globalization is not seen as an isolated phenomenon, limited to the current dynamics of the market. Instead, academics continuously hearken back to a long colonial history of resource pillaging by Europe that is not separated from contemporary dynamics. In addition to fusing the theme of colonialism into Arab scholars’ understanding of globalization, another prevalent trend consists of adopting nationalist views in writings that address this topic. The connection, according to Baroudi, is a personal one for the region’s academics: The personal frustrations and disappointments of Arab intellectuals with various aspects of US Middle East policy (e.g. the US military interventions in Lebanon in 1958 and 1982, and the US unfailing record of support for Israel since 1956) have left powerful imprints on their writings. (2008: 121)

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Similarly, one could add that the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 further aggravated regional academic views on the subject. Globalization is therefore often reflected upon as part of the historical struggle against Western imperialism, and political and economic impositions and intrusions by foreign powers through to the twenty-first century. Regional intellectuals are thus burdened by a perpetual “transition and uncertainty,” in the sense that they are expected to be both “socially useful” and to perform “civic obligations” (Khalaf 2001: 83, 82). They are expected to “fuse the compatible elements of traditional and modern culture” and to “reconcile their role as detached scholars or disinterested observers with their eagerness to participate in the social and political struggles of their society” (2001: 83). As a result, Khalaf observes, intellectuals enjoy “little status and practically no freedom to exercise any real independence of mind and creativity”. Consequently, these scholars struggle to balance their Arab nationalist sentiments and their creative and critical aspirations. It has been argued that the generalized tendency to discuss a wide range of topics outside of different academics’ respective disciplines is a result of these dynamics, the constantly changing realities of socio-political life in the Middle East, and societal pressure to both engage in socio-political struggles and to perform critical inquiries. This pressure is not dissimilar from pressures on some academics in North America or Europe, but it is intensified in the Middle East as intellectual work is pressured to, in an idealized form, serve the immediate needs of urgent socio-political and economic struggles.

Complex approaches The complex ways in which Arab scholars narrate the workings of globalization mirror their experiences and the experiences of the masses, in that both are caught between local and global poles of power. In many ways, academia is deeply affected by these tensions. On the one hand, information has become more accessible through globalization. Academics engage in numerous dialogues with diverse actors across the globe, which have contributed to the sharing of knowledge and the creation of solidarities. On the other hand, domestic funding for Arab universities is dramatically declining, as a result of which scholars have become heavily reliant on external funding. Moreover, academics must navigate the difficult waters of Middle East government censorship and self-censorship. This complex approach to living the pressures of globalization is reflected in the everyday lives and knowledge production of Arab academics. As the Middle East continues to experience political and economic difficulties, the region’s bureaucratic elite and political intelligentsia monopolizes the political and policy discourse above the scholarly community (Khalaf 2001: 75). As academics refrain from concrete critical research, they often take a grand bird’s-eye-view approach to globalization. Missing from this

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narrowing of the research plane is a community of academics who prioritize a “commitment to the world of ideas and creative thought” over traditional loyalties and community or factional/sectarian attachments (Khalaf 2001: 73–5). While such a community of intellectuals existed in the Middle East prior to the era of the modern state system, today creative scholars enjoy little prestige or security. While academics are not entirely marginalized, those who refuse to be “reconciled to native culture or to cooperate with legitimate institutions in society,” or are “unattached” and “free” appear to have resigned to an apathetic, defeatist mentality (Khalaf 2001: 80, 76). The writings synthesized in this paper are both exceptions to this rule and manifestations of some of the restrictions on academia in the Middle East. Many of these writers have “second” jobs or write freelance because their work is not fully supported by any academic institution. Moreover, the writings exhibit the highly “attached” nature of scholarly work on globalization (at least that which can be accessed in international academic forums and thus written in English) as they seem to focus on the very complicated relationship between communal commitments and academic meditation, for better or for worse. Without a more stable political landscape in the Middle East and therefore the easing of room for the creative exchange of ideas, scholarship may continue to seem as though it were in a constantly reactive, functional (for state policy purposes) or passive position. As such, Arab scholarship retains its preoccupation with critiquing Middle East authoritarianism or Western neo-imperialism (to varying degrees) and is unable to articulate itself outside of, or completely counter, either of these axes of hegemonic poles.

Conclusion This chapter has offered a brief review of regional writings on globalization in an effort to correct Eurocentric social science musings on the Middle East as diametrically opposed to globalization. As we have seen, the complexity with which these analyze globalization debunks Western binary analyses of Arabs as either pro-democratization via globalization or radical rejectionist Islamists. Although most International Relations (IR) scholars reside in the United States, they often view their discipline as “a ‘global’ social science” even if the analysis of the international system is equated with the study of U.S. foreign policy (Boroujerdi 2004: 30). Scholars critical of Eurocentric social science have pushed for an “indigenization movement” that challenges “axiomatic principles of Western philosophy” disguised as “universal” values (Boroujerdi 2004: 30). Hence, the opening of the IR discipline to include literature, theory and principles that are locally grounded when studying the Middle East is imperative in challenging Orientalist research, informing effective policies in and toward the Middle East and in hindering the (non-neutral) Eurocentric voice from exacting its power privilege in the field of IR.

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To this end, this chapter commenced by outlining Arab scholars’ general acceptance of the inevitability of globalization while also highlighting the ways in which it is not perceived to be a wholly exogenous or endogenous process. Distinct authors conclude that without the radical democratization (sometimes in neoliberal and sometimes in anti-neoliberal forms) of Middle Eastern governments, the privileges of globalization cannot be accessed by Middle East citizens. Conversely, without access to global or international instruments that are locally-friendly (e.g., linguistically, economically and politically amenable) and pluralistic in nature, democratization efforts will be weakened. With this multifaceted (and arguably transnational) analysis in mind, Western IR assumptions that globalization in the Middle East will lead to a rise in the standard of living for everyone (variously, and sometimes misguidedly, described as political liberalization, socio-economic prosperity and democratization) requires radical rethinking. The average Arab continues to be impoverished politically, economically and socially, as multiple wealthy actors compete for survival and strength. Such is the focus of the Arab scholar whose efforts and knowledge are often channeled towards the social and political struggles of his/her society. Concentration on these struggles is understandable because the Arab masses are deeply affected by them. At the same time, academics are not offered a safe haven of status and monetary rewards for residing outside of the sociopolitical environment that surrounds them. Moreover, the power relations reflected in higher education, inherent in contemporary globalization, as well as the lack of status and social cohesion of academic circles in the Middle East, marginalize creative intellectual development. All the while, contemporary globalization creates a dire need for critical and creative intellectual work. The long-standing attempt, in Egypt for example, to separate material modernization (i.e., technology) from questions of ideology and culture (Amin 1989: 129) is no longer possible. Intellectual freedom from censorship and from bureaucratic structures (Khalaf 2001: 84) will help to create an environment of a freer exchange of ideas, as well as “a critique of customs, a re-writing of laws, and a critique of political forms” (Amin 1989: 129). However this freedom will not materialize if the Middle East continues to be bound up in contemporary social, political, and economic crises (such as war and poverty) emanating from the mutual but tense cooperation of powerful Arab actors and foreign powers.

Notes 1 There are many definitions and geographical delineations of the Middle East. In this chapter, we include only Arab countries of the Middle East and therefore exclude Iran, Turkey and Israel, because the latter three are culturally and ethnically distinct from the Arab Middle East. We outline views coming out from Arab academics in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. While we have not looked extensively and comprehensively at the literature coming from Iraq, the West Bank or Gaza (because of their different socio-political situation distinct from the

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rest of the Arab world) we have included the prominent Palestinian Arab voice of Hanan Ashrawi, who is a transnational figure in the Arab World. We also exclude former French colonies of North Africa, such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which also have distinct cultural characteristics as the Arab Maghreb. Finally, we exclude Arab Gulf academic perspectives from our analysis; as oilexporters with sultanic regimes, they have a distinct relationship with the global economy. Unless noted otherwise, our analysis is limited to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. This study would benefit from a subsequent study of globalization as it is written and described by Arab scholars writing locally and in Arabic. Compiling a list of authors in an effort to reveal “local” Middle Eastern perspectives on globalization involves, at times, porous borders that deserve mention. Finding Arab intellectual voices that are accessible to the international community of scholars while having predominantly local life-experience is difficult. It is rare to find Arab scholars who have studied, lived and worked only in the Middle East, for example, because Arab graduates often pursue studies in the West to gain more credibility as intellectuals on the international academic stage (in accordance with the hierarchies of academic certifications). While there are many “Middle East experts” in North America and Europe, there are not enough “local” Middle East voices contributing to the international (or “Western”) academic conversation. Deficits in gender equality for Egypt, Syria, and Jordan are comparable to those of the West as female enrollment in university is actually quite high. Although written by American-Arabs, the AHDR was not well received among intellectuals in the Middle East, because the report skirts around the pressing issues of continued Israeli occupation of Palestine, the debacles of Western and American interventions in the region, and Western governments’ support for corrupt and repressive Middle Eastern regimes (Baroudi 2004). Of course, after the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, it is clear that, particularly with the help of social media, those critiques have emerged in non-academic forms ubiquitously. Zakat is considered to be one of the five pillars of Islam and dictates that Muslims must give a small percentage (often 2 percent) of their yearly income to the local poor and needy. It is theoretically described as a welfare contribution to the wellbeing of the general society as it should be collected and distributed fairly. Western scholars argue that while globalization aided economic liberalization to reach the Middle East throughout the 1990s, this did not transpire into political liberalization or democratization. Moreover, Arab governments were willing to initiate economic liberalization insofar as their political power and the political status quo remained intact.

References Al-Atrash, Hassan and Tarik Yousef (2000) “Intra-Arab Trade: Is It Too Little?” IMF Working Paper No. 00/10, Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. Amin, Galal (2007) “Cultural Encounters of the Uneven Kind: A Perspective from the Arab World,” in Paul Bowles (ed), Regional Perspectives on Globalization: A Critical Reader, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 88–101. Amin, Samir (1989) Eurocentrism, New York: Monthly Review Press. Ashrawi, Hanan (2001) “Humanizing Globalization,” Media Monitors Network. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 9 July 2009).

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Barakat, Halim (1993) The Arab World: Society, Culture and State, Los Angeles: University of California Press. Barber, Benjamin (1996) Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World, New York: Ballantine Books. Baroudi, Sami E. (2008) “Countering US Hegemony: The Discourse of Salim Al-Hoss and other Arab Intellectuals,” Middle East Studies, 44(1): 105–29. Boroujerdi, Mehrzad (2004) “Subduing Globalization: The Challenge of the Indigenization Movement,” in Birgit Schaebler and Leif Steinberg (eds), Globalization and the Muslim World: Culture, Religion and Modernity, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, pp. 30–8. Friedman, Thomas. (2000) The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, New York: Anchor. Habib, Kadhim (2003) “Globalization and the Fears of the Islamic World,” Qantara. de Dialogue with the Islamic World; Middle East Policy Council. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 9 July 2009). Habiby, Raymond (1988) “Teaching Political Science in the Arab World” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Houston, TX, 22–26 March. Handoussa, Heba and Heba A. Shnief (2007) “The Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization,” in Ernesto Zedillo (ed), The Future of Globalization: Exploration in Light of Recent, New York: Routledge, pp. 227–52. Huntington, Samuel (1998) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster. Ibrahim, Saad E. (2000) “Arab Social-Science Research in the 1990s and Beyond: Issues, Trends, and Priorities” in Eglal Rached and Dina Craissati (eds), Research for Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, pp. 119–39. Kedourie, Elie (1992) Democracy and Arab Political Culture, Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Khalaf, Samir (2001) Cultural Resistance, London: Saqi Books. Korany, Bahgat and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki (1991) The Foreign Policies of Arab State, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Laabas, Belkacem (2002) “Introduction,” in Belkacem Laabas (ed), Arab Development Challenges of the New Millennium, Kuwait: Arab Planning Institute. Najjar, Fauzi (2005) “The Arabs, Islam and Globalization,” Middle East Policy, 12(3): 91–106. Nasser, Houda A. (1999) “Arabs, Arab-Americans and Globalization,” paper presented at the 30th annual convention of the Association of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG), Georgetown University, October 21-November 2. Online. Available HTTP: < http://www.alhewar.com/HGANasser.htm> (accessed 9 July 2009). Osman, Osman and Essam Montasser (2003) “GCC and the Arab Economy: Growth, Reform, and Regionalization,” ERF Working Paper Wp0329, Cairo: Economic Research Forum. Perthes, Volker and Rami G. Khoury (2005) “A Dozen Prescriptions for Europe to Push Arab Reform,” The Daily Star, July 16. Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/medienbeitraege/Prt_Artikel_ Daily_Star_160705_ks.pdf> (accessed 9 July 2009).

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Rubin, Barry (2002) The Tragedy of the Middle East, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Saidi, Nasser (2006) “Arab Economic Integration: An Awakening to Remove Barriers to Prosperity,” ERF Working Paper Wp0329, Cairo: Economic Research Forum. Satloff, Robert (2002) War on Terror: The Middle East Dimension, Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Sweis, Rateb (2002) “The Effect of the World Trade Organization on the Jordanian Economy,” in George Joffe (ed), Jordan in Transition, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 298–307. Tarabichi, George (2000) “Arab Intellectuals and the Discontents of Globalization,” From Arab Renaissance to Apostasy – Arab Culture and its Discontents in the Age of Globalization, London and Beirut: Saqi Books, pp. 1–24. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 June 2008). Tschirigi, Necla (2006) “The Middle East under Pressure: What Role for Regional Social Sciences?” paper prepared for the workshop “Strengthening Social Science Research in the Middle East/Arab Region: Exploring the Feasibility of an Arab Social Science Research Council,” Dubai, 26–27 November. UNDP (2002) Arab Human Development Report, United Nations Development Program. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 June 2008). Zayani, M. (2007) “Arab Satellite Television and Politics in the Middle East,” Emirates Occasional Papers WP54, Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. Zughoul, M.R. (2003) “Globalization and EFL/ESL Pedagogy in the Arab World,” Journal of Language and Learning, 1(2): 106–46. Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.shakespeare.uk.net/journal/jllearn/1_2/zughoul.html> (accessed 9 July 2009).

Part D

Secularism and religion

12 Religion, secularism and the state in Southeast Asia Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid

The triumph of Western civilization in the twentieth century—a widely accepted if somewhat ambiguous phenomenon (Roberts 1985)—was received by the Muslim world with ambivalence. On the one hand, Muslims were delighted to be able to share the benefits of modernity, manifested most vividly in a rise in the standard of living made possible by rapid advances in scientific and technological innovation. On the other hand, they were well aware that such progress was achieved by the West at the cost of a decline of religion, the clearest indication of the prevalence of secular norms in almost all aspects of life. Post-World War II academic discourses on modernization consistently harped on the theme of the inevitability of the decline not only of religion, but also all primordial phenomena as identified by anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1963) in his ground-breaking essay on “the integrative revolution.” Modernization was held to be the natural corollary of the ascendance of logical positivism in both the natural and social sciences. Insofar as the Western social sciences trace their roots to the rejection of religion as an explanatory factor for social phenomena, the discipline of International Relations would be very much affected, its birth supposedly marking an end to an era of wars with religious origins (Fox 2001: 53–9). One of the most authoritative political science texts at the height of the modernization craze in the 1960s defines “political development” as “the increased differentiation and specialization of political structures and the increased secularization of political culture” (Almond and Powell 1966: 105). Collating expertise from the various social sciences, new studies on modernization emerged under the rubric of “development studies.” These works, the bulk of which were written by theorists who lacked experience in fieldwork and empirical study of religions, invariably included rationalism and secularism as requisite attributes of modernization (von der Mehden 1986: 2–16).1 Within such a modernization ethos, secularization was considered to be part of the natural order of progression for human civilization, if not all the more desirable as a catalyst for development. “Secularization” refers to a process, whereas “secularism” denotes an ideology, but undergirding both concepts is the deterministic loosening of humankind from the metaphysical

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domain, divorcing it from a religious or quasi-religious understanding of itself, its destiny and eternal realities (Al-Attas 1984: 15–17). Life in this world becomes an end in itself; solutions to worldly problems are to be found not in otherworldly scriptures or supernatural myths, but in a rational comprehension of tangible forces as determined by scientific principles of causality. While the Western social sciences have come to terms with a conception of history as intimately bound to secularization, the end product of which is historical relativism, Muslim scholars’ responses have verged from outright rejection to qualified acceptance. Syed Naguib al-Attas (1984: 1–26), for instance, regards secularization as the foremost crisis of Western civilization, attributable to the “Westernization” of Christianity which heralded the triumph of positive science over revealed religion. In attempting to transplant Western civilizational entities onto Muslim society, Al-Attas argues that the West has failed to take cognizance of the Islamic concept of religion as rooted in the Arabic word deen, whose cognates include dana (being indebted), madinah (city), dayyan (ruler), and tamaddun (civilization or refinement in social culture). Inherent in the idea of deen is the conception of a kingdom or cosmopolis in which a Muslim in both the individual and social sense submits to God in the form of His appointed vicegerent on earth. Since commerce and trade form the lifeblood of any cosmopolis, a Muslim’s life is inexorably engaged with the community, with which he willfully participates in acts of submission to God (Al-Attas 1978: 33–45). Such conceptual misunderstandings extend to Western scholarship’s widespread usage of the word “religion,” which is derived from the Latin term religio, to describe Islam. Historically, religio was applied to designate beliefs other than Christianity, except during the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648), when religio was taken to refer to the various versions of Christianity separate from Catholicism as the established church. In other words, the application of “religion” to non-Christian faiths assumes a comparative framework that pits these against Christianity. Hence the tendency in “Oriental studies” to transpose Christian terms and concepts such as “church,” “clergy,” “sect,” “cult” and “denomination” onto Muslim experiences and categories (Alatas 2008: 41–8). With such disparate philosophical foundations between Islam and secularism, it has been common for Muslim scholars to view one as the antithesis of the other. In denying the existence of any common ground between Islam and secularism, Altaf Gauhar (1978: 303), for instance, outlines three fundamental separations that underline the “sacred versus profane” duality of secular societies: that of the church from the state, that of the public from the private domain and that of the national from the international sphere. But Islamic modernist discourse has been notably less antagonistic towards secularism (Engineer 2006), even if full acceptance of secularism as a doctrine capable of reconciliation with Islam is still far-fetched. In this chapter I will argue that there is greater symbiosis between religion and secularism in Southeast Asia than is normally assumed, insofar as they

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pertain to Islam and Muslim society. My discussion will focus primarily upon Indonesia and Malaysia, the two major Muslim-majority states of the region. The weight of Islamic discourses in both countries far exceeds that which exists in Muslim-minority states and Brunei, the only other Muslim-majority state. In consequence, one could argue that Indonesian and Malaysian discourses dominate the Southeast Asian Islamic scholarly scene and are thus worthy of study in and of themselves. However, the importance of these two cases is accentuated by the fact that they both offer interesting examples of “modernization without secularization” that set them apart from their Arab-speaking counterparts in the Middle East, long considered the primary source of Islamic categories and thought. Secularism first came to Southeast Asia during the colonial era when colonial rulers attempted to suppress Islam’s role in public affairs, relegating it to the sphere of family and culture, as I show in an initial section of the chapter. However, independence movements reasserted Islam as part of constructing a national identity and nationalist program. The bulk of the second section explores how postcolonial Indonesia and Malaysia have synthesized Islam and secularism in ways that explicitly reject secularization but produce forms of Islamic modernization that subsume secular nationalism within Islamic categories. Finally, I point to the distinctive implications that Southeast Asian debates on Islam and secularism have for the study and practice of international relations. Though Southeast Asian “modernization without secularization” seems to affirm a world of nation-states more than it embraces a global Muslim community, potentially providing a vision distinct from that of ummatic Islamists that the U.S. so fears, it also potentially provides an alternative vision of the modern state and society around which world politics might be organized.

Colonialism and secularism Prior to the colonial era, inter-regional mobility was commonplace between the peoples of Southeast Asia, a region providently located within the confluence of ancient Indian and Chinese civilizations. Historic maritime Southeast Asia, also known locally as “the Malay world” or “Nusantara” but later christened by Orientalist scholarship as “Malaysia” or “Indonesia,” encompasses not only the archipelagic areas that make up the two nationstates with the aforesaid namesake, but also present-day southern Thailand, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines (Soda 1998: 23–4). During this period Southeast Asians enjoyed porous geographical boundaries and, with only slight variations, affinity in terms of culture, language, physical appearance and a syncretic worldview as conditioned by elements of animism, Hinduism and Buddhism (Winstedt 1961: 5–33). While encounters with Muslim traders date back to as early as the ninth century, it was from the end of the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century that Islam gained an indelible foothold among the local Malay–Indonesian

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populace of Southeast Asia (Al-Attas 1969: 11–17). Since the establishment of Islam in Southeast Asia, indigenous Malay-Indonesians have maintained transnational contacts with Arabian, Chinese, Indian and European peoples who plied its flourishing trading routes. During the colonial era, the concept of an ummah (global Muslim community) had a share in igniting sporadic anti-colonial uprisings based on pan-Islamic loyalties, as when insurrectionists raised the Ottoman caliphate flag in skirmishes against British troops in Sungei Ujong, Negeri Sembilan, Malaya in 1875 (Andaya and Andaya 1982: 163). In fact, steady interaction between Malay-Indonesians and their Muslim brethren in the Middle East, for instance through the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, returning graduates of Middle Eastern educational institutions, and migrant Arab communities who had inter-married with Malay-Muslims, was a source of constant apprehension to British and Dutch imperialists (Roff 1967: 40–3; von der Mehden 1993: 4, 10, 15). The colonial powers did their best to counter pan-Islamic aspirations. Secularization of the body politic was integral to this colonial project. In British Malaya, for instance, separation of religion and state was crystallized by the 1874 signing of the Anglo-Perak Treaty, which stipulated that Malay sultans seek and act upon a British Resident’s advice on all matters except Malay religion and custom. A spate of legal, administrative, and educational reforms followed suit, all having the effect of reducing the role of Islam to an inconsequential position in colonial governance (Ahmad Fauzi 2004: 22–30). In Malay vernacular education, Islamic lessons were relegated to the periphery while colonial-designed textbooks severed knowledge of Malayan history and geography from any indication of Islam’s definitive role in molding the Malays as a nation (Soda 2001). In this early endeavor at secularization, the colonialists registered only limited success. In neighboring Indonesia, the Dutch colonial period witnessed the parallel introduction of civil and religious courts, whose jurisdiction was limited to family matters and bound by decisions of the former.

Religion and secularism in postcolonial Southeast Asia Colonialism triggered an outpouring of nationalist sentiments that were ambivalent towards religion. There were, on the one hand, nationalists who unreservedly interwove Islam and nationalism into a credible anti-colonial ideology. In British Malaya, this trend was represented most strongly by Burhanuddin al-Helmy, one-time leader of the ideologically eclectic Malay Nationalist Party (MNP), and later President of the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP). Undergirded by a religio-political outlook that regarded the whole of humanity as one ummah, Burhanuddin devised an inclusive Malay nationalism that allowed for the absorption of non-Malays into the “Malay” political category so long as they were willing to part with past national fidelities and profess loyalty to the Malay nation, whose membership is not racially determined (Kamarudin 1980: 50, 110–21;

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Maznah 2008: 299–300). While not discounting the theocratic basis of an Islamic state, Burhanuddin was forthright in declaring that Islamic political aspirations blended both theocratic and secular ideals, and corresponded with the part of Islamic doctrine that condones the use of reason and democratic consultation known as syura (Kamarudin 1980: 209–10).2 Therefore, the lines dividing the religious and the secular realms were blurry. On the other hand, some Muslim nationalists viewed political Islam to be diametrically opposed to nationalism. For Muslims to move forward in modern times, they argued, the concept of an ummah needed to be discarded in favor of a more realistic paradigm of international relations which not merely countenanced but also encouraged the separate existence and identity of Islamic nation-states. In the twentieth century, this idea was ardently promoted by the Young Turk movement, led by Zia Gökalp, which rebelled against attempts to revive the ummah via pan-Islamism as advocated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Morrison 2001: 5–6). Despite pandering to synthetic versions of Islamic nationalism, Gökalp’s ideology restricted religion to the purview of beliefs and rituals, while accepting Western secular thought as the way for a distinctively Turkish Muslim civilization to progress. In many postcolonial Muslim states, the triumph of secularization is depicted most powerfully in the subordinate positioning of the shari’ah (Islamic law) within the broader context of national legal systems. A rump of the shari’ah, mainly consisting of family and personal laws, was reformulated into and codified as a set of Muslim laws which were tailored to suit particularistic national interests rather than all-encompassing Islamic requirements. The framework of reference for post-independence shari’ahbased Muslim lawyers was no longer the ummah, but rather the nation-state in which religious laws were subordinated to civil laws (Hooker 2004a: 199). This picture of politico-legal secularism does not fully capture Southeast Asian realities. Neither Indonesia nor Malaysia is characterized by a simple antithesis of political Islam and nationalism. Nor is it that the line between the religious and the secular is blurry, since that distinction is itself external to Islam. Rather, in Indonesia and Malaysia we find a kind of synthesis of the modern and Islam that is neither theocratic nor secular, though it may offer elements of a model of a kind of Islamic secularism. Attempts at synthesis in Indonesia The founding father of modern Indonesia, Sukarno, was essentially a Muslim modernist who believed in the pragmatic amalgamation of Islam with secular doctrines in driving Islam and Muslim society towards his selfcontrived notion of “progress.” An avid admirer of Kemalist secularism, which he regarded as a natural development in Turkey’s quest towards modernity, Sukarno advocated the unbridled use of rationalism in an effort to “rethink Islam” (Abdul Rahman 1987: 132–7).3 Pancasila, the Five

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Principles forming the philosophical foundation of the Indonesian nationstate, Sukarno’s long-lasting ideological invention, gave no special place to Islam as a state religion; even the “belief in God” part referred to a generic ideal construction of God rather than a specific recognition of the Muslim God. His ideas were further concretized in his employment of religion in general for integrative purposes, as indicated in his formulation of the synthetic concept of “Nasakom” (Nationalism, Religion and Communism), which ultimately led to his downfall in 1965 (von der Mehden 1986: 162–3). An exemplar of the inclination among postcolonial Muslim leaders towards ideological hybridism, Sukarno proudly professed a simultaneous devotion to non-institutionalized religion and Marxism, seeing no contradiction between the former’s theism and the latter’s atheism (Geertz 1968: 85–7). Thus, for all the lip service paid to theism, the 1945 Constitution is essentially a secular document that paved the way for the Indonesian republic to be governed without recourse to principles of any particular religion. The Five Principles (Pancasila) embrace this ambiguity: belief in the one and only God, a just and civilized humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy guided by inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations among representatives and social justice for the whole people of Indonesia (Hooker 2004a: 203). In the face of opposition from non-Muslim leaders and secular-nationalists, Islamists had to drop the original “seven words” of the Piagam Jakarta (Jakarta Charter), which would have added the obligation “to implement the shari’ah” among Muslims’ constitutional responsibilities, though it was not until 1959 that calls for Piagam Jakarta were finally suppressed by Sukarno’s presidential decree. Following the downfall of President Soeharto, who throughout his lengthy rule (1967–98) had systematically depoliticized Islam and enforced Pancasila as the sole ideological basis of lawful organizations, however, a handful of Islamist parties have resurrected demands for Piagam Jakarta (Azra 2004: 137–40, 145–6). Despite these pressures, the secular character of the Constitution remains. Religious courts were initially supervised by the Ministry of Religion but later incorporated into the general legal system via the enactment of a Law on Basic Religious Justice in 1989 and presidential approval for a Compilation of Islamic Law in 1991. Though this might appear to give religious law greater weight, the move makes the Indonesian nation-state rather than Islam per se the definitive framework in which shari’ah is to operate. In other words, secularism remains entrenched in the overall legal system (Hooker 2004a: 200). Similarly, at the conceptual level, agendas amounting to secularism, notwithstanding disclaimers to the contrary, were notable in the thoughts of two of Indonesia’s most prominent religious intellectuals, Harun Nasution (1919–98) and Nurcholish Madjid (1939–2005). The ideas of both these intellectual giants flourished during Soeharto’s New Order regime (1967–98), when political emasculation of Islamists resulted in a mushrooming of Islamic social and educational institutions—a form of

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“civic religion” in Muslim society, to which Sueharto eventually made overtures in the early 1990s, for example through his patronage of the Association of Muslim Intellectuals (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia, ICMI) (Abuza 2004: 14–16). Following Sueharto’s ascendancy, coming out of the 1960s, “the fear of being accused of atheism and therefore communism made many abangan turn to Christianity or Hinduism and, in the end in larger numbers, to Islam” (van Bruinessen 1999: 168).4 As observed from the tendency towards santrinization among Indonesians in general (Desker 2002: 389), by the time the New Order entered its twilight years, Islam had become the most important driver for socio-political change without being overtly political. For all the policies of enforced secularization, religion was a latent force that erupted into a proliferation of Islamic political parties and radical groups following Soeharto’s downfall (Hasan 2005: 305–8). However, enthusiasm for Islam has not translated into an outburst of support for Islamic political parties, whose scripturalist projection of Islam as involving a significant dose of shari’anization is not necessarily attuned with a general understanding of Islam as primarily a socio-cultural and educational phenomenon (Azra 2004: 143; Mujani and Liddle 2004). Even though secularism in practical politics has somewhat diminished in post-Soeharto Indonesia, intellectual secularism still runs deep in Indonesian society. This is the outcome of decades of secularization of thought underscored by the victory of Western-derived positive science in the academic realm, eliciting a response from so-called Muslim modernists who sought to argue for the harmonization between Islam and modern science in spite of their different philosophical underpinnings. What emerged, in effect, was the ideologization of religion within a paradigm of “secular religiosity” (Geertz 1968: 103–6). Harun Nasution, whose education consisted of stints at Al-Azhar, American University in Cairo and McGill University, Canada, was the prime advocate of a rationalist interpretation of Islam akin to Mu’tazilite theology in medieval Islam.5 His intellectual influence was cemented during his long tenure at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Institute of Islamic Studies (Institut Agama Islam Negeri, IAIN), Jakarta. Nasution denied the absolute veracity of Islam as contained in the scriptures; instead, religious truth was conditional upon time and place and rests on reason. What have been misconstrued as immutable doctrines and laws of Islam, for him, were merely products of social circumstances and institutions that experience a gradual process of advancement from time to time. Nasution’s relativism diverges from the position of the bulk of Islamic scholastic opinions, which have settled on the notion of the finality of God’s gospel to humankind via Islam.6 He distinguished between the rational strand of his “liberal” theology and the dogmatic approach of the “traditional” Asha’rite theology, which he maintained was unsuitable in the Indonesian context. Within an intellectual environment dominated by logical thinking and positivism, Nasution promoted a rational Islam for Indonesia in line with Pancasila, which he ended up legitimating. He was concerned not so much with

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Islamic representation in political institutions as with the internalization of Islamic ethics among Muslim elites. Nasution became an apologist for religious pluralism, Greek philosophy, and secularism à la Kemal Ataturk and Ali Abd al-Raziq, for which he was stridently criticized by H.M. Rasjidi, a respected scholar who had helmed Indonesia’s Department of Religion in its early post-independence years. Nurcholish Madjid combined a traditional pesantren7 upbringing with tertiary-level modern Islamic education, culminating in a doctoral study assumed under the supervision of renowned Muslim modernist Fazlur Rahman at the University of Chicago.8 However, even before his American sojourn, Nurcholish already had a high-profile reputation as a student leader of the national Muslim Students’ Association (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, HMI) who had authored a controversial 1970 paper that seemed to advocate secularization as the natural order of progress in Islam.9 By provocatively proposing that Islamic intellectual reform necessitated “desacralizing” beliefs and practices which were by their very nature “secular,” and that encompassed fields which in traditional Islamic classification of knowledge would have been included under the mu’amalah (social affairs) category, he elicited unprecedented opposition from the mainstream Islamic scholarly establishment. Only that which is truly transcendent, eternal and sacred deserves “sanctification,” and that is God alone. Unduly attaching sacredness to the temporal affairs of Muslims, claims Nurcholish, has compromised the inherent uniqueness of tawhid (belief in the oneness or unity of God). While he differentiates secularization as a religiously purifying process from secularism as a belief system carrying atheistic and humanistic implications, which he did not support, his persistent separation of Islam from anything “secular,” understood as having anti-religious connotations, invited widespread protest from scholars who disputed that secularization could be carried out without leading to secularism. The ultimate result of Nurcholish’s scheme was arguably de facto secularism in the form of an absence of institutionalization of belief and, hence, the relegation of religion to the private realm as understood and practiced within individuals’ personal capacities and contexts. Unsurprisingly, he repudiated any concept of an Islamic state, arguing it to be nothing more than an apologetic Muslim response to the Western nation-state system. In fact, his ideas co-existed comfortably with Pancasila in a state of mutual accommodation. Politics and statecraft, for him, were unmistakably located within the worldly domain, to be decided upon by reason rather than any reference to divine revelation. Nurcholish Madjid’s revolutionary ideas, aggressively promoted via his Paramadina Foundation which professes a deep integration between “Islamness and Indonesianness,” have had a profound impact on the development of Islamic thought in Southeast Asia. Together with ideas of likeminded thinkers of his generation such as Djohan Effendi, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Ahmad Wahib, Nurcholish’s thoughts spawned a new school of

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Islamic neo-modernism as Islam’s answer to modernization (Barton 1995). Neo-modernism further bridged the gap between traditional Islamic sciences and modern sciences of Western origin—a process that had been started a generation earlier by pioneers of Islamic modernism in Southeast Asia who traced their intellectual ancestry to the Al-Manar school in Cairo (Azra 1999; Federspiel 2002).10 By arguing for a synthesis between traditionalist, modernist and Western epistemological practices, neo-modernists developed further conventional modernists’ expansion of ijtihad (or practices of independent thinking) to embrace a contextual ijtihad that was in tandem with an inclusive Islam that affirmed social pluralism and harmonious interfaith relations. The traditionalist-oriented Nahdlatul Ulama (Renaissance of Ulama) organization, for example, under the general chairmanship of Abdurrahman Wahid (1984–99), embarked upon the innovative idea of collective ijtihad (ijtihad jama’i) in its production of legal opinions or fatwa.11 This enabled it to widen the scope of its consultation to include experts in the so-called secular sciences such as economics, engineering, technology and sociology whenever a fatwa touches upon aspects of their respective domains (Hosen 2004: 14, 18). The most controversial part of neo-modernism, though, was its affirmation of secularism as set forth by Pancasila, thus rendering the position of Islam in its inherently transnational configuration subservient to imperatives of the Indonesian nationstate (Barton 1997: 344–5). Indeed, the neo-modernist figures Djohan Effendi and Ahmad Wahib had argued along the lines of the inevitability of secularism and secular discourse in the Muslim world; Pancasila being its manifestation in the Indonesian context (Barton 1995: 30–1, 40). As post-Soeharto Indonesia descended into religious violence and the rise of Islamic radicalism, neo-modernism has emerged as a countervailing force spearheaded by its second generation thinkers such as Luthfi Assyaukanie, Ulil Abshar Abdalla and Saiful Mujani. Between 2001 and 2002, from their Jakarta base, they established the Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal, JIL) to disseminate their views seeking to portray an Islam that was liberating, inclusive, pro-democracy, pluralist, nonviolent and respectful of human rights, particularly those of women and minorities.12 Capitalizing on swift developments in information and communications technology, JIL does not rely on the Internet alone, but has made its voice heard through existing print and audio-visual media. Despite the comparatively meager numbers of its activists, in terms of public profile it has been disproportionately conspicuous, due not only to its energetic propagation activities, but also its doctrinal controversies. Although neo-modernist thought is not new in Indonesia, JIL’s fervent attempt to spread it beyond its traditional audience as found in intellectual circles and the scholarly community is. Central to its thinking is the notion of religious truth that is relative, open and plural. JIL unabashedly portrays itself as a stout defender of separation between spiritual and temporal affairs, between ukhrawi (heavenly) and duniawi (worldly) authorities. In effect,

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it has become the primary apologist for secularism in Indonesia—a fact that has invited rebuke and condemnation from Islamist factions who consider abhorrent the very notion that religion and the state could at all be separated. The conservative response of Malaysia13 In Malaya, secularization of the body politic was integral to the British colonial project. Separation of religion and state was crystallized by the 1874 signing of the Anglo-Perak Treaty, which stipulated that Malay sultans seek and act upon a British Resident’s advice on all matters except Malay religion and custom. A spate of legal, administrative and educational reforms followed suit, all having the effect of reducing the role of Islam to an inconsequential position in colonial governance (Ahmad Fauzi 2004: 22–30). Secularization could be considered to have culminated with the promulgation of a Federal Constitution in 1957, establishing the principle of separation between religion and state (Rosenthal 1965: 288). Although nowhere in the Constitution is the word “secular” mentioned, the secular basis of an independent Malaya was clearly affirmed in deliberations during the drafting of the document. Tunku Abdul Rahman, leader of the Alliance Party and eventually Malaya’s first Prime Minister, assured fellow members among the Working Party to review the Reid Commission-prepared draft, that “the whole Constitution was framed on the basis that the federation would be a secular State” (Fernando 2006: 259–60, 265–6). A resultant legislative white paper clarified that Article 3(1)’s pronunciation of Islam as the official religion of the federation in no way affected its position as a “secular state”; a position later affirmed by serving chief justices’ statements and judgments qualifying the relevance of Islam’s official status as relating to rituals and ceremonies on official occasions rather than as a trump on the primacy of the secular legislative framework (Ahmad 1985: 214, 216; Fernando 2006: 250, 262). Malayan independence was eventually achieved via tacit collusion between the colonial masters and the “rightist” stream of Malay nationalists, who overwhelmingly came from the English-educated bureaucratic elite conventionally regarded as “secular” in orientation (Ahmad Fauzi 2007: 389).14 These nationalists’ worldview was such that religion was conceived in purely secular terms in the sense of serving secular purposes. Islam here assumes a major ethno-cultural function of determining the identity of a “Malay” as defined in Article 160(2) of the Federal Constitution: “a person who professes the Muslim religion, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom.” Malays, in turn, are regarded as the prime indigenous group that qualifies for benefits under the “special position” clause in Article 153 (Means 1978: 393–4). Under the so-called “bargain of 1957” or “social contract,” the aforesaid privileges, together

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with provisions to ensure the positions of Islam as the official religion, of Malay sultans as heads of the various states and of Malay as the national language, were quid pro quos for non-Malay demands for relaxed conditions for citizenship, the continued use of the English language in official matters for ten years, and the preservation of the free market economy (Milne and Mauzy 1986: 28–30). Further bolstering the secularization of religion was the consignment of Islam to the technical jurisdiction of the various states that form the Malayan federation. While this meant that the states have instituted Councils of the Islamic Religion (Majlis Agama Islam) to aid and advise the sultans in their capacity as heads of the Islamic faith, Departments of Religious Affairs (Jabatan Agama Islam) to handle daily affairs of Muslims and shari’ah courts to adjudicate in Muslim matters (Ahmad 1985: 216), in practice, Islam’s legal role is heavily circumscribed. For instance, jurisdiction of the shari’ah courts theoretically covers only Muslim personal law— successor of the Muhammadan law of the colonial era, which pertains to family law, charitable property, religious revenue, places of worship and religious offences (Abdul Majeed 1985: 229–35). In criminal matters, shari’ah courts can only try offenses that involve no punishment beyond the stated maximum imprisonment or fine under federal law, making it impossible for them to impose the Quranic hudud code.15 Even a fatwa issued by the state’s legal experts or mufti, and understood to be binding upon all Muslim residents in the state, can practically be rendered null and void by a simple recourse to a conflicting decision of the High Court. It is on account of such limitations that a legal expert has opined, “the provision that Islam is the religion of the Federation has little significance [ … ]” (Ahmad 1974: 6–7, 11–13). Nonetheless, within the past decade, passionate debate has surfaced on whether Malaysia is an Islamic or secular state. For much of the postindependence period, the position of Islam as an official religion in a secular country was upheld by nationalist leaders such as first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, who once asserted that “this country is not an Islamic State as it is generally understood, we merely provide that Islam shall be the official religion of the State” (quoted in Ahmad 1985: 217). However, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s astounding declaration in September 2001 that Malaysia had, for all intents and purposes, already become an Islamic state triggered disputes. Scholarly justification for Mahathir’s claim was furnished by way of a hastily convened Islamic State Discussion (Muzakarah Daulah Islamiah) chaired by Abdul Hamid Othman, the Religious Advisor to the Prime Minister. Based upon scholarly opinions dating back to the medieval ages, the Muzakarah concluded that Malaysia qualified unequivocally as an Islamic state. In June 2002, Mahathir reinforced his stance by projecting Malaysia to be a “model Islamic fundamentalist state” rather than the “moderate Muslim state” it used to be (Ooi 2006: 176). Emboldened by such political will as seemingly demonstrated by the ruling establishment, “a critical mass of Muslim

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lawyers, judges and politicians has adopted the view that Islam is the core, central, overriding feature of the Constitution” (Faruqi 2005). The crux of their argument is that even though the Federal Constitution does not explicitly mention Malaysia as an Islamic state, the very existence of Article 3(1) itself is proof that Malaysia is not a secular state either. In 1988, a landmark, if controversial, decision whittled away the secular content of Malaysia’s legal system. An amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution included clause (1A) preventing federal courts from exercising any “jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts.” Article 121(1A) effectively raised the status of shari’ah courts and judges to be on a par with their civil counterparts and became a bone of contention, pitting “pro-shari’ah” Muslims on the one hand and “pro-secular” non-Muslims and liberal Muslims on the other against each other. Mobilizing in the open, non-Muslim civil society and political leaders have expressed concern with the Islamic tilt increasingly exhibited by Malaysia’s Muslim politicians regardless of political affiliation (Riddell 2005: 182–4). While they advocate the concept of a secular state for a modern Malaysian polity, they are less forthright about it lest they encounter concerted opposition from Muslims generally averse to secularism. Furthermore, in Malaysia, even the most diehard opponent of an Islamic state will not conceive the alternative notion of a secular state in an anti-religious or anti-Islamic framework. What they demand is that the state be neutral towards all religions. As chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), Lim Kit Siang explains that the secular governance he espouses, in contrast with typical notions of “secular,” “is not atheist, anti-Islam, or anti-religion but trans-religion [ … ] a system of governance which upholds the spiritual and ethical values which are common to Islam and other great religions” (Lim 2001: 54, 73). Secularism here does not even imply the relegation of religion to the private realm. As far as the Islamization of the legal sphere is concerned, there has been a convergence between positions adopted by the nationalist UMNO and the opposition Islamist party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). The discourse among Malay-Muslim politicians of both sides of the political divide has appeared to move beyond whether Malaysia should be an Islamic state, towards the best ways and means of absorbing Malaysia’s nonMuslim minorities in a mutually acceptable modus vivendi that applies Islamic principles in governance (Liow 2008: 30). On UMNO’s side, current Premier Najib Razak is on record as categorically denying that Malaysia had ever been or would ever be a secular state. When both the Chief Justice and Attorney General appeared to float the idea of a shari’ah-based code to supplant English common law as the basis of Malaysia’s legal system, the non-Muslim-dominated Bar Council voiced disapprobation in the same way that they had disputed Najib Razak’s claim. Yet, in an attempt to defuse the developing polemic, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, under whose Premiership (2003–9) the entrenchment of the shari’ah

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in Malaysia’s legal framework proceeded under the guise of Islam Hadhari (civilizational Islam), repudiated theocracy, but also refused to recognize Malaysia’s secular status.16 On PAS’s side, since the passing of Burhanuddin al-Helmy’s days of “progressive Islamic leadership,” political discourse has stiffened in favor of a juridical Islamic state and against its perceived antithesis, the secular state.17 Islam and secularism are now viewed as binary opposites. The advent of secularism is portrayed by present PAS President Haji Abdul Hadi Awang as being intimately connected to Christianity in its compartmentalized form, Freemasonry, a global Zionist conspiracy and colonialism (Abdul Hadi 2007: 9–16). Haji Hadi chides Islam Hadhari as a “hybrid religion” that allows the practice of a compartmentalized Islam alongside un-Islamic elements, and thus a bid’ah (religious innovation) with deviationist potential (Abdul Hadi 2005: 24–34, 50, 90, 130, 196). Ironically, such shari’anization might itself be interpreted as evidence of the secularization of Malaysian Islam. Not only is the understanding of religion compartmentalized by such a phenomenon, but its role has been unduly steered towards Malaysian-oriented worldly motives, to the detriment of the welfare of the ummah. The views of Ashaari Muhammad, leader of Darul Arqam, a transnational Islamic movement banned in Malaysia since 1994 for alleged heterodoxy despite the lack of similarly incriminating fatwa against it in the region, are illustrative in this regard (Ahmad Fauzi 2006: 99–106). Ashaari defines “secularism” as an ideology that enjoins the conduct of one’s life without any connection whatsoever to God and to otherworldly concerns related to life after death. These include Islamists whose struggle denigrates sacred purposes, for example exalting God and His Word, in favor of worldly intentions, for example erecting an Islamic state in pursuit of pragmatic ends (Ashaari Muhammad 2007: 50). Clearly, the Malay-Muslim ruling establishment regards Malaysia’s application of soft secularism, i.e., the denigration of Islam to a less than definitive position in the nation-state’s political-legal framework, as sufficient within the Islamic civilizational framework so as not to be crucified as secular.18 The Islamist opposition treats such subordination of Islam as evidence of secularism nevertheless. That Islam in Malaysia is subsumed under Malay culture is a vivid indication of secularism in practice, even though it is semantically shrouded by legitimating euphemisms such as “liberal Islam” and “civilizational Islam.” Even if these “Islams” do not betray pure or hard secularism, they are at best embodiments of neo-secularism (Wan Abdul Rahman 2006: 129–34).

Muslim secularism and international relations In the disputes over law and secularism described in this chapter, one immediately recognizes the bases of two different levels of practice in international relations among Muslim communities of Southeast Asia. Since the

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arrival of colonialism as a countervailing force against Islam, perpetuated by the post-World War II hegemony of nation-states, the region has been subjected to two centrifugal forces of globalization: one nationalistic and the other ummatic (Adeney-Risakotta 2005: 331; Meuleman 2005: 35). While the worldview of Muslim governments and societies gravitates toward the ideal of a borderless ummah, their participation in the international system obliges them to realistically situate their identity within the context of United Nations-sanctioned categories. In the era of the “global war on terror” anxiety has been raised over the extent to which Southeast Asian Muslims are susceptible to radical tendencies of a global Islamist insurrection with purportedly Middle Eastern origins (Hasan 2005: 316–17). In actual fact, such influence has been present since the wave of Islamism reached Southeast Asia in the 1980s from not only the Middle East but also from Islamist diasporas in the West (Azra 2003: 44; van Bruinessen 1999: 169–70). In a desperate attempt to prove themselves as the true torchbearers of Islam in the race against independent Islamist movements, political leaders became vulnerable to conservative influences from the Middle East, giving rise to the official growth of Islamic institutions enjoying Arab patronage (Desker 2002: 386, 2003: 420; Nair 1997: 105). For example, within the context of the Middle Eastern-originated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil boom of the 1970s, Malaysia became a major recipient of oil-related aid distributed under the aegis of the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) (Ahmad Fauzi 2000: 13–20; Nair 1997: 62). The founding in 1983 of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), jointly sponsored by Muslim countries and using English and Arabic as official languages of instruction, was in actual fact the culmination of Islamic educational schemes envisaged by the intellectual forefathers of global Islamic resurgence such as Abul A’la al-Mawdudi and Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (Moten 2006: 190–1). However, one must not be so quick to conclude simplistically that Southeast Asia has become a den of ummatic Islamists to the detriment of future relations between its Muslim-dominated governments and other international and Western interests. In truth, governments have by and large contained Islamists in a delicate balancing act that has probably served the ruling elites’ domestic policy priorities more than any ummatic concerns. One of the strongest supporters of international Muslim liberation causes, Malaysia, for instance, has been careful to justify its sympathy, whether tacit or open, for the Palestinians, Moros in the southern Philippines and Malay-Muslim fighters in southern Thailand in terms of universal justice. In order to defuse occasional misunderstandings with the Filipino and Thai governments, the country has often assured its neighbors that the Islamic factor in its foreign policy does not in any way compromise its larger loyalty to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Nair 1997: 5–11, 177–80, 187–93, 206–8, 234, 270). Much the same applies in its relations with Western states, and even with the United States, which is generally

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condemned by the ummah as the perpetrator of gross injustices to Muslims worldwide. As far as grassroots Southeast Asian support for global Islamism is concerned, many scholars have raised doubts that tangible links exist beyond inspirational guidance provided by international terrorist networks. Sporadic protests of Muslim minorities in Southeast Asia are rooted more in protracted “fundamental grievances” such as persistent socio-economic dislocation and systematic denial of indigenous identities than in any imagined foreign influence (Tan 2003: 134–5). Local insurgents’ domestic agendas have not been supplanted with global pan-Islamism (Desker 2003: 42; Liow 2008: 31). The uniqueness of Islamic discourse in Southeast Asia lies precisely in its ability to subsume concepts identified with contemporariness such as modernism and secularism in Islamic terms. Islam and modern society did not necessarily assume antithetical positions. Southeast Asian Muslim intellectuals and politicians have thus been among the most ardent advocates of acceptance of the nation-state as the focal unit in international relations. Such a position, described by Piscatori (1986: 42, 47, 78–89) as being the corollary of “conformist” thinking on the nation-state, would be at apparent odds with traditional Islamic theory of international relations, which divides the world into a dar al-Islam (realm of Islam/peace) and a dar al-harb (realm of unbelief/war). Peter Singer thus laments that the USA misses the sophistication and vibrancy of discussions on the role of Islam in the public sphere as have taken place in Indonesia and Malaysia. The author sees this as a failure to comprehend the dynamics of interaction between the historic Middle Eastern core and the periphery of the Muslim world (Singer 2006: 420). While a traditional bias persists in the Muslim world in favor of Islamic categories as defined and disseminated by the Arabic-speaking brethren of the Middle Eastern heartlands, and accentuated by the dearth of research institutes in the Middle East devoted to the study of Asia and Asians (Abaza 2007), recent economic development and vibrancy of Islamic thought have raised the feasibility of Southeast Asian Muslims exerting more influence on their Middle Eastern brethren in diverse realms (Siddiqi 1995: 24). Thus, the globalizing of Islamic discussions might erode the appeal of ummatic Islam over time and increase the appeal of an Islamic “modernization without secularization.” In this case, efforts to imagine a new world order revolving around international law and human rights rooted in secular ideals will have to confront a different sort of Islamic challenge.

Conclusions From the foregoing account of Southeast Asian discourses on religion and secularism, one theme of Islam in Southeast Asia that foregrounds it is the wide acceptance of modernization and the fruits of modernity within the spectrum of doctrinal thought as they pertain to Islam and Muslims. From relatively modernist Indonesia to relatively conservative Malaysia,

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modernization is neither regarded as a menace nor does it encounter a problem of acceptance among the masses. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the Middle East, which is still grappling with rudimentary issues of modern life such as glaring inadequacies in basic material wealth, which many Western-based reports have blamed for fuelling the present Muslim discontent and insurgency. A number of them have cited figures from Arab Human Development Reports produced by Middle Eastern social scientists for the United Nations Development Program to prove their point (Friedman 2006; Singer 2006). In Southeast Asia, by contrast, Muslims have moved a step ahead in seeking to minimize collateral damage wrought by modernization, of which secularization and secularism are crucial ones, rather than dispute the benefits of modernization. The emphasis has been on achieving “modernization without secularization,” notwithstanding the argument that neo-modernism does in fact sanction secularism. Such secularism, though, is necessarily of the soft variety, which privatizes religion and personalizes ethics rather than assuming more anti-religious connotations (Kolig 2001). At the discursive level, what effectively transpires in Southeast Asia is a symbiotic relationship between Islam and secularism. Just as it is difficult for hardcore Islamists to accept secularism, it is also thorny for proponents of secularism, even if this ideology has assumed softer undertones in Southeast Asia than is conventionally understood, to welcome Islamization of state polities. Until we reach a stable equilibrium, one way forward would be to look into their commonalities rather than differences. It has been suggested, for instance, that more appreciation be shown of Islam’s neglected tradition of respecting human rights and freedom of belief (Alatas 2005: 222; Hooker 2004b: 231). The intellectual pragmatism of Southeast Asian Muslims is underscored by IIUM Professor Abdul Rashid Moten’s observation: “if secularism is defined as belief in pluralism and respect for all religions, then Islam may also be called secular” (Moten 2005: 233). One is further encouraged by the recent emergence in relatively conservative Malaysia of Muslim-based discourses that put forward an inclusive, rather than a typically Islamistinfluenced exclusive, conception of Islam as a universal faith. Rather than arbitrarily imposing prejudicial and dogmatic categorizations upon the “religious other,” such an accommodative approach interprets Islam to be well within the long line of great religious civilizations which together share an ultimate spiritual–moral vision of global justice and peace; one which transcends barriers of culture, ethnicity and nationality while connecting humankind to the Divine (Chandra 2010, 2011). In the sphere of international relations, such a pragmatic outlook augurs well for the future of the two-pronged liaisons between Southeast Asian Muslim states with their ummatic brethren, on the one hand, and with the larger international community, seen as invariably dominated by the West, on the other. Until now, the Muslim governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, the two states with the most influential Islamic discourses

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throughout the region, have maintained open policies of maintaining cordial relations with the West and its allies without alienating their Muslim compatriots. In fact, owing to their comparatively open polities and economic robustness, it is no secret that many Middle Eastern and African Muslim governments look highly upon Indonesia and Malaysia as model modern states worth emulating. Both states, despite differences in their methods, have managed to contain the more deleterious consequences of Islamism despite incorporating features of ubiquitous Islamic brotherhood and even erstwhile Islamists into their states’ conduct of international policy. This has its roots in the successful synthesis between Islam and what is pejoratively perceived outside Southeast Asia as “secular modernization,” but which in Southeast Asia has assumed tones less antithetical to religion, willing even to accommodate it. What might be seen as a synthesis of Islam and “secular modernization” by those outside the region should force a re-examination of the place given to Islam in mappings of struggles over the globalization of modernity. Rather than a space of atavistic resistance, Islam might be better placed as offering a more encompassing vision of modernity itself.

Notes 1 In addition, many of the social scientists then dabbling in development studies were self-confessed unbelievers, having been raised within households and an academic environment in which religious scepticism held sway. See for instance Geertz (1968: 99) and von der Mehden (1986: 16–17). 2 Despite the prevailing impression that an Islamic state finds its antithesis in the secular state, Burhanuddin’s view of an Islamic state really being the synergistic product of theocracy and political elements conventionally thought of as “secular” is not totally alien among prominent theoreticians of the Islamic state. 3 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk paved the way for the foundation of a modern secular Turkish state by abolishing the Ottoman Caliphate, thus realizing the intent of Zia Gökalp’s nationalist anti-ummatic movement against Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Religion was effectively depoliticized from mundane affairs of the Turks, as signalled by the abolition of the Ministry of Shari’ah and Waqf (Endowments) and the advisory post of Syeikh al-Islam, and the promulgation of a Turkish Civil Code to replace the shari’ah. See Abdul Rahman (1987: 91–8). 4 Abangan refers to nominal Muslims, as opposed to practicing Muslims who are known as santri. 5 For detailed discussions of Harun Nasution’s thoughts, see Abdul Rahman (1987: 137–43) and Hooker (2004a: 206–8). 6 As per the final verse revealed to the Prophet Muhammad: “This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion” (Quran V: 3). 7 Pesantren refers to a religious boarding school whose educational curriculum exhibits mostly traditional characteristics. 8 For detailed discussions of Nurcholish Madjid’s thoughts as outlined in this paragraph, see Abdul Rahman (1987: 143–51), Barton (1995: 13–24, 1997: 330–7), and Hooker (2004a: 209–11).

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9 Apart from secularization, the other components in Nurcholish’s proposed program for intellectual reform were intellectual freedom, belief in the idea of progress, and an open-minded attitude. See Abdul Rahman (1987: 145) and Barton (1995: 19). 10 The Al-Manar school was founded by Grand Mufti of Egypt Muhammad Abduh, whose ideas revolved around reopening the gates of ijtihad (independent reasoning) and abandoning the inhibiting doctrine of taqlid (blind imitation of authority) towards creating a new Islamic intellectual order which was up to facing challenges of modernity. 11 Fatwa is an authoritatively considered legal opinion; the figure authorized to issue a fatwa is called a mufti. 12 The JIL website, http://islamlib.com/, available in both English and Indonesian, has become the main medium for propagating its ideas. 13 In 1963, Malaya became officially known as Malaysia, following the merger of the Malayan Peninsula, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak—two states in the island of Borneo—into a single federation. 14 The “leftist” stream of pre-independence Malay nationalism, on the other hand, absorbed many facets of Islamic modernist–reformist discourse which would have given Malaysian Islamic scholarship a more sophisticated outlook in discussing religion and secularism. Unfortunately, despite having engendered a kind of pre-nationalism in the 1930s, modernism–reformism had lost its appeal to the general Malay population by the 1940s, eclipsed by the pressing need for political freedom under the general impression of an enveloping nonMuslim threat to Malay hegemony. See Ahmad Fauzi (2007: 381) and Federspiel (2002: 375). 15 Hudud punishments are criminal penalties instituted by the Quran and Sunnah (exemplary traditions of Prophet Muhammad) after lawful conviction in a court of law, such as amputation of the hand for thieves, flogging of 80 lashes for consuming intoxicating liquor, flogging for libel, stoning to death for adultery, and flogging of 100 lashes for fornication. 16 Guided by ten universal precepts, Islam Hadhari calls for values and principles of a state to be compatible with Islam, without necessarily forging a state which incorporates the Islamic legal framework, which is understood as being constantly prone to change and not fixed. In practice, Islam Hadhari necessitates a reappraisal of past ijtihads so as to make them relevant to contemporary developments. 17 Burhanuddin was forthright in declaring that Islamic political aspirations blended both theocratic and secular ideals, which corresponded with the part of Islamic doctrine which condones the use of reason and democratic consultation known as syura; see Kamarudin (1980: 209–10). 18 Soft secularism is here differentiated from hard secularism, which denotes a total rejection of the role of Islam, or for that matter any religion, in running the state and society.

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Soda, Naoki (1998) Melayu Raya and Malaysia: Exploring Greater Malay Concepts in Malaya, Kyoto: The Setsutaro Kobayashi Memorial Fund. —— (2001) “The Malay World in Textbooks: The Transmission of Colonial Knowledge in British Malaya,” Southeast Asian Studies, 39(2): 188–234. Tan, Andrew (2003) “Southeast Asia as the ‘Second Front’ in the War Against Terrorism: Evaluating Threats and Responses,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 15(2): 112–38. Van Bruinessen, Martin (1999) “Global and Local in Indonesian Islam,” Southeast Asian Studies, 37(2): 158–75. Von der Mehden, Fred R. (1986) Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. —— (1993) Two Worlds of Islam: Interaction between Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Wan Abdul Rahman, Wan Abdul Latif (2006) “Sekularisme Politik dan Survival Umat,” in Ann Wan Seng (ed), Respons Intelektual Muslim dan Isu-isu Semasa, Kuala Lumpur: Harakah, pp. 125–35. Winstedt, Richard (1961), The Malays: A Cultural History, Singapore: Graham Brash.

13 Western secularisms Variation in a doctrine and its practice Mona Kanwal Sheikh and Ole Wæver

The recent turn to studying religion in International Relations has led to scholarly reflections about the foundational “secular” identity of the discipline. Since the Westphalian peace settlement ended the European wars of religion in 1648, nothing has been repressed more consistently within IR than religion. Though the dogmas of positivism or state-centrism are questioned regularly, the foundational dogma of secularism has been largely ignored until very recently.1 Our view is that the IR’s uncritical subscription to the “secularization thesis” produces biased analyses of the power and character of religion. More specifically, naturalizing the separation of religion from politics prevents proper analysis of conflict constellations where secularism is a party to the conflict. This normative bias affects how “international” the discipline can claim to be, since the secularization thesis is central to Western enlightenment discourse on religion. A secular IR inadvertently constructs religion as an anomaly and danger and represents secularism as a neutral observation point, but a constructivist analysis would bring into view how secularism is often a pole in political polarization. The project of opening up International Relations to non-Western approaches makes this issue particularly relevant, given that Enlightenment secularism is part of the standardized package of Eurocentric political thought that defines the boundary of rationality for the non-West. Despite the language of objectivity and universality, rationality in Enlightenment discourse is linked to the advance of Western culture or its particular civilization (Caputo 2001; Euben 1999). Therefore, broadening IR geo-epistemologically demands a reconfiguration of secularist boundary practices. Since Westphalia ostensibly removed religion from the international battlefield, first nationalized, then privatized, in order to avoid religious wars, it has widely become seen as the ultimate threat to security. This liberal attitude corresponds to the foundations of IR, where the simultaneous establishment of the state and the state system were intended to establish security by ending the wars of religions (Williams 1998). Thus, “peacekeeping” necessitated drawing a line between politics and religion.

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Secularism is imagined as tolerant and neutral, demanding only acceptance of seemingly innocent phrases such as “parliament stands above God” or “religion is a private matter.” However, such claims confirm the worst fears of those who view it as a threat to faith and the sovereignty of God. Conflict with those who oppose any divide between religion and politics is often predicated on both sides’ denial of the doctrine’s variability. Perceiving secularism as an either/or question creates spiraling conflict behavior. For instance, Islamists often ignore sophisticated discussions of religion and politics from Islam’s intellectual history, thus defining themselves by their insistence on Islam’s comprehensiveness and their utter anti-secularism. Anti-Islamists conversely construct secularism as the crucial bastion to defend. In general, all major players commonly presume a given, stable, and consistent core. By contrast, attention to “comparative secularism” might shift the exchange from one of either/or to how questions. Our basic argument is, therefore, that critical studies of secularism can improve IR competence in dealing with religious issues and conflicts. In public debates and academic circles there is widespread consensus that religious forces influence both domestic and contemporary international politics.2 The 9/11 attacks in particular unveiled a great theoretical challenge to IR security studies, exactly because of the habitual ways of disregarding religion (Philpott 2002). Through a comparative study of different secularisms, this chapter will critically “open up” a concept that in dominant Western discourses is often perceived to be simple, when it is actually highly doubtful that secularism can be meaningfully used as a justifying “principle” (Asad 2006; Wæver 2011). We will show that “secularism” means something very different in France, the United States, Germany or Denmark. In each place a line is drawn between religion and politics, but it is done so according to distinct dominant ideas. The cases we have chosen vary in the way that “religion” (or church) and “politics” (or state) are represented and separated in Europe and the U.S. This comparison confirms the argument that the concept of secularism is not so self evident, neutral, apolitical, or unambiguous as it claims to be—even within the West. After an outline of our analytical approach below, we present our cases. In conclusion, we discuss further implications for the study of religion in IR.

How to analyze exactly what? We focus on secularism as a doctrine, not as a process. We do not explore the degree of secularization across different societies or the varying relationship between religion and state. We emphasize the competing principles involved in this relationship, i.e., varied notions of religion and politics and debates about drawing the “right” line between them. Often the term secularism designates those who favor secularization, sometimes with an “anti-religious” connotation. We reject this usage, as we

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want to imply by the term neither a general social aspiration for secularization, nor to oppose secularism to religion as such. We see secularism as a doctrine for “keeping religion in its place,” and especially for keeping religion out of politics. Thus, secularism can either be against religion or in favor of it, requiring only that religion be conceptualized in a way that keeps it out of politics. Different societies handle the relationship between religion/church and politics/state differently and deploy varying concepts of what might be called “separation,” secularism or laïcité. Although we focus particularly on the concept of secularism, we are interested (here) not in the history of that word, but in the politics of structuring the politics/religion relationship. Nonetheless, it is obvious that the concept of secularism and the process of secularization are related.3 Generally, a strongly secularized society will tend to find a political doctrine of secularism natural and unproblematic (Keddie 2003), while societies influenced by religious revivalism or immigrants of stronger—or different—religious convictions will tend to see it as politically controversial. Still, we do not want to reduce the process of secularism to being merely derivative of the doctrine. Rather, processes of secularism form a major political arena, a specific focus for conflict analysis and display a huge variation on their own. Therefore, we want to keep our focus as steadily as possible on secularism. The literature on secularism is not large. In IR, only a few authors have focused on its importance (Cady and Hurd 2010; Hurd 2001, 2004a, 2004b, 2007; Philpott 2002), including a few surveys (notably Fox 2008; Fox and Sandler 2004) on the separation of religion and state around the world. Most discussions tend to focus on state involvement in religion more than the regulation of religious influence on politics. Given the centrality of controversial questions such as whether politics can/should be conducted in isolation from religion, or whether the good society demands that society be shaped in accordance with religious ideas, it is unfortunate that most of the existing literature works chiefly in the opposite direction: from state to religion.4 Political theorists have contributed many valuable analyses of the religion – politics link. The American philosophical mainstream operates mostly in the shadow of John Rawls (1993), though Robert Audi (2000) has produced a compelling reformulation. The political theory tradition centers on what kinds of arguments should be allowed into the public sphere because they enable a rational discussion, and what arguments are inadmissible because they try to impose specific versions of the good life. A number of authors such as Berg-Sørensen (2004), William Connolly (1999), and Derrida and Vattimo (1998) challenge this framing of the question. They show, in turn, why it is impossible to uphold such regulations and why the attempt is harmful for political life. However, they remain concerned with the normative question of what can be justified by rational arguments and what cannot. Veit Bader (2003, 2008) comes closest to our interests when he recognizes the complexity of existing political roles of religion, approaching them comparatively, though the overarching agenda is still prescriptive.

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We are in search of a political theory that bridges the gap to the empirical literature. Thus, we cultivate the largely open terrain between political theory and the empirical study of secularism. We ask: what are the concepts that regulate the handling of religious influence on society and politics? Is there a guiding concept of secularism, laïcité or separation and if so, how is it constituted? What concepts of politics, religion and rationality does it draw on, and how does it operate as regulator? We find that separation means different things in different places. As pointed out by Talal Asad (1993, 2003), secularism depends on having abstract concepts of “religion” and “politics.” It was part of the secular operation to construct spheres called “politics” and “religion” and it is therefore misleading to view secularism as an “answer” to a pre-given question about the relationship between the two. Thus, religion and politics are conceived differently in distinct “secular” states. As Rajeev Bhargava (1998) has noted, “each country in the West has worked out a particular political compromise rather than implementing a solution uniquely required by the configuration of values embodied in secularism.” All the states we examine declare that they are “secular” because they have drawn a line between X and Y. But what does this mean?

Separation between what? State/church and or politics/religion? Which concept is trump?

What is regulated/limited?

Secularism as doctrine The line that separates politics (state) and religion (church)

Where is the line drawn? What is on the other side?

Figure 13.1

How to regulate? And by whom?

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Concretely, for each country we trace the historical emergence of the present order. We then focus on the forms adopted by current controversies: who fights with whom over what and how? Answering these questions illuminates what is seen as “problematic,” what is seen as critical and, more importantly, what is taken for granted. In this context, we do not need sophisticated criteria for source selection, because political debates are by their nature self-sorting: the most important struggles are those that get most attention. Since we are mapping a (fragile and unstable) boundary, it is naturally of particular interest to analyze public debates where influential groups claim that now “the boundary has been crossed,” even though such boundaries have no fixed or stable character. Nevertheless, the performative power of declaring and policing a line is strong, and deserves to be understood as precisely as possible.

Secularism across four countries France: laïcité as state religion? France is a classic republican case of strict separation of church and state, upheld by the principle of laïcité. Le Grand Robert dictionary (cited in Gunn 2004: 420) defines laïcité as a “political notion involving the separation of civil society and religious society, the state exercising no religious power and the churches (Églises) exercising no political power.” This is quite a clinical and symmetric formulation, considering that for much of its actual history, the concept was a banner cry for a rather intolerant anti-clerical policy in the nineteenth century (Holm 2004). In practice, laïcité was mainly about fighting the influence of both a particular religion and a particular religious institution (Baubérot 1998; Gunn 2004). Religion and politics are disassociated in many ways in France. However, the state intervenes whenever necessary to check the interference of the church. In general, direct relations between the state and the citizen as a religious being are avoided, and religiosity registered as a purely private matter. The privatization of religion is upheld by the rather unique idea that public religion would challenge the political constitution of the state. Laïcité is represented as the cornerstone of French republican identity and unfolded as part of the larger political project of the French Revolution. In contrast to Denmark and Germany, where this issue is governed by a narrow set of principles, secularism in France defines the entire project of the republic as a revolutionary nation. In a sense, religion stands as a philosophical question (Willaime 2003), since the basic republican conception of the state-nation constitutes all citizens as purely abstract members of the political nation. Without any intermediate collective layers, the state and its citizens relate directly to each other. Multiculturalism is irreconcilable with French republicanism, because identification with sub-societies stands in contrast to the constitution of the common will of the state-nation.

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The privatization of religion, characteristic of most secularisms, is particularly strong in the French case. Somewhat paradoxically, this has meant that the state has engaged actively with religion. Gunn (2004) notes that the concept of laïcité took shape during two phases: the five years following the Revolution of 1789 and 1879–1905. In the last phase, secularism became less strident, as was evident with the 1905 law on the separation of the churches and the state. This law stressed that the Republic ensures freedom of conscience, including freedom of religions, but most crucially, it “neither recognizes, nor pays, nor subsidizes any religion.” In practice, however, the law allowed certain religious institutions to use state-owned buildings. Also, state financing was allowed for church operations that were not “religious” in a narrow sense but that performed general public functions (charities, hospitals, nurseries, etc.; Robert 2003). The power of the state was thus not used to break up the Catholic Church; rather it allowed religious self-organization. In the French regulation of the religion–politics line, the public school has been a central arena: the instrument par excellence for entrenching the republican idea. France shares with the U.S. a special attention to schools, and therefore major struggles tend to revolve around school-related debates. Thus, issues such as the headscarf are evaluated through the abstract idea of citizenship: religious insignia prevent pupils from being abstract citizens, ruining proper state–citizen relations reinscribed through schools.5 Two recent issues illuminate the meaning of laïcité in France; the ban on headscarves and burkas and concerns about Muslim organizations. The headscarves controversy erupted in 1989 when three Muslim girls were barred from attending public schools because they insisted on wearing “Islamic” headscarves. A temporary solution was found after a ruling from the Council of State struck a balance between, on the one hand, the neutrality demanded of teachers and the school as an institution and, on the other hand, the freedom of conscience of the students. Although this arrangement worked relatively well, the controversy flared up again in 2003. Chirac and other leading politicians signaled a preference for a ban on “conspicuous religious insignia.” An expert group, the Stasi Commission, recommended a ban, and legislation was prepared and passed with overwhelming popular support. The Commission’s recommendations were based on the view that “normal rights” do not count in the face of special challenges, such as pressure on the girls from their families or the threat from Islamism (Gunn 2004: 456–79; Holm 2004; Jansen 2010). Public order was threatened by headscarves because they were interpreted as coerced— imposed by family and a militant ideology. Thus, the report was phrased in terms of “public order” or security, which allowed limits to be placed on absolute freedoms including that of religion. Talal Asad (2006) sees this as a case of the state defending its own personality and its competence to interpret the meaning of symbols regardless of the girls’ own motives. The report and legislation were criticized

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mostly for disregarding their reasons for wearing the headscarf, but when seeing it as a necessary political operation related to the self-constitution of the republic, this objection loses its relevance. President Sarkozy triggered a similar debate in a June 2009 speech, when he stated that the “Islamic burka is not welcome in France.” He justified his view with reference to women’s rights: “the burka is not a religious sign but a sign of subjection.” Opinion polls showed a majority supported limits on burkas mainly in relation to state institutions, but only one third for full prohibition (which became the eventual outcome). Paradoxically, strict laïcité should focus only on the situation where the burka comes between state and citizen, but Sarkozy circumvented this problem by sidestepping laïcité, treating this as a social issue, not a religious one. A second debate concerns the organization of Muslims in France. The French context makes it difficult to organize citizens into identity groups other than the common republican, but exceptions are made when the state finds a practical need for a “dialogue partner.” In practice, the recognized religions (the Catholic church, the largest Protestant churches, and the Jewish community) have been consultation partners in the organization of religious matters. Following this practice, Sarkozy (then Minster of Interior) established an organization, the Council for the Muslim Cult, as an official partner for the state in 2003. Jean Baubérot (2010) saw Sarkozy as activating an element of French tradition (not unlike American civil religion) that acknowledges the historical and cultural importance of Catholicism for France. Likewise, Muslims could be mobilized for social tasks; religiosity in the abstract is accepted for its social value, while avoiding identity categories in a political sense. Thus, a “liberal” form of laïcité stresses freedom of religion, equality and separation, while a hardcore laïcité emphasizes the abstract synthesis between state, citizen and public order. In sum, the French idea of secularism is defined through a strong idea about the state (rather than religion). The idea is to regulate the influence of the church/religion in order to prevent fragmentation of the state-nation. It is important to note that the French (and Danish) regulation of religion/ politics is done through political decisions/law in contrast to the American (and German), which takes place more often through the courts (and in civil society). Since religion is conceived of as a rival provider of identity, its ability to organize the citizens of the republic into sub-units must be restricted by the state. Multiculturalism is treated parallel to the pre-revolutionary l’ancien régime; both are opposed to a French political identity that can be protected only through containment of religion and promotion of abstract citizens. United States: secularism in a thoroughly religious society From one perspective the U.S. is the ideal case of separation. Fox and Sandler (2004) conclude their grand survey of state-church relationships with

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the finding that only the United States has fully separated church and state. However, by contrast with Denmark, where state-church bonds are strong, most observers regard the USA as rather non-secular, given the role religion plays in American politics (the key to Danish understandings, as we will see). Two key concepts define the U.S. idea of secularism: “non-establishment” and “wall of separation.” The first forbids a state-church, commonly interpreted as a prohibition against financial support to churches. The idea of “a wall” is more disputed, however, because it is based only on a letter from Thomas Jefferson, though frequently quoted since the High Court first applied it in the 1870s (Feldman 2006: 23). The most cited document in the U.S. arrangement is the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This principle of “non-establishment” was inspired, again, by Thomas Jefferson’s (2003 [1779]) bill for establishing religious freedom in Virginia. Importantly, this principle did not reflect a strong commitment to neutrality and tolerance (as current rhetoric would have it). The pilgrims wanted freedom for their own denomination, and few were shy about mobilizing state power for religious purposes. Only the moment of federation created worry about becoming subject to other denominations, leading to an embrace of Jefferson’s principle of non-establishment. Noah Feldman (2005: 26–33, 79) argues that the most powerful, principled argument was for liberty of conscience in a fundamental and theological sense. Only sincere faith would lead to salvation; therefore it could not be forced (by the state) on anyone against their conscience. Since the period around the American Revolution was obsessed with taxation, early churchstate debates focused on avoidance of enforced church taxation.6 In contrast to the French case, religion appears in various symbolic ways in the state and the political sphere, for example, the currency engraved with “In God we trust” since the 1860s (becoming the official motto of the United States in 1956), Congress beginning its sessions with a prayer, and most controversial, the pledge of allegiance which acknowledges God (since 1954; cf. Gunn 2004: 479–502).7 Nonetheless, the religion/politics arrangement has been tested on several occasions throughout U.S. history. Some of the earliest controversies concerned Thanksgiving Day and Sunday mail (Feldman 2006: 53–6), but the largest debates were, as in France, about schools. The idea that schools should produce citizens capable of carrying through the republican experiment was also at play there. However, the conclusions drawn were often the opposite of those in France: for instance, biblical reading in public schools started in the early nineteenth century and continued until the 1960s. The belief was that morality could be ensured through religion; and since schools could not teach religion (which would be unconstitutional), the ideal solution was to teach the Bible itself! Naturally, this was very much a Protestant perspective and problematic to the few Jews, fewer atheists and most importantly the Catholics (who objected both to the translation used and the premise of unmediated access to the text).

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The “wall of separation” idea was increasingly mobilized after World War II, as the courts became concerned about the protection of minority rights and segregation. This “legal secularism” demanded that arrangements concerning religion be neutral. Thus, the High Court systematically tried to remove religion from all state arrangements that could be regarded as discriminatory by minorities. The doctrine of “legal secularism” was not initially seen as a threat to (Protestant) religion since religiosity thrived in civil society (Feldman 2006). With the race-question and the Holocaust experience, religion was molded in a more inclusive direction. The U.S. tradition was redefined as “JudeoChristian” and religion became a more abstract pillar of society, a basis for morality and patriotism rather than sectarianism. Remarkably, protection of minorities went hand in hand with the mobilization of religion as a pillar of society, a combination that was made possible by a focus on the value of religiosity. Therefore, courts upheld the constitutionality of God’s presence in pledges and ceremonies as moral and patriotic, and thereby religiously neutral. During the 1960’s “legal secularism” radicalized; demands grew that religious symbols be kept out of politics and public places. This development gave rise to the new religious right (e.g., the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition), that projected an image of an onslaught by a secularist elite. In the ensuing cultural wars, both sides see themselves as defending a specific arrangement of religion/state against a dangerous counterpart. The polarization and war terminology is understandable, because both parties see a mortal threat to the basic, American order. In practice, however, many conflicts, like those between proponents of evolution and creationism/ intelligent design, often evolve into societal stand-offs, where a school board imposes one arrangement and is consequently overturned in the next election period and so on (Al-Hibri et al. 2001). Much is fought out and in practice managed in civil society. In the United States, emphasis is on church/state more than religion/ politics, and it is more about state non-involvement in religion than viceversa. Though most foreign observers note the great visibility of religion in American politics, many Americans remain ambivalent about its use in politics. Austin Dacey (2003) notes that a majority of Americans believe it appropriate for public officials to rely on their faith when thinking about policy decisions. Yet, when confronted with actual religious statements by politicians, many feel uncomfortable. This might explain why expresident George W. Bush spoke to his religious hinterland largely in coded terms (e.g., Lincoln 2006). He used phrases that echoed biblical quotations favored among born-again Christians (yet unnoticed by the biblically illiterate), but he rarely justified a specific policy line in ways that could be traced back to his particular branch of belief (cf. Barnes 2003; Keller 2003; Wright 2004; VandeHei 2004). Clearly, despite the new religious right’s challenges to the strict wall logic, even “their” president bowed to a

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powerful norm of secularism regulating political speech. In practice, Bush simply upgraded the generalized value of religiosity as morality, but did not draw direct political conclusions from religious premises, all largely in line with the pattern of the 1950s and 1960s. In sum, the idea(s) of secularism in the United States involve separating church from state in order to allow religious difference. By the mid-twentieth century, secularism evolved to entail a rights-based problem facing the state in a multi-religious and multicultural society. However, the nonestablishment issue, where each church fears that another may gain state support, is center stage. This fear explains the wide margin of tolerance for including religious rhetoric in politics and even in the symbolic representations of the state. Today, the U.S. population splits evenly on whether distinct religions should be kept out of the political sphere in order to defend a “wall of separation.” Many controversies around religion/politics reflect that the line between religion and politics is negotiated by multiple actors, but, relative to most other countries, the courts have played a particularly strong role in defining the specific content of secularism. Germany: religious dualism and state inclusiveness In contrast to France, the German case is influenced by a religious, not a political, revolution (Willaime 2003), namely the Reformation. Because the majority Christian population is almost evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants, the main political question has not been how to secure political autonomy (from religion), but how to organize/divide political power in a society divided by two equally influential religious groups. Unlike France, the church-state relationship has not been overly confrontational, but instead involves major elements of mutual support. German secularism was meant to deal with confessional dualism and is distinguished by having a state-church law (Staatskirchenrecht) that grants the religious communities a high degree of autonomy, especially in the fields of religious education, taxation and welfare, where the church is conceived of as partner of the state. The German constitution guarantees that religious communities can administer their affairs without interference by the state. The Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530) and the subsequent Peace of Augsburg (1555) established an arrangement of religious territorialism. To settle tensions between the two main religious communities, the principle of dividing political power according to the religious homogeneity of territory (cuis regio, eius religio) was applied within Germany, where the regional level had a high degree of autonomy (then: sovereignty). When Germany was united, religious dualism remained part of the power constellation, though Bismarck criticized Catholic influence. However, contrary to France, where modernity and democracy have mainly been seen as processes of emancipation from religion/Catholicism, modernity and the building of democracy in Germany has been considered to be a process where religion

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played an active role. The German Aufklärung was less hostile to religion than the French Lumières (Willaime 2003) given that religion—due to the Reformation—was seen as capable of change and progression. Exactly because theological struggles and religious reforms played such a key role in German history, change became widely seen as co-produced by debates in different registers, including theology. Today, church representatives and theologians from different faith communities play an important role in public debates and participate in formal democratic institutions such as ethics commissions or political advisory bodies. Germany has also been the scene of fierce resistance against religion both by Nazis and communists which de-legitimized anti-religion. Today, the sister parties CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic/Social Union of Germany) constitute the largest political party in Germany, having adherents among both Catholics and Protestants. The internal debates within Christian democratic parties illustrate how it is possible to be religiously inspired and still have a political foundation for politics. At the same time, the main competitor, the Social Democrats, have formulated a secular societal order (together with intellectuals and media representatives) without basing it on hostility towards the churches. Although German law does not recognize a state church, the major Christian denominations, the Jewish congregations and other religious organizations, are recognized as public law corporations and enjoy status as “public benefit” organizations. The churches are thus active social welfare providers and heavily subsidized by the state. Together the two churches are the second largest employers (after the public sector) in Germany (Barker 2004). All of this requires that religious organization be official and transparent. Thus, in contrast to the prohibition in the U.S., France and Denmark, a child’s religious affiliation appears on his/her birth certificate in Germany. Church affiliation sorts students into appropriate religion classes (either Lutheran Protestantism or Catholicism and organized by the churches). It can be difficult for children of other religious persuasions to receive instruction in their own faith in schools dominated by the two main religions. Parents can opt out of religious education for their children and place them instead in courses on ethics or philosophy. In dominant political discourse, religious education in schools is not seen as a concession to religion, but a state-sanctioned recognition of the valuable contributions of religion to educating children about citizenship in a pluralistic and democratic society. During the last few years, heavy debate has begun about offering public religious instruction for Muslims since they form the largest minority religious group in the country. Islamic instruction has already been tested in those federal states with a significant number of Muslim pupils. The challenge in relation to the Muslim minority is also visible in relation to taxation. The right to levy a church tax is unique and thus a disputed privilege for mainly religious (and few non-religious humanitarian)

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communities recognized as public law cooperations. The two main churches have an arrangement with the state to collect the tax on their behalf. To avoid this tax, Germans must formally declare to leave the church, forfeiting the right to be married and buried by it. This poses a challenge for Muslims and other minority faith communities who are not as well organized as the Christian or Jewish groups, but nevertheless aspire to similar privileges. Germany also experiences political battles over the status of religion in national identity. The central role of religion in German history makes it natural to refer to the Christian roots of contemporary German society. The German concept of “nation” is based on “people, history, and culture”. Therefore, it is especially important to define what this culture is and where it came from. Debates concerning immigration and multiculturalism culminate in a discussion of Leitkultur (a “leading” or “core” culture). For instance, when in October 2010, President Christian Wulf, on the celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the German reunion, stated that Islam belongs to Germany, like Christianity and Judaism, many leading politicians reacted by stressing that the German Leitkultur is JudeoChristian not Islamic (Die Zeit, 7 Oct. 2010). Despite public controversies about the status of Islam, the religion/politics line is, as in France and the United States, largely negotiated in discussions about religious symbols in the public sphere. Atheists and Muslims frequently criticize the visibility of the crucifix in courtrooms and the Muslim headscarf is a controversial issue as in other European countries. However, the German approach consistently addresses these cases as questions of rights, especially freedom of religion. Thus, the two strongest arguments in the German debate about religion–politics are historical and rights-based. While the first explains the (for Europe) unique receptivity towards the modernity–religion synthesis, the second explains why the outcome of German debates is more about how to facilitate minority religions (though not without controversies) than about how to restrict religion as such. Compared to France, the “freedom of religion” consideration is far more powerful than references to public order. In sum, in the case of Germany organized religions are recognized as legitimate political institutions and partners of the state in contributing to the public good. While the religious and secular spheres are differentiated, the public space is shaped by a close connection between the two. The religio-historical roots of German society are related to the idea of secularism through the definition of the nation. The idea is often applied to enhance cultural assimilation of minority groups. However, against this tendency, legal rights serve as stronger arguments in Germany than do philosophical principles. In contrast to France, there are few references to the general identity of the state or the idea that religion should be kept out of politics (as in both France and Denmark). Rather, it is the practical religion/state arrangements (financial support, education, and symbols) that are regulated and historically this regulation has been supportive more than restrictive

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of minority religions. Since freedom of religion is a very strong argument in the German context, the main actors, the courts, take a rights-based approach (like the U.S.), but cooperative political arrangements that define the role and practical authority of the different belief communities are also important. Denmark: trinity of secularism, nationalism and Christianity Denmark is a case of close state–church relations. Especially since the Protestant Reformation in 1536, the Danish church has been subservient to the state, which used the school system to spread Lutheran dogma (Lausten 1999). As the state eventually embraced freedom of religion (1849) and increased local control over the church (1903, 1912), the national “Evangelical–Lutheran” church (the “people’s church”) continued to be privileged with ultimate control of church ministry, a church tax collected by the state, university education of priests, official functions related to birth registration administered by the local churches, and the demand that the monarch be a church member. Despite having a de facto state church, Denmark is paradoxically one of the most secularized societies in the world, e.g., in terms of percentage of the populace who define themselves as believers or even more clearly when measured through church attendance.8 Striking, then, is the principled Danish resistance to any public role for religion. Although institutionally linked and therefore not secular in American style measurements, the Danish norm of avoiding religion in politics is exceptionally strong. More surprising, tightened control of religious argument in politics coexists with the increased role of religion in defining national identity. Such paradoxes ease when we realize that the Danish debate emphasizes controlling and restraining the influence of religion over politics and treats the state-controlled national church as part of the secular order that prohibits religion in public life. This political arrangement has gone hand in hand with the growing popular support for anti-immigrant political parties that have succeeded in presenting the “foreigner” (increasingly meaning “the Muslim”) as an existential threat to Danishness. Analyses of the Danish public political debate during the last decade show that arguments labeled religious are expelled from the political sphere by popular consensus (Sheikh 2004; Wæver 2004). The rule is upheld in general vis-à-vis all confessions (Rude 2004). “Normal” Protestant Danes are usually not vocal (Catholics more so), which follows from the invisibility of majority religious ideas. What testifies most to the successful internalization of secularist norms is the self-control exhibited by the small Christian Democratic Party (Wæver 2004). Still, the doctrine has clearly been used most enthusiastically against Muslims. Having a Muslim creed earns bottom marks on the scale of Danishness, as Danishness is increasingly framed in opposition to being Muslim. In Denmark the debate on Muslims in particular and ethnic

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minorities in general has topped the national-political agenda through several elections. Skepticism against immigrants increased gradually during the 1990s and accelerated by 9/11, when debates came to focus on religion as the source of problems of social integration, political reliability and ultimately dangers of violence. Recent work shows the Danish parliament uniformly treating religion as dangerous, whereas the Swedish parliament mostly referred to religion as a resource (Christensen 2010). Religious arguments are contrasted to democratic conversation and reason and described as a form of absolutism.9 The existing religion/politics arrangement in Demark has recently come under some pressure, especially regarding state privileging of the national church. Legal scholars increasingly note that the Danish arrangement may prove unsustainable given emerging European standards (Christoffersen 2004a, 2004b, 2004c; Espersen 1999). Very little discussion moves “in the opposite direction,” either questioning or rethinking the de facto prohibition on religious arguments in politics. Quite to the contrary, this doctrine has only hardened over the past few years, especially given the post-9/11 context. This process unfolded in synergy with the debate on immigrants. In the 1990s, it became necessary to specify and spell out what exactly the principles threatened by immigration were. Although the general climate has been more hostile to immigrants than in most surrounding countries, Danish opinion makers have become increasingly aware that purely chauvinist/xenophobic arguments are illegitimate and must be developed with reference to some legitimate principle. The need for principled defense of restrictive immigration policies stimulated an intensification of a conceptual package of secularism, democracy and gender equality. The cartoon crisis of 2005 was partly a product of this spirit of mobilization on basic principles and it in turn contributed to this since the debate focused on freedom of expression and self-censorship. The cartoons were commissioned as reaction to a media story about the author Kåre Bluitgen, who allegedly could not get anyone to portray the Prophet Muhammad for his new book on Islam. In the Danish context, the key words became democracy and free speech. These principles were framed against Muslim religious sentiments “demanding a special status.”10 This episode cultivated an alliance between secular intellectuals and right wing politicians, including a few Christian priests, united against what they perceived as the common threat from Muslim fundamentalism. But they also united around the belief that European culture (including Christianity), in contrast to Islam, knows how to keep religious influence/feelings out of the public sphere.11 Thus, it remains paradoxical that the critique of the Muslim merging of religion and the public sphere increasingly involved Danish priests and theologians (Sheikh and Crone 2011). In the 2000s, leading politicians called Denmark to a “value debate,” in which former Minister of Cultural Affairs, Brian Mikkelsen, launched the controversial idea of a national culture canon in 2004. He immediately invoked the idea

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of a national consciousness about “Danishness” that, according to his view, was becoming increasingly fuzzy. The central challenge, according to the Minister, was related to the ideology of multiculturalism. Shortly after his introduction of the culture canon, the Minister called for cultural rearmament against fundamentalism. Following the turn to a debate about “principles” affected by immigration, there have also been strong attempts to define “our values.” A tension helps to sharpen our understanding of the Danish form of secularism. Danish values might include a historicized role for Christianity as central to “who we are” or rather “how we came to be who we are” and the view that any explicit justification of policies today with reference to religion is seen as the ultimate danger. The code-word for the religious justification has been “special rights,” where a main worry is that the secular order is threatened as soon as any group can gain special treatment on religious grounds. That the dominant arrangement (e.g., national holidays) has religious roots is not part of this problem. The central arena is the protection of what counts as legitimate political reasons, and here the progressive, liberal, gender conscious, and free order is predicated on total avoidance of any special rights on the basis of religion. Against the tendency to discuss “separation” of church/religion and state/ politics as one general issue, the Danish case shows how it is possible to be “un-secular” in terms of state institutions and yet “religiously” secular on politics. The influence of religion on anything beyond a very narrowly conceived individual or inner-church remit is tightly regulated and an informal order guards against influence in political debates. This boundary regulation is upheld by a strong consensus in the public sphere and public intellectuals play a visible role vis-à-vis politicians and paradoxically, theologians and priests. While religion is conceived of as a private matter (in accord with especially Protestant Christianity and in contrast to Muslimness), politics is seen in terms of rational conversation apart from religion or other metaphysical arguments. Thus, both religion and politics are constructed narrowly, and the problem in practice is not only the “overlap” but also the gap between them—i.e., the difficulty in public debate of dealing with “ethical” questions (bio-ethics, for instance) or anything else that sounds the least metaphysical or existential. The appropriation of secularism as a condensation point for conflict follows on from the simultaneity in the Danish case of inclusion of a Christian history as part of national identity, the high degree of secularization of society and strict adherence to the principle of religion-free political debates.

Conclusions: how political secularisms affect IR practice The “geocultural” variations summed up in Table 13.1 demonstrate that there is a mismatch between the dominant intellectual IR discourse on secularism and the political practice of secularism within the “West.”

Both state/church and politics/religion, often society/church

A strong concept of state and state-nation

Influence from church on state, politics, and society. Fragmentation of nation state, where citizens become sub-collectives qua particular identity

Threats to the public order and to republican identity

Which concept is organizing?

What is regulated/ limited?

Where is the line drawn?

France

Separation of what?

Table 13.1

The concepts of nation (“Danishness”) and religion (as distinct danger)

Politics/religion, especially to protect politics against religion

Denmark

Threats to national cohesion and “Danish” democracy (including gender equality and freedom of speech). In practice the line is drawn at the doorstep of private houses and religious buildings

Legal and practical Special status of religion in arrangements to the public and religious balance concerns, demands/arguments in protecting the individual political/public life. rights of all Politics is protected from religion

Violation of freedom Violation of freedom of religion. For about of religion and half the population national culture any “mix” of religion and state is against the “wall of separation”

Presence of religion in state activities. Religiosity is protected from state power, not least on behalf of competing religions

The concept of culture (defined by religion)

Pragmatic, functional separation of politics and religion; not of the institutions state and church

State/church (and for some: state/religion)

The state-concept; in a sea of religiosity, delineating the state is the challenge

Germany

United States

L‘Ancien Regime (France before 1789) and multiculturalism. USA/England are on the other side

By the state through laws

What is on the other side?

How is it regulated and by who?

By state and society in a complex constellation (politicians, courts, churches, school boards, etc.)

“Establishment” of state church is counter pole

The religion/state-relation By courts through the by legislation but balancing of rights. Corporative political religion/politics by popular consensus/ processes regulate the concrete role of specific influential opinion belief communities makers (media, politicians, intellectuals, priests)

Violation of freedom of Cultural relativism religion is what should (multiculturalism) and be avoided theocracy/sharia

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Whereas International Relations upholds a concept of secularism as apolitical and as the “simple” idea of a separation, political practice shows the variability, complexity, and deep normativity of a concept that is often treated as if it was a neutral principle. We believe our comparative analysis shows the radical absence of a “core” to secularism. The variations also point to implications for future research: how the scholarly practice of IR—despite its embrace of the idea of a uniform doctrine—is itself shaped by the larger political discourses of countries. Since the particular configuration of secularism also structures the relationship between the social sciences and religion in each of the countries, a comparative view reveals academic variations too. In each country there is some distinction between what is often conceived of as the secular and more scientific study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions (the outsider approach) and theology, which is often conceived of as the insiders’ attempt to make sense of religious doctrine and practice. Countrywide variations can help explain IR research patterns. In France, the public university system, consistent with the idea of laïcité, has kept the study of theology separate from the state university system since 1885. The study of religion has developed in close connection with the social sciences (especially with sociological and historical approaches). For a French scholar in IR (ignoring for now the peculiar status of the discipline in France; Breitenbauch forthcoming), taking an interest in religion would imply a sociological approach. To engage with theology and the implicit theology of IR would be challenging in this context due to both the denigration of theology and the weak disciplinary identity of International Relations. In the United States, religious studies have long been an arena for internal fights. Strong voices push for reducing any gap between religion and science, by adopting approaches and methods from humanities (anthropology, philosophy, history, etc.). Opposing voices insist upon the right of religion (and the study of it) to remain religious, not subordinated to an Enlightenment agenda. Although theological education can only be received in seminaries, theological colleges, or divinity schools that are either run as independent organizations or part of private universities, theology still enjoys some sense of scientific respectability at the popular divinity schools at Yale or Harvard University. The American academic landscape invites— compared to France—a more philosophical and self-reflective secularity discussion, and we have indeed seen political scientists and a few International Relationists (e.g., Elizabeth Hurd and Daniel Philpott) engaging with religion in ways that question the assumptions of IR and its handling of different kinds of reason. Because theology and political philosophy have connections and the social study of religion contains religious voices, these important tensions are more easily imported into parts of IR, though the strong rationalist and scientific impulses in American IR give limited access of this kind of study to mainstream journals and institutions.

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In the German case, where public universities offer instructive or faith based courses in mostly Protestant or Roman Catholic theology, the study of religion is not particularly controversial. Recent debates on the configuration of theology departments in Germany suggest that the main concern is not religious normativity (as opposed to science) but the potential discrimination against other faith communities. Like the German narrative about secularism, the issues discussed concern the ability of the German theology departments to face the multi-religious reality of the country. For IR, this quite “religion friendly” atmosphere in public universities has surprisingly not generated that much work on religion or religious selfreflection, possibly because the issue has become narrowly “professionalized” and thus been more distant from IR. Also, the lack of the classical pro-et-con tension over religion/rationality has perhaps spurred less selfquestioning. The quite practical attitude of Germans has led to work mostly on institutional arrangements, legal–political management and minority issues. The Danish public university system, like the United States, has embraced the tension between theology and the social scientific study of religion, though it was not until the nineteenth century that theology lost its central position in the faculty structure. Unlike France, the struggle between theology/science is taken up within the university. With the establishment of sociology of religion as the “critical” studies of religion in the 1970s, new tensions and debates about the relationship between science and religion arose since the idea of secularization dominated this new field. Especially among the history/sociology of religion environments in Copenhagen, there remains skepticism about theology’s presence in the university system and the two environments have little interaction, organized in their own scholarly associations and with their own journals. Interestingly, Denmark exhibits an entirely different trend. At the second largest university at Aarhus, the science of religion and theology is now found in the same faculty. In Aarhus, the fields divide along Christian–non-Christian religions (as in Germany), whereas a divide between religious–non-religious modes of studying operates in Copenhagen. From the 1940s to the 1970s, theology was the home of many leading intellectuals who played a strong role in broader social, political, and philosophical debates. Possibly, this derived from the centrality of a few towering figures in theology in the nineteenth century intellectual and political history of the country. However, this link seems to have faded through the last 30 years with secularization of the public sphere, but less so in the academic arena. For IR, this means, on the one hand, that it typically embraces more sociologically and historically oriented ways of addressing religion. On the other hand, it is not disconnected from more philosophical and theological scholarship that warns against socio-reductionism. This very study was produced in the Copenhagen IR environment (across a generational gap), which could indicate that Denmark stimulates critical assessments of doctrinal aspects of

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religion—including “one’s own”—in IR research. Fortunately, the Western IR community cannot escape from being hit by a globalization allowing “foreign” concepts (including those emerging from other parts of the West) to slowly enter our own analytical repertoire. This study is an expression of precisely that.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this article was presented as “Lines in Water and Sand: Comparative Secularism as Analytical Tool for Conflict Containment” at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), in Honolulu, Hawaii on March 1–5, 2005. That paper contained not only more countries (Turkey, Pakistan), but also went more into the conflict resolution potential. We intend to publish another article developing the political and strategic rationale of “comparative secularism,” while the present version has expanded on the “worlding beyond the West” implications. We would like to thank Ingvar Sejr Hansen for extensive research assistance on the 2005 paper; Asger Petersen for much help on this chapter; our discussant at the Hawaii ISA, Yosef Lapid; the editors of this book; and many others for the way they have commented, criticized, inspired and influenced our arguments over the last few years. 2 Under breaking headlines announcing the “De-secularization of the World” (Berger 1999), the “Return from Exile” (Hatzopoulos and Petito 2003), or the “Revenge of God” (Keppel 1995), scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds have noticed that religion has made a comeback on the world scene. One of the best overviews in IR is found in Scott Thomas’s dramatically titled 2005 book, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations. In 2011, dramatization of resurgence is still celebrated in book titles such as God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (Toft et al. 2011). 3 Different definitions of secularization emphasize to various degrees two main dimensions: 1) “decline of religious beliefs and practices among individuals”; and 2) “the long-term historical processes of social differentiation and the emancipation of the secular spheres (state, capitalist economy, science, and so on) from religious institutions and norms; and the concomitant relegation of religion to its own greatly reduced and delimited sphere” (Casanova 2003: 17). The combined result is, in any case, “the diminution of the social significance of religion” (Casanova 2003: 17). On concepts of secularization, see also Berger (1969), Casanova (1994), Dobbelaere (1999), Martin (2003), Stark (1999), and Swatos and Christiano (1999). 4 We can think of a number of reasons for this tendency: the task for both policy literature and legal studies to examine discrimination and fairness, and the contingent structure of the two dominant theories of religion (secularization theory and the market theory of competing providers). See Sheikh and Wæver (2005). 5 This is very different than in the case of Germany, where the headscarf is discussed on the background of individual rights or in Denmark where the worry about headscarves in school would mostly be phrased as a question of civic socialization: can they have the needed openness for Danish values while they wear headscarves at school? 6 The debates were about whether it would be all right if the American chose which church to pay or whether it in every case was an insult to individual liberty rights.

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7 The pledge of allegiance was invented in the 1890s, but only in 1954 was “one nation under God” added (Gunn 2004). In 2000, a court in California ruled in favor of an atheist appeal against the use of the oath in public schools. The decision was condemned by many influential politicians, including George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton (Gunn 2004: 419). Nearly over-ruled by Congress, the verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court, so it remains constitutional for schools to conduct a flag oath that includes “one nation under God.” 8 A large-scale survey of “the values of the Danes” revealed that they were generally quite similar to the rest of Europe. The one striking exception was that Danes were markedly less religious (Gundelach 2002). 9 When arguments are expelled from public debate charged for being irrational, it is otherwise presumed to have a rational character. The discrimination of “religious” arguments happens despite the fact that multiple forms of argumentation co-exist de facto in public debates. Hence, it is actually a special prohibition against religious argument that is dressed up as a general high standard of rational conversation. 10 The often-cited editorial remark by Flemming Rose that followed the publication of the 12 cartoons in Jyllandsposten was also a reaction of this sort, stating that “The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They are demanding a special status, when they insist on special consideration for their own religious feelings. This is irreconcilable with a temporal democracy and freedom of speech, where one must be ready to accept insults, mockery and ridicule” [Our translation]. See Rose (2010). 11 This went so far that another canon, “the democracy canon,” included Martin Luther (or rather “the Reformation”) as one of 35 steps towards our current democracy—despite all that Luther actually said on people and rulers, because Lutheranism is celebrated for its limitation of both church power and earthly perfection.

References Al-Hibri, Azizah Y., Jean B. Elshtain and Charles C. Haynes (2001) Religion in American Public Life: Living with Our Deepest Differences, New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Asad, Talal (1993) Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. —— (2003) Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. —— (2006) “Trying to Understand French Secularism,” in Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan (eds), Political Theologies. Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 494–526. Audi, Robert (2000) Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bader, Veit (2003) “Religious Pluralism, Politics, and the State,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 6(1), special issue: 1–237. —— (2008) Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Barker, Christine R. (2004) “Church and State: Lessons from Germany?,” The Political Quarterly, 75(29): 168–76. Barnes, Fred (2003) “God and Man in the Oval Office,” Online. Available HTTP: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/335uuffd.asp (accessed 11 April 2011).

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Baubérot, Jean (1998) “The Two Thresholds of Laïcization,” in Rajeev Bhargava (ed), Secularism and Its Critics, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 94–136. Berger, Peter L. (1969) The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, New York: Doubleday. —— (1999) The Desecularization of the World, Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center. Berg-Sørensen, Anders (2004) Paradiso – Diaspora: Reframing the Question of Religion in Politics, Copenhagen: Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Bhargava, Rajeev (1998) “Introduction,” in Rajeev Bhargava (ed), Secularism and Its Critics, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–30. Breitenbauch, Henrik Ø (forthcoming) Gallic Genre/American Speciality: The International Relations Discipline in France, book manuscript submitted to Routledge. Cady, Linell E. and Elisabeth S. Hurd (2010) Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Caputo, John D. (2001) On Religion, London: Routledge. Casanova, José (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —— (2003) “Beyond European and American Exceptionalisms: Towards a Global Perspective,” in Grace Davie, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (eds), Predicting Religion: Christian, Secular and Alternative Futures, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 17–29. Christoffersen, Lisbet (2004a) “Church Autonomy – en religionsretlig udfordring til Norden,” Retfærd: Nordisk juridisk tidsskrift, 27(4): 87–108. —— (2004b) “Forskel og Lighed i dansk religionsret – tre retspolitiske udfordringer,” in Religionsfrihet för alla? Uppsala: Nordiska Ekumeniska Rådet, pp. 41–52. —— (2004c) “Religion og ret i det 21. århundrede,” Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.catholica.dk/fileadmin/Catholica_files/1020/catholica.dk_1020–07.12.2004Lisbet_Christoffersen-Religion_og_ret_i_det%2021._aarhundrede.pdf (accessed 11 April 2011). Connolly, William (1999) Why I am Not a Secularist, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Dacey, Austin (2003) “How secularism lost its soul,” Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/Articles/austin/secularism_soul.htm (accessed 11 April 2011). Derrida, Jacques and Gianni Vattimo (1998) Religion, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dobbelaere, Karel (1999) “Towards an Integrated Perspective of the Processes Related to the Descriptive Concept of Secularization,” Sociology of Religion, 60(3): 229–48. Espersen, Ole (1999) The Right to Freedom of Religion and Religious Association: A Survey with Recommendations, Copenhagen: Council of the Baltic Sea States. Euben, Roxanne L. (1999) Enemy in the Mirror. Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Feldman, Noah (2006) Divided by God. America’s Church–State Problem – And What we Should do about it, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Fox, Jonathan (2008) A World Survey of Religion and the State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fox, Jonathan and Schmuel Sandler (2004) “World Separation of Religion and State in the Twenty First Century,” paper presented at annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Montreal, March 17–20. Gundelach, Peter (2002) Danskernes værdier: 1981–1999, Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Gunn, Jeremy (2004) “Religious Freedom and Laïcité: A Comparison of the United States and France,” Brigham Young University Law Review, 1(2): 419–506. Hatzopoulos, Pavlos and Fabio Petito (2003) Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Holm, Ulla (2004) Den franske republik og det muslimske slør, Copenhagen: DIIS. Hurd, Elisabeth S. (2001) “Towards a Postsecular Alternative: Secularism and Political Islam in Historical and Relational Context,” paper presented at the Middle East History and Theory Conference, University of Chicago, Chicago, May 11–12. —— (2004a) “The International Politics of Secularism: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Alternatives, 29(2): 115–38. —— (2004b) “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations, 10(2): 235–63. —— (2007) The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jansen, Yolande (2010) “Secularism of Security: France, Islam, and Europe” in Linell E. Cady and Elisabeth. S. Hurd (eds), Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age, Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 69–86. Jefferson, Thomas (2003 [1779]) “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” Dædalus, 132(3): 49–50. Keddie, Nikki R. (2003) “Secularism and Its Discontents,” Dædalus, 132(3): 14–31. Keller, Bill (2003) “How Religion Influences the President,” International Herald Tribune, May 19, p. 8. Keppel, Gilles (1995) The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, London: Polity Press. Lausten, Martin S. (1999) Kirkens historie i Danmark: Pavekirke-KongekirkeFolkekirke, Århus: Landsforeningen af Menighedsrådsmedlemmer. Lincoln, Bruce (2006) Holy Terrors. Thinking about Religion after September 11, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Martin, David (2003) “On Secularization and its Prediction: A Self-Examination,” in Grace Davie, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (eds), Predicting Religion: Christian, Secular and Alternative Futures, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 30–9. Philpott, Daniel (2002) “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations,” World Politics, 55(1): 66–95. Rawls, John (1993) Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press. Robert, Jaques (2003) “Religious Liberty and French Secularism,” Brigham Young University Law Review, 1(2): 637–60. Rose, Flemming (2010) Tavshedens tyranny, Copenhagen: Jyllandspostens Forlag. Rude, Andreas (2004) “Kirkens Stemme,” Politiken, November 2, pp. 7–8. Sheikh, Mona K. (2004) “The Enlightened Intolerance” in Trine R. Andersen, Kirsten Dufour, Tone O. Nielsen and Anja Raithel (eds) Minority Report – Challenging Intolerance in Denmark, Indonesia: CTO, pp. 18–27.

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Sheikh, Mona K. and Manni Crone (2011) “Muslims as Danish Security Issues,” in Jørgen S. Nielsen (ed), Islam in Denmark, New York: Lexington Books. Sheikh, Mona K. and Ole Wæver (2005) “Lines in Water and Sand: Comparative Secularism as Analytical Tool for Conflict Containment,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Honolulu, Hawaii, March 1–5. Stark, Rodney (1999) “Secularization, R.I.P.,” Sociology of Religion, 60(3): 249–74. Swatos Jr., William H. and Kevin J. Christiano (1999) “Secularization Theory: The Course of a Concept,” Sociology of Religion, 60(3): 209–28. VandeHei, Jim (2004) “Kerry Keeps his Faith in Reserve,” Washington Post, 16 July: A01. Wæver, Ole (2004) “Politikkens paradoksale tro,” in Vita Andreasen, Kaj Bollmann, Hans R. Iversen and Jørgen A. Jørgensen (eds), Tro i Tiden: Dansk Kirkeliv 2004, Copenhagen: Landsforeningen af Menighedsrådsmedlemmer, Aarhus, pp. 73–78. —— (2011) “Komparativ sekularisme – en forskningsdagsorden med konfliktmodererende potentiale,” Politica, 43(2): 163–85. Willaime, Jean-Paul (2003) “Religion, State and Society in Germany and France,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia, August 15. Williams, Michael C. (1998) “Security and the Politics of Identity,” European Journal of International Relations, 4(2): 204–25. Wright, Robert (2004) “Faith, Hope and Clarity,” New York Times, October 28, p. 29.

Part E

The international

14 Contrived boundaries, kinship and ubuntu A (South) African view of “the international”1 Karen Smith Introduction Africa’s history, more than that of any other continent, has been characterized by various forms of external interference, ranging from slavery, colonialism and, more recently, the effects of globalization. The enduring face of the outside world in Africa includes slave traders, missionaries, foreign aid workers, the structural adjustment policies of the IMF, UN peacekeepers and Coca-Cola, among others. However, it is arguably the overwhelming legacy of colonialism that continues to dominate African understandings of the international sphere. In relation to this are contemporary claims of neo-colonialism and what has been called the “new scramble for Africa” by existing great powers and emerging ones such as China. Tied to the former debate are questions concerning Africa’s place in the global system, including its marginalization and whether it has any agency in responding to external pressures. Within the context described, this chapter will attempt to provide some glimpses into African perceptions and experiences of the “international.” These are by no means homogenous. Multiple and divergent views exist, depending on where one is placed, and tensions between different readings will be highlighted. My overview begins with Africa’s encounters with foreign cultures, moving on to an examination of the futility of constructed boundaries (both physical and epistemological). In particular, I argue that in the context of Africa, the distinction between domestic and international factors made by mainstream International Relations (IR) theories is artificial and largely irrelevant. Of course, this argument does not only apply to Africa, and many critical scholars have pointed out the questionability of such an arbitrary dividing line for the study of IR in general. As MacLean (2001: 150) notes, however, given the preponderance of the fluidity between national and international politics in Africa, it would seem that the continent provides scholars with a wealth of analytical content that can assist in enriching our understanding of the changes currently taking place in the world. This is important, for part of the motivation for exploring African and other non-Western readings of existing IR concepts is to gain

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new insights that can enrich our understanding of international relations in general. Finally, the chapter ends with an exploration of the African worldview of ubuntu. The rationale is that, besides exploring African rearticulations of Western concepts, another way to facilitate the inclusion of Africa as an object of study and Africans as potential agents of IR knowledge is to explore local concepts that may not be found in Western discourses. Before continuing, it is important to take note of some of the obstacles faced in writing about African perceptions of the international. First, to do so assumes the existence of unitary states as a given, which in the African context is particularly problematic. This will be discussed in greater detail below. Second, in distinguishing between African, Asian, Western and so forth, views, one must guard against the implicit assumption that there exists homogeneity of thought based on the geographical origins of the scholar. Mbembe’s point that “what is called Africa is first and foremost a geographical accident that we subsequently invest with a multitude of significations, diverse imaginary contents, or even fantasies, which, by force of repetition, end up becoming authoritative narratives” (quoted in Höller 2002) proves instructive in this regard. From the outset then, it needs to be made clear that this chapter will not provide an African view of the international, but rather an overview (by no means exhaustive) of selected perspectives. Third, the exercise is hampered by the dearth of African writing on the notion of the international per se. This can be ascribed to a number of factors. First-hand written accounts of continental experience are a relatively recent occurrence, preceded by a long oral tradition. Within the context of the global political economy of knowledge, Africa contributes less than 0.5 percent of the world’s scientific publications, with most (especially in the social sciences) coming from South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt (Zeleza 2003).2 This does not mean that research is not produced, but points to the fact that most inquiries conducted by Africans do not get published in international journals. Such unpublished work is hard to come by, and thus a comprehensive overview of African scholarship on a topic such as this one remains a difficult task. Fourth, accounts that do exist are often limited in the sense that scholars mainly engage with the external environment only insofar as it impacts on Africa. Much work on African international relations is focused on the continent’s relations with the outside world (predominantly great states’ policies towards Africa and to a lesser extent, African countries’ foreign policies). Finally, due to various factors, including the perceived need to address urgent problems facing African states, there is a focus on policy-related rather than theoretical research.3 Thus, the limited number of studies that could be classified as African IR fail to engage explicitly with theoretical notions such as the meaning of particular concepts.

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Africa’s encounters with the international The aim of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive historical or contemporary overview of Africa’s encounters with the international, and therefore a comprehensive exploration of Africa’s relations with different states and cultures will not be attempted here.4 It is, however, important to highlight some of them as they continue to impact on the international relations of the continent. Although analyses of African international relations are largely limited to those with the West, in particular European colonial powers and what are regarded by many as their modern counterparts—Western states and Western-dominated international organizations and corporations—the continent of Africa has engaged in interactions with other cultures for centuries, notably with the Arab and Eastern world. Arab conquest of North Africa in the seventh century and the subsequent expansion of Islam had a profound effect on Africa’s history and development. Slavery, too, was a part of its relations with the Islamic world long (it is believed some eight centuries) before the European Atlantic slave trade started in the mid-fifteenth century. In addition, African interaction with Eurasia since the late fifteenth century played an important role in shaping its history. More recently, there has been increased interest in the influence that Asian powers such as China and India are exercising on the continent. As stated in the introduction, there is not only one, unified African view of the international. Instead, different (and often contradictory) perceptions can be identified. One of these views, resulting mainly from the impact of colonialism, is a bifurcated one: the distinction is made between the West and the non-West, or the North and the South, with a certain level of homogeneity assumed within the categories. As Donald Puchala (1998: 139) points out, many African scholars continue to be preoccupied with the West, choosing to focus on African exchanges with it. This view is illustrative of how the legacy of colonialism continues to dominate continental perceptions of the international. Young (2000: 23) concurs when he states that the colonial heritage is the point of departure for African international relations. The legacy of the colonial past in shaping Africa’s interaction with the world, and by implication, how the international is perceived from an African perspective, cannot be overstated. The most obvious impact of colonialism is the boundaries of sovereign states that were constructed by the colonial powers. Most regional conflicts also have their roots in decolonization strategies driven by colonial powers. Africa’s colonial experience continues to impact on African thinking on intervention, particularly in relation to Western powers. Relatedly, it is also the main reason why African states place such emphasis on respect for sovereignty. In addition, in many cases, the former colonial powers maintain significant linkages, political, economic and cultural, with their former colonies. For some African states (notably in Francophone Africa), therefore, international

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relations continues to mean, first and foremost, relations with former colonial masters. In discussing Africa’s colonial legacy, it is important to note the diversity that marks the continent’s (and the colonized) experiences with colonialism, which depended on factors such as the length of colonization, whether the colonizers were British, French, or Portuguese, and the level of violence associated with the occupation.5 Importantly, Mazrui also reminds us that its effects were not only uni-directional, and that aspects of colonialism have led to Africa “counterpenetrat[ing] the citadels of its conquerors” (2000: 133). He shows how Africa’s cultural (including linguistic and religious) receptivity has become the foundation for the continent’s counterinfluence phenomenon. For example, Nigeria now boasts one of the world’s largest Muslim populations, and the majority of French-speaking states can be found in Africa, with the latter playing an indispensable role in France’s quest to continue to be regarded as a global power and for French to be regarded as a world language (Mazrui 2000: 126). Alamin Mazrui (2004: 84) similarly notes how the economic and cultural colonialism of Africa has, through large-scale immigration of Africans, been replaced by the demographic Africanization of the West. This has important implications for the argument made here that perceptions of the international in Africa have been developed through a dialogical process, and not simply as a result of outside influence on the continent. It is also related to a broader debate about Africa’s agency in the face of colonialism and, more recently, globalization which, alongside the legacy of colonialism, represents another prevailing facet of the international in Africa.6 Bayart (2000), among others, is critical of scholars who write about the perpetual marginalization of Africa, in particular Southern Africa, which he claims represents a simplistic view of Africa’s relations with the rest of the world. Instead, it must be recognized that Africa has always been and is a player in the world system and is not simply acted upon by external forces. He argues that, in contrast to the image of Africa as powerless, the continent in fact played an active role in shaping its relations with the outside world (Bayart 2000: 220), suggesting again that interactions with the outside world have not been uni-directional. Historically, Africa has always been involved in a global exchange of both physical goods and ideas. One need only think of the influence of African music and art on the West, and the role that the diaspora continues to play, to realize that the continent has not only been acted upon. Ali Mazrui reminds us how political ideas—such as Gandhi’s strategy of non-violence and Nehru’s policy of non-alignment—arguably had their genesis in Africa.7 Perhaps more controversially, Bayart (2000) suggests that Africans have been active agents rather than passive bystanders in their dealings with colonial powers, highlighting strategies of self-enrichment employed by African leaders, which he holds are central to our understanding of the relationship between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. In his most recent

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book, Taylor (2010) similarly contends that Africa has often played a significant role on the global stage, providing numerous examples of how Southern African leaders have manipulated the international system to pursue their own interests by, for example, playing the great powers off against one another and taking advantage of the region’s dire economic situation to get foreign aid.

Africa’s position in the international system Any African interpretation of the international inevitably entails a discussion of the inequities and asymmetries of international power relations, which has resulted in many scholars analyzing the world through the lens of international political economy (IPE), with Marxist interpretations remaining dominant.8 During the second half of the twentieth century, Marxistinspired theories became popular with African scholars trying to understand Africa’s position in the global (capitalist) system. Since the 1960s, the number of Africanist publications written from a Marxist perspective increased steadily (Nzongola-Ntalaja 1987).9 In addition to orthodox Marxism, in the 1970s, many African scholars (such as Claude Ake and Ali Mazrui) were influenced by neo-Marxist theory, including the world systems and Latin American dependency approaches (propagated by scholars such as Basil Davidson and Walter Rodney). Marxist concepts and discourses were adopted by African scholars (such as Frantz Fanon, Samir Amin, Mahmoud Hussein, Mahmood Mamdani, Issa Shivji and Claude Ake) and sometimes applied unaltered, with scholars somewhat ironically relying on the intellectual tools of the West to overcome Western dominance and African subjection.10 As Krishna (1999: 12) reminds us, however, the ideology of socialism, despite its Western roots, was always regarded as less Eurocentric in Africa and Asia than capitalism. It must also be noted that this tendency by African scholars to adopt imported Western ideas in conceptualizing the international has its roots in the history of colonization, which subjected the continent not only politically and economically, but also culturally and intellectually. Today, academic elites (many of whom were educated in Northern institutions) continue to maintain Western academic dominance in the South. At other times, Western ideas have been rearticulated in the African context, in line with the notion of hybridity that is characteristic of colonial and postcolonial societies.11 With regards to Marxism, the approach taken by African leaders was a selective one, leading to what became known as “Afro-Marxism.” This was based on the notion that socialism could be developed in societies where advanced economic development and democratic structures had not yet taken root, and where both the working class and the peasantry were underdeveloped. So-called Afro-Marxist regimes (including Ethiopia under Menigstu Haile-Miriam and Somalia under Siad Barre) came into and out

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of existence between 1963 and 1995, primarily through military coups. Some states (such as Tanzania and Zambia) adopted what came to be knows as African socialism, while others adopted various forms of AfroMarxism. The distinction between the two ideologies is provided by Keller (2007), who notes that while both were radical and anti-imperialist, populist socialism was highly nationalistic, while Afro-Marxism was more international in its orientation. Vanneman (1984), for example, describes how the government of Mozambique’s adoption of Marxism (under President Machel) was characterized by pragmatism and eclecticism. Examples of Afro-Marxism can also be seen in various critiques of structural adjustment programs.12 Additionally, Marxism was combined with the philosophies of nationalism and pan-Africanism to form what Mbembe (2002: 24) calls “Afroradicalism,” which is one of the dominant discourses or meta-narratives through which African scholars such as Eduardo Mondlane, Mario Andrade, and Amilcar Cabral have thought about Africa’s encounters with the international. A characteristic of this strand of thinking is a reified view of history as predetermined, in which Africa is the victim of forces beyond its control; in other words, the opposite of Bayart, Taylor and other authors discussed above. As a result, the destiny of the continent is not dependent on choices made by Africans, but on a history imposed upon them and beyond their control (Mbembe 2002: 243–51). This discourse of victimization continues to pervade much African thinking about the international, including Africa’s agency—or lack thereof—in the face of globalization. Many scholars see globalization as simply a form of neo-colonialism that exacerbates global inequality and poverty in Africa and further serves to marginalize the continent. Representative of other African authors, Ake (1995), Adar and Ajulu (2002) and Zeleza (2003) contend that globalization is at the heart of Africa’s current marginalization. In contrast, Massamba et al. (2004: 30) criticize those who reinforce notions of Africa’s lack of agency and “perpetual weakness in the face of global relations.” Instead, they and others see globalization as an opportunity for economic growth and development, and claim that African states, societies and markets have acted on opportunities and addressed constraints arising from globalization. These conflictual readings of globalization are linked to ongoing tensions that have their roots in the post-independence period, between scholars who view Africa as a perpetual victim and others who reject this position. The notion of Africa as a victim is also a characteristic of nativism, which emphasizes its difference and uniqueness, based on race, and involves efforts by some Africans and Africanists to deliberately imbue African epistemology with a dichotomous distinction from Western thought. Parallels can be drawn between the questions asked by scholars writing about African philosophy and those addressing African IR. Both can be divided into the nativists (known as ethno-philosophers in the case of African philosophy, and including Placide Tempels and Leopold Sédar Senghor, who focus on

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what they believe to be the uniqueness and distinctiveness of African insights) and the universalists (Paulin Houtondji, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Kwasi Wiredu, for example) who contend that philosophy (or any other social science) is a universal endeavor and warn against over-emphasizing Africa’s difference from the rest of the world. Appiah and Mbembe have emerged as some of the strongest critics of nativist thinking on the grounds that “nativism is a fake philosophy founded on the neurosis of African victimhood” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2009b: 63). They and others have pointed out the dangers of assuming the existence of a pure, native African identity and the essentializing that accompanies this. As a reverse discourse, nativism uses the same categories and vocabulary employed by the dominant one to subvert, undermine and decenter the latter (Parry 1994: 77). Despite this criticism, these ideas continue to carry considerable explanatory weight as discursive formations in African analyses. To cite a recent example, what Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2009a: 1147) calls “Mugabeism” has appropriated Marxist and nationalist rhetoric and is strongly characterized by nativism. The result is that the notion of Africa as the victim of British colonialism and continued attempts by neoimperialist forces to interfere in its sovereign affairs is thus exacerbated. Having briefly considered some of Africa’s encounters with the international, and the interpretations resulting from her colonial legacy, I now turn to other perceptions of what constitutes the international from an African perspective.

Multiple internationals and the futility of constructed boundaries Conceptions of the international do not necessarily presume clear understandings of what is local and what is global (as this distinction is problematic in itself), but are also influenced by notions of identity: us and them, feelings of kinship resulting from shared values and so forth. Drawing on a South African perspective, this multi-layered understanding of the international environment can be illustrated. In the view of government and most scholars, the divide between the rich industrialized North and the poor developing South remains ever-present. The South, however, is further divided into those countries that are regarded as kin—Southern Africa and to a certain extent the rest of the African continent, and those likeminded states further afield in the global south (notably South Africa’s IBSA partners, India and Brazil)—and those that are not. This idea can be developed further by employing the metaphor of the African family and community structure, with neighboring African states being regarded as part of the clan (i.e., kinship group or the extended family, with members showing support towards and solidarity with one another), other African states as part of the tribe (where the relationship is not as close as with clan members, but still based on feelings of solidarity and shared values), and the rest of the developing world as neighboring, and

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mostly friendly tribes. The North is still regarded with some suspicion as the unfamiliar outsider whose intentions are unclear. One consequence of this perception is that dealings with other states in the region are not necessarily regarded as “international” relations by some South African scholars. This view is confirmed by University of Pretoria IR professor, Yolanda Spies, who states: Teaching diplomacy, African politics etc., I never have a sense of international when I deal with, especially, the Southern part of Africa. In my mind, we are a family. This is also how I explain South Africa’s foreign policy towards the egregious Robert Mugabe – the matter of Zimbabwe is not treated as an “international” issue, it is treated as domestic. (Spies 2009) Another IR scholar, Casper Claassen (2009), agrees that in sub-Saharan Africa, “other sub-Saharan African states are seen as kin—or Africans— and non-sub-Saharan African states are not seen as kin and hence have a different view of the “international” attached to them.” Related to this is the expression in popular discourse that refers to some international destinations as “overseas.” If someone travels to Europe, Australia, Asia or the Americas, they are traveling “overseas.” Conversely, flying to Windhoek, Namibia, or virtually any other African destination does not qualify. Admittedly, these are in fact not literally overseas, in the sense of being “across the waters.” The meaning is more profound, however—it is as though these destinations are not regarded as international. These perceptions play out in an interesting way in, for example, the manner in which the involvement of China and India (seen as forming part of the developing world and thus to a certain extent “one of us”) in Africa is regarded as opposed to involvement by the West. India, for example, is relying on shared historical bonds of colonialism and a common discourse of dependency in order to get a piece of the metaphorical African pie of natural resources for which there is increasing competition by global powers. Former Indian Prime Minister Nehru’s statement that Africa is India’s sister continent is used to good effect by Indian government and business to maintain that, on these grounds, India would never exploit Africa. It must be pointed out that these perceptions of the international that involve notions of shared identity and destiny with African states are held mainly by the elite (including scholars and policymakers) but are not necessarily shared by the wider society. In stark contrast, continued xenophobic attacks in South Africa highlight questions about perceptions of the international held by ordinary citizens.13 These violent assaults on anyone perceived to be a makwerekwere (a derogatory term used to describe black African foreigners) have been interpreted by some as radical expressions of nationalism, exacerbated by high levels of unemployment. Ironically, it is our brothers and sisters from the African

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continent—as articulated by the government’s African Renaissance and African unity projects—that are the victims of the violence.14 This would suggest that among South Africans there is a sense of nationalism (some would argue, a byproduct of the state’s post-1994 nation-building project, in response to the apartheid state’s efforts to discourage any feelings of national unity) that frames citizens of neighboring states as the “other.” In fact, there is a popular discourse (common among black as well as white South Africans) that treats Africa as excluding South Africa. Mbembe (2008:1) refers to this problem in an opinion piece on the xenophobic attacks, where he describes South Africans as those “who still cling to the colonial fallacy that South Africa is not an African country and South African blacks are a bit more than just black.” While this perception is slowly starting to change, as South Africa increasingly internalizes its African identity, elite perceptions about what constitutes the international and the views of citizens are still largely out of synch.15 This further entrenches the point that there are a multiplicity of African readings of the international, and that ambitious elite-drive projects such as one that promotes African unity are far removed from the lives and priorities of normal people. Another reason why the concept of the international is especially problematic in Africa is that understandings of it rely to a large extent on the related concepts of sovereignty and statehood. As numerous scholars have pointed out, applying these to some African states is inappropriate as they do not fulfill the criteria for statehood or empirical sovereignty.16 The idea of the international also suggests a distinction between what is domestic/national and what is international—that in turn assumes that there are clear borders between states, and domestic and international issues, respectively. In large parts of Africa, borders between states, that were determined and imposed by the colonial powers at the Congress of Berlin, are, in practice, largely meaningless. As Reed (1995: 142) points out, one of the consequences is that the us/them distinction based on citizenship of a state is often overshadowed by the kinship or linguistic bonds that transcend state borders. To illustrate the effect on Africa’s international relations, Reed cites an incident that occurred in 1991 and which is worthwhile repeating here: In what would otherwise have been considered an act of inter-state war, soldiers and officers in the Ugandan army invaded neighboring Rwanda in an attempt to overthrow the government of the country. The invasion was redefined as a Rwandan domestic conflict, though, because of the fact that the soldiers in question, though their families had lived in Uganda for nearly thirty years, were largely of Rwandan ethnic stock. While these people were indistinguishable from Ugandans, they were direct participants in the politics of what they, and other Ugandans, considered to be their home country, Rwanda. Thus, in this case, the

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This example highlights the arbitrary nature of national borders in Africa, and the consequent problems in distinguishing between what is domestic and what is international. It is not only physical boundaries that are problematic in the African context. The conceptual distinction between the “international” and the “domestic” (on the basis of which the field of IR justifies its existence) is one that has virtually no relation to the lived experiences of ordinary Africans. Problems experienced by people at the grassroots level may not be perceived by them as having any international dimension whatsoever. However, many of these are closely linked to Africa’s position in the global economy and its dependence on the powers of global capital. How can one try to explain the host of problems facing ordinary Africans—ranging from poverty to lack of housing, basic education, and health care—without referring to the constraints imposed by the international (mediated by the global neoliberal system and the institutions that maintain it)? So-called domestic challenges facing the state today cannot be separated from the international environment. As Marxist scholars point out, the problems of the poorest countries in Africa are closely tied to their international encounters, as well as the dependent and unequal position (often one of outright exclusion) in which they find themselves in the world economy. African conflicts are further illustrative of this argument. If one takes the case of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)— although it is regarded as an example of intra-state conflict—it has significant international dimensions. In addition, overlapping and competing authorities (to use Bull’s 1977 phrase) contribute to the difficulty in defining the international in Africa, and in clearly distinguishing between the local and the international. International trade is controlled not only by states, but by various non-state actors such as warlords and criminal networks. These actors, furthermore, can be said to pursue their own foreign policy. Of course, this state of affairs is not unique to Africa or even the developing world. However, as emphasized in the introduction, the inside–outside dichotomy seems to be magnified in the African context, providing for abundant material and new empirical evidence to further develop existing scholarly work in this area. In addition to African experiences of the international that seem akin to those in other parts of the world and therefore provide obvious targets for synergy, and those discussed above that are more distinct and perhaps uniquely African, it may be worthwhile to explore African ideas that may not at first glance be related to international relations at all. One possible avenue into a uniquely Southern African conception of the international is provided by the principle of ubuntu.

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The African philosophy of ubuntu: lessons for IR Essentially, ubuntu can be regarded as an indigenous world view. In the works of South African writers, it is presented as one of Africa’s great intellectual and moral contributions to mankind and a philosophy that presents a formidable challenge to European understandings of African reality (Masina 2000: 169). Archbishop Desmond Tutu referred to it as “part of the gift that Africa will give the world” (quoted in Marks 2000: 183). Although ubuntu is associated with Southern Africa, Krog (2008: 360) emphasizes that it is not an isolated phenomenon, but is instead manifested in a variety of forms across the African continent, and could thus be generalized to give us some insight into an African take on the international.17 The term ubuntu is a word from the Nguni language family, which comprises Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele. However, variants of it exist in many sub-Saharan African languages. The equivalent Shona word is hunhu, in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi it is called botho, in Venda, vhuthu. In Xhosa, Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu means “People are people through other people.” In Zulu, Umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye means “One is a person through others” (Marks 2000: 182–3). There are many different interpretations of ubuntu, and it is a term that is difficult to translate into English. The closest approximations are, “collective personhood” (literally translated) or, in the words of Archbishop Tutu, “the very essence of being human” (Tutu 1999: 31). According to Gaylard (2004: 270), it is used to characterize the norms and values that supposedly inhere in traditional African society, and is recognized as the African philosophy of humanism. Specifically, it refers to the idea that [The individual] owes his existence to other people … He is simply part of the whole … Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. (Mbiti 1969: 108–9, quoted in Gaylard 2004: 268–9) Contrary to Western humanism, which emphasizes individual freedom and civil rights, African humanism is a communal concept, valuing interdependence, as opposed to independence (Bell 2002; Gaylard 2004). In discussing ubuntu it is important to note that not all Africans share this moral outlook. Archbishop Tutu (quoted in Bell, 2002: 89) asks, “Where was ubuntu in the Belgian Congo in the early 1960s? Why did the Rwandans forget ubuntu in 1994?” Similarly, one might ask, as Gaylard (2004: 277) does, whether ubuntu was able to survive the atrocities of apartheid and the disruption of urbanization in South Africa. It is obvious that ubuntu and African communalism is under great strain in the urban areas of Africa and under pressure from industrialization and globalization. And yet, although it is being challenged, in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent, many

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believe it still survives. Archbishop Tutu tried to rationalize the absence of ubuntu in much of what is currently happening in (South) Africa when he said, “honoring ubuntu is clearly not a mechanical, automatic and inevitable process.” While one could therefore criticize the notion of ubuntu for its utopianism, especially in the African context (the harsh reality of which this chapter by no means wishes to romanticize), this does not nullify its potential to contribute to our understanding of IR. As with other ideals, such as democracy, practice does not always equal principle. Much has been written about ubuntu, particularly with reference to conflict resolution and peace-building, but increasingly also in relation to topics as diverse as business management.18 The most well-known application of the concept was that of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the peculiar prioritizing of forgiveness and reconciliation above justice that it advanced.19 It has also been written about in the context of human rights, in particular the debate about the universality of “international” human rights (Murithi 2007). While the idea of ubuntu has been stressed many times by African philosophers (Gyekye, Hountondji, Wiredu), theologians (Setiloane, Tutu, Tempels) and sociologists (GobodoMadikizela, Ratele), among others, it has not been readily taken up in Western scholarly analysis. Perhaps the reason is simply that it is too foreign a concept and one regarded as having no place in rational analysis. The relevance of this term for international society and our understanding of international relations has, to my knowledge, not yet been explored. Interestingly, the new South African Minister of International Relations and Development (previously called the Department of Foreign Affairs), Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, proclaimed in one of her first public speeches that she wants her department to export it: “Our [aim] is to export Ubuntu and partnership amongst our people, people of the continent and the world. Let their problem(s) be our problem” (Nkoana-Mashabane 2009: 4). Unpacking the concept of ubuntu may tell us something about how Southern Africans view the international community, and the responsibilities of citizens and states towards one another. In particular, ubuntu suggests the possibility of a different kind of relationship from the friend/ enemy dichotomy so prevalent in IR. It could inform the notion of “responsibility to protect” and underline the role of morality in international affairs (that many Western theories dismiss as insignificant). It could also shed light on how African states engage with the international— including with each other. For example, Western scholars continue to be puzzled by the seemingly irrational tendency of African states to “stick together,” something one could refer to as African solidarity. One need only to think of African leaders’ unwillingness to publicly criticize Robert Mugabe’s human rights abuses, or more recent refusals to honor commitments to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and cooperate in the arrest of Sudanese President al-Bashir. Taking into account the notion of ubuntu,

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however, these public displays of solidarity by African states make more sense. Ubuntu not only invokes images of group support, cooperation and solidarity, but also involves a corrective mechanism of discussions within family and peer associations. This may give us some insight into African states’ opting for a quiet diplomacy or engagement approach in cases such as Zimbabwe, a process very much in line with notions of African solidarity and the resolution of conflicts by engagement with the “extended family,” in this case neighboring Southern African states such as South Africa. South Africa’s solidarity with Zimbabwe and other African states can also be explained by drawing on ubuntu, as recognition of previous assistance provided to the liberation movement by other (especially neighboring) African countries during the struggle against apartheid. Ubuntu could also potentially offer an alternative explanation for why multilateralism seems to be African states’ preferred strategy. South Africa’s penchant for it is normally explained on the basis of middle power theory: if a state does not have the resources to influence international relations on its own, its only alternative is to act in concert with other like-minded states. Perhaps we might consider the possibility that it is also due, at least partially, to a deep-seated belief in the intrinsic value of the collective, of the interconnectedness of individuals and states in the global system, and therefore of the need to cooperate with others in addressing global issues. In addition, the way in which disputes are resolved in what Masina (2000) calls the ubuntu societies of Southern Africa could shed some light on the way in which African leaders deal with conflict. Among, for example, the Xhosa people of Southern Africa, he notes how disputes are addressed through an institution known as the lekgotla, which serves as a group mediation and reconciliation forum. The forum is communal in the sense that the entire community is involved in finding a solution, even though the proceedings are led by leadership figures, often a council of elders. Importantly, according to the notion of ubuntu, each member of the community is linked to all of the disputants, both the victims and the perpetrators. In this sense the conflict belongs to the entire community (Murithi 2009: 6). Besides its potential explanatory value, the concept of ubuntu can also help refocus attention in IR towards important principles such as shared humanity, given that it places emphasis on cooperation, mutual understanding and a greater sense of responsibility towards a collective well-being (Swanson 2007: 65). This is especially relevant today, for as Grovogui (2001: 434) laments, “The principal effect of Western egocentrism and modern ontology has been a depreciation of the multifold condition of possibility of international morality.” This is one of the major shortcomings of the field of IR as it is currently practiced: that it has become virtually devoid of all concern with humanity, and that the apparent gulf between the discipline of IR and the very real problems facing the majority of the

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world’s people continues to widen. Murphy (2007), for example, comments on the failure of even critical IR scholars to make IR more relevant to the everyday challenges faced by ordinary people, while Nick Wheeler (quoted in Vale 2001: 29) calls for IR to engage in scholarship that “places human suffering at the centre of its theoretical project.” Perhaps another important lesson to be learned from Africa, and encapsulated in the notion of ubuntu, has to do with the underlying raison d’être of the field. It calls on IR scholars to question the problems we study, the solutions we present to policymakers and the ideas we transmit to students; in other words, the very essence of the discipline. This brings us to a final question, that of translating ideas from other areas of knowledge into IR and the possibility of concepts such as ubuntu traveling to the core of the discipline. Translating a concept such as ubuntu poses a number of challenges. Van Hensbroek (2003: 4) writes that the meaning of words depends upon their use in a community of users. When ideas travel from one linguistic or socio-political context to another, they often lose their meaning. To take race as an example, Grovogui (2001: 431) notes that the way in which the concept is used in philosophy and the human sciences is very different to how it is understood in political and international relations theory. At a more basic level, language also comes into play: the fact that there is no direct English translation for all that the African word ubuntu encapsulates serves to remind us that certain ideas are culturally specific and are often simply outside the realm of understanding of people who grew up with a different understanding of the world, their place in it and their relation to others. Having said that, the precedent has been set for translating ubuntu into different contexts, as it has been applied successfully to date in discussions of international human rights, peacemaking and conflict resolution.20 Murithi (2007), for example, uses ubuntu to dispute the claim that there are no indigenous notions of human rights in Africa. In a discussion of what he calls the “ubuntufication of the global human rights standard,” he holds that “the wisdom of ubuntu lies in the recognition that it is not possible to build a healthy community at peace with itself unless the human dignity of all members of the community is safeguarded” (2007: 282). In essence, his argument is that incorporating ubuntu into our understanding of human rights places “more of an emphasis on the obligations that we have towards the ‘other’ because of our ‘interconnectedness’” (2007: 284). Similarly, the author considers the lessons of ubuntu for peacemaking, which include the importance of public participation in the peacemaking process and of referring constantly to the essential unity and interdependence of humanity (2009: 10). The debate over whether ubuntu is in fact uniquely African or whether it is similar to worldviews found elsewhere is also relevant here. Most authors admit that, while ubuntu is different in many ways from Western concepts such as humanism, it also shares many similarities, meaning that it is not

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entirely unfamiliar to other cultures and societies.21 If one agrees that the principle underlying ubuntu is not one that is entirely foreign to other environments outside of Southern Africa, where “the appeal to human-ness or humanity occurs in ways very similar to those proclaimed by ubuntu” (van Binsbergen 2002: 9), this opens up opportunities for African concepts such as this to travel from the former colonies to the former colonizers. The movement of ideas has never been uni-directional, from West to East or North to South, so there is no reason why a concept such as ubuntu cannot travel successfully from South to North. This speaks to Mazrui’s notion of what he calls “the paradox of counterpenetration and the cyclic boomerang effect in Africa’s interaction with other civilizations” (2000: 133), and emphasizes the fact that the flow of ideas and influence between Africa and the rest of the world can be and have been a mutual process, and that Africa should be viewed as a player in its own right, whose behavior and agency is able to make an impact on its external environment.

Conclusion This chapter has argued that African understandings of the international are multifaceted and range from binary perceptions to much more complicated and layered readings. Significantly, they challenge the boundaries established by the discipline of IR: the domestic–international divide is problematized, the concept of statehood is questioned and the philosophy of ubuntu challenges the friend–enemy dichotomy. While some African experiences of the international—such as the artificial nature between the domestic and the international—are not unique to the continent, the point was made that the African context provides a wealth of material for studying these phenomena. On the other hand, it was contended that uniquely Southern African concepts such as ubuntu may provide alternative explanations for the behavior of African states, shed new light on the responsibilities of citizens and states towards one another, and help reintroduce morality and ethics into IR. Much more work still needs to be done in terms of exploring the potential application of African concepts such as ubuntu to international relations, as well as clarifying a number of other topics touched upon only briefly in this chapter. For example, the debate over Africa’s agency in the face of globalization will become increasingly pertinent as more players try to stake a claim to its natural resources. Similarly, questions about the future of African unity were merely hinted at, and are especially complex in light of the continent’s artificially imposed borders and debates over sovereignty and statehood in the African context. Finally, while aware of the dangers of efforts by some Africans and Africanists to deliberately imbue African epistemology with a dichotomous distinction from Western thought, it also seems reasonable to suggest that some African understandings of the international actually do differ substantially from existing Western perspectives. By drawing on African and

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other non-Western interpretations of what constitutes the international and refocusing our attention on the impact of history and culture on the way in which the world is perceived and acted upon, existing understandings of international relations can be broadened. To this end, dialogue between African scholars and both those in the core of the field as well as in the rest of the developing world should be encouraged through increased interaction and joint research projects—something that has become increasingly possible through technology and to which this volume attests. Most importantly, African academics have a responsibility to expose their students to a variety of sources, specifically of African origin, to encourage them to think critically and creatively about existing theory and concepts, and to come up with African interpretations.

Notes 1 I would like to express my gratitude to the South African National Research Foundation’s Thuthuka Program and Stellenbosch University for providing the funding which made this research possible. I would also like to acknowledge Nizar Messari, Arlene Tickner and David Blaney for their constructive comments on earlier drafts, as well as the South African scholars who responded to my request for their views on “the international.” 2 In the past, other African countries such as Tanzania (particularly the University of Dar es Salaam) and Uganda (particularly the University of Makerere) were sites of vibrant and prolific social science research. As a result of political repression, which forced many scholars into exile, coupled with a lack of funding, scholarly outputs across Africa have declined. There are however some associations which aim to support and promote research by African scholars. Notably, the Council for the Development of Social Science in Africa (codesria), founded in 1973, promotes interdisciplinary research in the social sciences in Africa, which “derives from, and is relevant to, the experiences of Africa and Africans” (Nyamjoh 2004: 349). It acts as both a sponsor of research as well as a publisher. Its sister organization, the Organization for Social Sciences Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (ossrea), has a similar mandate. 3 See, for example, Schoeman (2009). 4 For such an overview, see Engel and Olsen (2005), Taylor (2010), and Taylor and Williams (2004). 5 See Bayart (2000: 221). 6 See Lebakeng and Mmabatho (2001) for an overview of the two positions. 7 It was as a result of the 21 years Gandhi spent as a barrister in South Africa, where he was exposed to racism and discrimination, that he developed his political philosophy of satyagraha. Mazrui also claims that Nehru’s non-alignment was strongly influenced by the 1956 Suez War in North Africa. 8 Although many African scholars adopted Marxism as their worldview of choice, there has also been some resistance to it. In a 1984 paper, for example, Ayi Kwei Armah (quoted in Gorlier 2002: 97) says of Marxism: “Marxism, in its approach to non-Western societies and values, is decidedly colonialist, Western, Eurocentric and hegemonist…” and “Marxism… is demonstrably racist…” 9 For example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the interdisciplinary Nigerian journal Positive Review was openly committed to Marxism and promoted a strongly Gramscian perspective.

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10 See for example, Ake (1978, 1981), Amin (1973), Babu (1981), Magubane and Nzongola-Ntalaja (1983), Mahmoud (1984), Mamdani (1996), Shivji (1976, 1985), Zeleza (1993). 11 See, for example, Bhabha (1994) and Said (1993). 12 See, for example, Mkandawire and Olukoshi (1995). 13 Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been on the rise in recent years. In May 2008, the country made international headlines when a spate of riots targeted at foreigners left more than 60 people dead. It also resulted in thousands of refugees and immigrants being displaced, with many fleeing to their countries of origin. A number of possible reasons for the attacks have been put forward, including competition for scarce public goods. 14 The notion of an African Renaissance was popularized by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, and is an intellectual project aimed at uplifting the continent through the achievement of cultural, scientific and economic renewal. It also carries with it implications for African unity—the idea that, by acting together, African states can work towards addressing the challenges facing the continent. 15 An interesting development was the pan-African support for Ghana in the recent soccer World Cup held in South Africa, once all other African teams had dropped out. It would be difficult to imagine British fans supporting France were they to be the only European team left. 16 See, for example, Dunn and Shaw (2001), Jackson and Rosberg (1982) and Neumann (1998). 17 The fact that the principles associated with ubuntu can be found across Africa also speaks to the idea of a pan-African identity, something which has been revived as part of the African Renaissance project, together with renewed calls for African unity. 18 See, for example, Battle (1997), Broodryk (2002), Karsten and Illa (2005), Malan (1997), Mangaliso (2001), Marks (2000), Masina (2000), Mbigi and Maree (1995), Murithi (2006, 2009), Nussbaum (2003), Tutu (1999), and Villa-Vicencio and Verwoerd (2000). 19 Ubuntu promotes the principles of forgiveness and reconciliation, as it is based on the notion that, in the greater web of humanity, we are all linked to one another and that our actions therefore not only affect others, but also ourselves. During the TRC, for example, Mandela and Tutu stressed that both the victims and the perpetrators of apartheid had been dehumanized, and that this would best be remedied through a restorative, reconciliatory approach to justice. Rather than simply punishing offenders on the basis of abstract legal principles, restorative justice encourages dialogue between victims and offenders, and calls on offenders to take responsibility for their actions. During the TRC process, perpetrators were encouraged to come forward and tell the truth about the crimes they had committed, in return for which they would receive amnesty. This was underlined by the principle of ubuntu, and the belief that reconciling the South African nation was more important than individual retribution. 20 See, for example, Marks (2000) and Masina (2000). 21 For example, Bell (2002) and Gaylard (2004) contend that, while ubuntu may be said to be similar to the Western concept of humanism, the latter emphasizes individual freedom and civil rights, while African humanism is a communal concept. Similarly, Kamwangamalu (1999) also argues that while some characteristics of ubuntu, such as interdependence, may be unique to African and Asian cultures, others such as hospitality, compassion, empathy, tolerance, respect, and so forth can also be found in other cultures. Prinsloo (quoted in Kamwangamalu 1999: 36), on the other hand, argues that ubuntu shares a world spirit and that it is important to emphasize this.

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References Adar, Gombe Korwa and Rok Ajulu (eds) (2002) Globalization and Emerging Trends in African State’s Foreign Policy Process, Aldershot: Ashgate. Ake, Claude (1978) Revolutionary Pressures in Africa, London: Zed Press. —— (1981) A Political Economy of Africa, New York: Longman. —— (1995) “Whose World Order? A View from Africa” in Georg Sorenson and Hans-Henrik Holm (eds), Whose World Order? Uneven Globalization at the end of the Cold War, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 19–42. Amin, Samir (1973) Neo-Colonialism in West Africa, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Babu, Mohammed (1981) African Socialism or Socialist Africa? London: Zed Press. Battle, Michael (1997) Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu, Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. Bayart, Jean-François (2000) “Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion,” African Affairs, 99(395): 217–67. Bell, Richard H. (2002) Understanding African Philosophy: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Classical and Contemporary Issues, New York and London: Routledge. Bhabha, Homi (1994) The Location of Culture, London: Routledge. Broodryk, Johann (2002) Ubuntu: Life Lessons from Africa, Pretoria: School of Philosophy. Claassen, Casper (2009) “The International,” E-mail (6 July 2009). Dunn, Kevin C. and Timothy M. Shaw(eds) (2001) Africa’s Challenge to International Relations Theory, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Engel, Ulf and Gorm Rye Olsen (eds) (2005) Africa and the North – Between Globalization and Marginalization, London and New York: Routledge. Gaylard, Robert (2004) “Welcome to the World of our Humanity: (African) Humanism, Ubuntu and Black South African Writing,” Journal of Literary Studies, 20(3/4): 265–82. Gorlier, Claudio (2002) “Post-Marxism in an African Context: The Usability of Antonio Gramsci,” Research in African Literatures, 33(3): 97–103. Grovogui, Siba (2001) “Come to Africa: A Hermeneutics of Race in International Theory,” Alternatives, 26(4): 425–48. Höller, Christian (2002) “Africa in Motion: An Interview with the Post-Colonialism Theoretician Achille Mbembe,” Springerin, 03/02. Online. Available HTTP:

(accessed 7 July 2009). “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical and Juridical in Statehood,” World Politics, 35(1): 1–24. Kamwangamalu, Nkonko M. (1999) “Ubuntu in South Africa: A Sociolinguistic Perspective to a Pan-African Concept,” Critical Arts, 13(2): 24–41. Karsten, Luchien and Honorine Illa (2005) “Ubuntu as a Key African Management Concept: Contextual Background and Practical Insights for Knowledge Application,” Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20(7): 607–20. Keller, Edmond J. (2007) “Africa in Transition: Facing the Challenges of Globalization,” Harvard International Review, Summer. Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/167969659.html (accessed 12 June 2010).

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Krishna, Sankaran (1999) Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Krog, Antjie (2008) “‘This Thing Called Reconciliation…’ Forgiveness as Part of Interconnectedness-Towards-Wholeness,” South African Journal of Philosophy, 27(4): 353–66. Lebakeng, Teboho J. and M. Phalane Mmabatho (2001) “Africanisation of the Social Sciences within the Context of Globalization,” CODESRIA Bulletin, 3–4: 25–8. MacLean, Sandra J. (2001) “Challenging Westphalia: Issues of Sovereignty and Identity in Southern Africa” in Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds), Africa’s Challenge to International Relations Theory, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 146–162. Magubane, Ben and Nzongola-Ntalaja (eds) (1983) Proletarianization and Class Struggle in Africa, San Francisco: Synthesis Publications. Mahmoud, Fatima Babiker (1984) The Sudanese Bourgeoisie: Vanguard of Development? London: Zed Press. Malan, Jannie (1997) Conflict Resolution Wisdom from Africa, Durban: ACCORD. Mamdani, Mahmoud (1996) Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mangaliso, Mzamo P. (2001) “Building Competitive Advantage from Ubuntu: Management Lessons from South Africa,” The Academy of Management Executive, 15(3): 23–33. Marks, Susan C. (2000) Watching the Wind: Conflict Resolution during South Africa’s Transition to Democracy. Washington DC: United States Institute for Peace. Massamba, Guy, Samuel M. Kariuki, and Stephen M. Ndegwa (2004) “Globalization and Africa’s Regional and Local Responses,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 39(1–2): 29–45. Masina, Nomonde (2000) “Xhosa Practices of Ubuntu for South Africa” in I. William Zartman (ed), Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict Medicine, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 169–82. Mazrui, Alamin M. (2004) English in Africa: After the Cold War, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mazrui, Ali (2000) “Africa and Other Civilizations: Conquest and CounterConquest” in John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild (eds), Africa in World Politics – The African State System in Flux, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 69–94. Mbembe, Achille (2002) “African Modes of Self-Writing,” Public Culture, 14(1): 239–273. —— (2008) “Can we do Without Borders?” University of the Witwatersrand Newsroom (June 27). Online. Available HTTP: http://web.wits.ac.za/NewsRoom/ NewsItems/AchilleMbembe.htm (accessed 7 July 2009). Mbigi, John and Jenny Maree (1995) Ubuntu: The Spirit of African Transformation Management, Randburg: Knowledge Resources. Mkandawire, Thandika and Adebayo Olukoshi (eds) (1995) Between Liberalization and Oppression: The Politics of Structural Adjustment in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA. Murithi, Tim (2006) “Practical Peacemaking Wisdom from Africa: Reflections on Ubuntu,” The Journal of Pan African Studies, 1(4): 25–34.

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—— (2007) “A Local Response to the Global Human Rights Standard: The ‘Ubuntu’ Perspective on Human Dignity,” Globalization, Societies and Education, 5(3): 277–86. —— (2009) The Ethics of Peacebuilding, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Murphy, Craig (2007) “The Promise of Critical IR, Partially Kept,” Review of International Studies, 33 (special edition): 117–33. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. (2009a) “Making Sense of Mugabeism in Local and Global Politics: ‘So Blair, keep your England and let me Keep my Zimbabwe’,” Third World Quarterly, 20(6): 1139–58. —— (2009b) “Africa for Africans or Africa for ‘Natives’ Only? ‘New Nationalism’ and Nativism in Zimbabwe and South Africa,” Africa Spectrum, 44(1): 61–78. Neuman, Stephanie (ed) (1998) International Relations Theory and the Third World, Houndmills: Macmillan. Nkoana-Mashabane, Maite (2009) “Recommitting Ourselves in Building a Better Africa and a Better World: Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane responds during the debate on the State of the Nation Address” (June 4). Online. Available HTTP: http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2009/09060509151001.htm (accessed 14 June 2009). Nussbaum, Barbara (2003) Ubuntu: Reflections of a South African on our Common Humanity. Boston: Society for Organizational Learning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nyamnjoh, Francis B. (2004) “From Publish or Perish to Publish and Perish: What ‘Africa’s 100 Best Books’ Tell us about Publishing Africa,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 39(5): 331–55. Nzongola-Ntalaja (1987) Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Africa, London and New York: Zed Books. Parry, Benita (1994) “Resistance Theory/Theorising Resistance or Two Cheers for Nativism” in Francis Barker, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iversen (eds), Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 172–96. Puchala, Donald J. (1998) “Third World Thinking and Contemporary International Relations” in Stephanie G. Neuman (ed), International Relations Theory and the Third World, Houndmills: Macmillan, pp. 133–58. Reed, William C. (1995) “The New International Order: State, Society and African International Relations,” Africa Insight, 25(3): 140–7. Said, Edward (1993) Culture and Imperialism, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Schoeman, Maxi (2009) “The State of IR in South Africa: Between History and Hard Place” in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (eds), International Relations Around the World, London: Routledge, pp. 53–70. Shivji, Issa G. (1976) Class Struggles in Tanzania, London: Heinemann. —— (1985) The State and the Working People in Tanzania, Dakar: Codesria. Spies, Yolanda (2009) “The International,” E-mail (2 July 2009). Swanson, Dalene M. (2007) “Ubuntu: An African Contribution to (re)search for/ with a ‘Humble Togetherness’,” Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 2(2): 53–67. Online. Available HTTP: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/ JCIE/article/viewFile/1028/686 (accessed 10 June 2009). Taylor, Ian (2010) The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa, London and New York: Continuum.

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Taylor, Ian and Paul Williams (eds) (2004) Africa in International Politics – External Involvement on the Continent. London and New York: Routledge. Tutu, Desmond (1999) No Future without Forgiveness, New York: Doubleday. Vale, Peter (2001) “Dissenting Tale: Southern Africa’s Search for Theory,” in Peter Vale, Larry Swatuk and Bertil Oden (eds), Theory, Change and Southern Africa’s Future. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 17–33. van Binsbergen, Wim (2002) “Ubuntu and the Globalization of Southern African Thought and Society.” Online. Available HTTP: http://www.shikanda.net/general/ ubuntu.htm (accessed 14 June 2009). van Hensbroek, Pieter Boele (2003) “The ‘Import Thesis’ about African Political Thought,” Journal of African Philosophy, 2. Online. Available HTTP: www. africanphilosophy.com/issue2/vanhensbroek.html (accessed 10 July 2009). Vanneman, Peter (1984) “The Africanization of Marxism in Mozambique,” Africa Insight, 14(3): 206–9. Villa-Vicencio, Charles and Verwoerd, Wilhelm (2000) Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Young, Crawford (2000) “The Heritage of Colonialism” in John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild (eds), Africa in World Politics – The African State System in Flux, 3rd edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 23–42 Zeleza, Paul T. (1993) A Modern Economic History of Africa, vol.1, The Nineteenth Century, Dakar: codesria. —— (2003) Rethinking Africa’s Globalization, vol I: The Intellectual Challenges, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

15 Social science research and engagement in Pakistan Ayesha Khan

This chapter takes as its starting point the possibility and potential for politically meaningful engagement with other cultures across the disciplinary and conceptual boundaries inscribed by political categorizations such as the nation-state. The effort speaks to concerns expressed by International Relations theorists based in North America that its current disciplinary paradigms may be inadequate for the task of accommodating difference, of hearing voices that speak in foreign languages and which come from countries across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and are less powerful politically. For example, Arlene B. Tickner (2003: 319) has pointed out that “given IR’s fundamental interest in explaining developments within the international system, what goes on inside the state is largely irrelevant.” She writes that among critical IR scholars there is growing hunger for locally grounded knowledge to better understand problems such as conflict and how it may be resolved, and a realization that the production of ideas in conditions far from the center of political power, in the realm of everyday life and under varying conditions of social, economic and other oppressions leads to potent intellectual positions that are worth engaging with (Tickner 2003: 311). There is some urgency to this endeavor, since the solutions to myriad conflicts currently underway that threaten the security of dominant states, such as the United States, may lie in unraveling the complexity of intractable local and regional conflicts far from the center of global hegemony. For this reason, organizations such as the Collective for Social Science Research, based in Pakistan, can offer some insights that speak to this need, based upon its own experience of engagement with one such complex region.1 The purpose of this chapter is to share our findings concerning the life experiences of people within the state in an effort to bring these voices into the project of an International Relations theory that seeks to include culture and differences in its workings. To this end, I will argue that our research perspective could contribute to a more open reading of the “international.” In other words, the concept of the “local” can be used to capture the experience of researchers and subjects across borders, thus becoming “international” in its implications, and conversely, the “international” has

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been reconfigured to construct a different sense of the “local.” The first section of the chapter outlines the political and funding context in which we conduct our work, the second discusses our methods, the third presents relevant findings from our research with Afghans displaced by conflict, and the fourth explores our work on gender, as illustrative examples of how the categories of “local” and “international” could be reconfigured.

Research as engagement The Collective for Social Science Research is a small private organization based in Karachi that works on poverty, economics, gender, conflict, labor, migration and health.2 The Collective conducts field surveys, primary and secondary data analysis, literature reviews and policy analysis. We use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods and have developed an innovative approach to applying these methods in the field. We collaborate with local and international academic and development organizations, as well as with the government of Pakistan, on research projects. There are some features of the Pakistani context that bear detailed introduction, to explain why we work as a private organization rather than within a university. Unfortunately, the university system has been financially neglected and highly politicized during most of Pakistan’s history. The result is that today there are few strong academics in the social sciences left in the country who can make a living through teaching at a university and who have also been able to operate free from any form of political harassment during the country’s tumultuous past. Government funding for public sector universities is low, partly due to genuine financial constraints, but also because of a deliberate effort of the state to stifle student-based political action. Student protests were held soon after Pakistan gained independence in 1947 over issues such as the national language and the right to organize. Later, the movement to oust the first military government in Pakistan’s history (which ruled from 1958–69) was left-leaning ideologically and played an important role in removing the military and electing the populist Pakistan’s People Party to govern in its place.3 Until today, armed student wings of all major political parties, including those that represent the extreme religious right, have turned large public sector universities into microcosms of the violence and intolerance that has characterized our political culture.4 During the next military government (1977–88), universities underwent their worst period of manipulation by the state, because General Zia ul Haq allied himself with the religious right and actively sought to Islamize the education sector. He advocated the separation of men and women at higher levels of study, and with Saudi Arabian funding opened a massive International Islamic University in Islamabad to serve as a model, with separate campuses for men and women. During this period, liberal or progressive

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academics and intellectually engaged men and women cut short their involvement with public sector universities. Some women who had returned to Pakistan from universities in the United States and United Kingdom gave up their ambitions of academic careers and left the stifling campuses. Through a process that combined their intellectual leanings with their political opposition to the military, they opened their own non-government organizations (or development NGOs), and started advocacy work for social and political change. International donor agencies, primarily representing Western governments, supported these efforts, as they wanted to keep a liberal, pro-democratic and secular movement alive despite the support of their own governments for General Zia’s regime. The country’s largest women’s rights NGOs in place today were started in this manner.5 During the 1980s and 1990s journalism became an important source of knowledge production, despite stringent censorship policies in place during military rule. For example, an early public flogging ordered by General Zia ul-Haq’s government was a punishment for journalists who had written critically about the regime. Until recently, the state fully controlled television and radio stations. Despite these restrictions, journalists writing in newspapers, magazines and for foreign radio news services became a vital source of analysis and critical thinking about the country. News magazines flourished, eagerly read by a public that relied on them for detailed coverage of social issues and insights into political life.6 Leading journalists of the era covered human rights, gender, corruption, politics, and introduced investigative journalism into Pakistan. Through coverage such as this, it became possible for people within the country and abroad to hear the voices of ordinary people at a time when they were most silenced. For example, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a non-governmental organization, was set up by a team of senior journalists and lawyers in 1987. The first media coverage of so-called honor killings, based on informal and tribal legal codes, brought these issues to light for the first time.7 The prodemocracy movement that swept Benazir Bhutto into power after the long years of military rule relied on the intellectual capital of these journalists and other activists who insisted on a secular and liberal form of government in spite of Zia’s insertion of an extremely conservative version of Islam in all affairs of the state. It is within this history and a politically engaged understanding of social issues in Pakistan that we as researchers have gradually developed our niche through the Collective. While human rights and other activists have gone on to set up their own important organizations and the development sector rapidly expanded with the support of international donors, academic and intellectual life have not flourished at an equal pace, despite some brief bouts of civilian rule over the last 20 years. Research remains a separate and important domain that can be nurtured through many different types of institutions. In our view, it requires seeking out and listening to marginalized

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groups in our society as an indispensable means of eliminating poverty and achieving social justice. We work in all of Pakistan’s provinces, the Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (until recently known as North-West Frontier Province) in addition to collaborating with international research consortiums. Our research studies are usually commissioned by organizations operating in the development sector that would like to see policy or program recommendations arising from solid empirical findings. In other words, our work is based on the same premise as that of the social sciences in the United States, born in the service of the modern state, whose purpose was to produce research that could be of use to policymakers (Tickner 2006: 386). While there is not always a direct correlation between our research and their development activities, we believe that policy arises out of the entire community of actors that have some role in shaping it, and that increasingly this includes political organizations, civil society groups, key individuals and the media. We interact closely with this community in terms of sharing our research findings, and in a sense it is valid to consider our work engaged in a kind of conversation across cultures as well. The reason for this is that in our engagement with the state we are communicating our research findings about communities that are often lacking in voice or representation at the sites where decisions about their lives are being taken. In fact, by challenging categories that the state uses to define and understand its population, we are pointing to a cultural divide that exists between the government and the governed. Donor organizations often require that our research documents conclude with specific policy recommendations, which under ideal circumstances would help to bridge this divide, and they follow-up by supporting advocacy work to support policy changes. Although we avoid being drawn too closely in the direction of policy reform and advocacy work, preferring to focus on the content of our research as a priority, at times we too are drawn into advocacy work simply due to the evident need for informed and “expert” support.8 We also seek to engage with social science researchers across South Asia and the world, in an effort to add depth and insight to our knowledge of human societies. But we do not necessarily limit ourselves to sharing findings and comparing ourselves only with societies that are in geographical or cultural/religious proximity. We often wonder why social science researchers across the world fail to engage in closer dialogue and collaboration in order to challenge each other’s methodologies and enrich their knowledge of human experience. And we question why our work on women is of interest internationally primarily within the category of “Muslim women’s studies” and is not linked with any social science research on women in Western countries. Why should social science research from Pakistan only be discussed in development gatherings, we ask? Our research points to the need to interrogate the broader academic categories used globally because

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it speaks directly to theoretical debates within the social sciences and feminism and to national and international political realities that lead to exclusion rather than inclusion of groups of people that are not defined by their religious or cultural identities alone. The issue of donor funds Critiques of the inequality between “first” and “third world” (or “developed” and “developing,” “North” and “South”) abound.9 The flow of money and resources in the international community reinforces the core– periphery model that some International Relations theorists, as in this volume, are seeking to dismantle. At the same time, however, if we assess how our research work, political activism, policy advocacy and innovative programs or services have been sustained in Pakistan, then the hard truth is that close to none of this would have been possible without this flow of funding. The irony is that those wealthy nations, whose governments have supported authoritarian regimes in Pakistan due to their global political strategies, have also through their assistance supported the survival of research, fostered the possibility of changed discourses on development, and funded non-government organizations whose work has pioneered service delivery and advocacy initiatives for decades. This is clearly not the case in India, where direct political activity has not been suspended for much of the country’s existence and where universities have flourished with state support. But it is in Pakistan, where political suppression, cultural oppression, and a crippled higher education system, among other factors, have curtailed the options of anyone working for social change. The donor community, which includes multilateral aid agencies, has been a steady source of support for NGOs and programs working on human rights, democratic institution-building, environment and gender equality.10 It has helped to nurture alternative discourses around these areas, and in effect build up the intellectual capital that has furthered the goals of social justice. The best example of this lies in the support given to research and programs for women in Pakistan, in particular, which has allowed women within South Asia to interact, develop alliances, theorize and work together at international gatherings to nurture their vision, an issue that will be discussed subsequently in greater depth.11 While institutional funding is less forthcoming than program funds, nonetheless donors do support some research and advocacy institutions that generate important and reliable information. These include the Pakistan Institute of Labour and Education Research, the Shirkat Gah Women’s Collective, the Institute for Women’s Studies Lahore and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. From within civil society (a term used loosely to refer to non-government associations and non-government development organizations) allegations leveled against donor support focus on the power imbalance in the “core/ periphery” relationship of Western aid agencies funding projects in Pakistan,

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and they are no doubt accurate. Arguments are made that donor funding serves the national interests of donor countries and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and particularly the World Bank, reinforcing dependence on the West. Critics also allege that the programmatic and research agendas of local NGOs are shaped by these donors and thus fail to reflect an independent assessment of what our needs really are. One example of this is the disproportionately large amount of international funding to both government and NGOs for HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness raising work, despite the fact that after 20 years of warnings, predictions of an epidemic have yet to come true. Nonetheless, there is a mutuality of interest that must not be ignored. Donors need to spend the funds allocated by their governments for Pakistan and are keen to show results, while local NGOs are also learning how to make their case to qualify for funding in areas that they can demonstrably prove to be relevant in our context. Furthermore, a more immediate truth is that the imbalance of power enjoyed by an authoritarian state over its people also needs to be challenged.12 In Pakistan the beneficiaries of donor assistance have used international resources to push back what is seen as the more urgent oppressor, particularly during periods of military rule. Admittedly, a dilemma persists among some beneficiaries, and it is not unusual to attend meetings, workshops or advocacy committees hosted by NGOs in which foreign donor agencies are derided for having de-politicized development issues and siphoned away human resources that could have been put to better use in direct political activism. Yet, issue-based networks have been built among organizations all over the country during the last few decades, facilitating collaboration and sharing among people who would not otherwise ever get a chance to travel out of their geographic areas.13

Methods and methodology Having discussed the motivation for our research in some detail, I now turn to the methods and methodologies that we use in the field. These include qualitative interviews, community profiles and quantitative surveys, and they are no different from social science research tools long used in Western contexts as well. Upon reflection, though, the way in which we use these tools is also an expression of the motivations for our research, as discussed above. The interview is the primary research tool for our work in communities. Simply organizing the logistics of working in multiple languages is a major endeavor in its own right. For example, it is not unusual that an interview with a Seraiki-speaking woman in southern Punjab needs to be conducted by one researcher who speaks the language, then translated into Urdu by (hopefully) the same researcher, shared among the field team, transcribed and translated into English, typed by someone else and coded or analyzed by yet another team member before the content can find its way into a

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research report.14 I am sometimes troubled by the texts on qualitative research that I have read, produced by experts in the United States or Britain, that claim that the best qualitative research must involve the same researcher conducting interviews, processing them and writing the analysis. It is simply impossible to conduct field research single-handedly across the diverse cultural and linguistic communities that comprise Pakistan! Several key elements to successful interviews that enhance the quality of our work are worth mentioning. These include the ability to ask open-ended questions (without closing oneself off to any possible set of responses), being sure to listen actively and attentiveness to mood, body language, and the subtleties of what the speaker is trying to convey. There is also the quality of restraint during an interview, in other words, avoidance of the display of any value judgments when inquiring about the experiences or the opinion of the interview subject.15 It takes time to establish trust in a setting where the researcher (from the Collective) and the research subject may not enjoy equal social, economic or political privilege, and we must be prepared to take that time. In the process we establish empathy with the individual or the story of the community we are trying to understand. Oftentimes they have had experiences that we never have, but whose impact we share on a deeply human level. There are circumstances under which this distance is less pronounced, for example, when the research involves gender, given the fact that two women (researcher and subject) have a set of shared experiences that may temporarily override other differences. Active listening often produces unexpected results. We have found that open-ended interviews at the local level have yielded findings much richer than we could have anticipated, making it necessary to reexamine our initial categories of analysis in social research. For instance, we now include caste in our analytical work, which is a category that has thus far not been featured in Pakistani policy or program design in the social sectors due to a persistent belief within government that caste is an Indian problem only. Ethnic, linguistic and religious categorizations are deemed sufficient to capture social characteristics through dominant state discourses. It has become standard method to prepare a community profile of any locality or site from which we seek to collect information or primary data. This profile is a mapping of the ethnic, class, caste, linguistic and political structures of the locality. This type of mapping has evolved based upon what we learn in the field, caste being a case in point. It also includes information on access to basic services (health, education, etc.), physical infrastructure (e.g., roads, electricity), and governance institutions (police, local bodies, justice mechanisms). This information is vital to understanding social hierarchy and conflict issues for the purpose of any analysis. For example, a qualitative study on community-based health workers called for such a profile, as did a very different study on land ownership. It is an excellent way to incorporate information from the numerous informal interviews/interactions

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and key informant interviews that we conduct while in the field, and to identify points of dissonance and conflict in respondents’ perceptions of their own communities. The quantitative survey remains a useful tool despite the difficulties posed in accurate data collection across the country. Large surveys produce data and figures that can have a powerful influence on money flows in the development sector. In Pakistan, the measurement of poverty levels is based upon such surveys and at times the figures are corrected in retrospect, even after policies and funding have already been allocated. We use quantitative and qualitative methods in a complementary way, in order to allow for nuance and exploration of unexpected outcomes. In a recent study of unsafe abortion-related morbidity and mortality, for example, we conducted preliminary qualitative fieldwork over a one-year period before designing a questionnaire to be used in a nation-wide sample, one that we felt would most accurately capture the complexity of women’s health-seeking behavior and decisionmaking strategies regarding contraception, pregnancy and termination. Our initial challenge was to prove that such a survey was indeed possible, that one could ask women living in heterogeneous communities across the country about what is widely considered to be a culturally sensitive topic. Having established this through preliminary fieldwork, which in itself was a finding, we designed our quantitative survey. There are inevitable limitations to data-gathering methods and methodologies that we need to acknowledge in order to safeguard the rigor of the research process itself. The empirical work that we do is not a throwback to the rationalist epistemologies exemplified by positivism. Rather, it examines the social order and the hierarchies of relations that operate within our political context in order to understand the perspectives of the marginalized and better articulate their claims to truth. In this sense, reflections on standpoint theory are helpful in explaining our approach. Sandra Harding (1997: 388) writes that “claims to truth are harmless as long as they promise no more than the evidence that can be produced in support of such a claim.” Our method of examination could be termed the “political project” posited by this author (1997: 389), in that it shapes what could be seen as our standpoint epistemology and allows us to make claims based on the evidence that we gather. The remaining two sections of this essay will illustrate more specifically how our fieldwork could contribute to a rethinking of the categories of the “local” and the “international.”

Afghans and transnationalism Pakistan has been home to about three million refugees from Afghanistan ever since war broke out in that country over 30 years ago. While refugee policy has been somewhat flexible and has accommodated the needs of Afghan families with members on both sides of a porous border, it has become more restrictive in the last few years. A major reason for Pakistan’s

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accommodative approach to the influx of Afghans in its Western provinces was that it was easy to do so. Existing social and economic networks supported the movement of peoples across the borders and their livelihoods. In fact, the ethnic Pakhtuns, who made up the majority of refugees as well as the residents of what was then called the North-Western and tribal areas of Pakistan, did not take seriously the imposition of the Afghan–Pakistan border in the first place. While this attitude worked to the advantage of those who fought against the Soviets during the 1980s, it has come to haunt the governments of Pakistan and the United States in the new so-called war on terror. We have studied the livelihood strategies of refugees in the camps and among the Afghan communities in the cities of Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar. While war ravaged their country during the 1980s, 1990s and into this century, the very survival of extended family networks has depended upon these displaced Afghans spreading themselves thin. Often, within one family, there will be one brother who remains in the home village or returns there every season to cultivate what land the family may still own, while another tries out his luck with business in Kabul but keeps his family safely in Peshawar, because he cannot afford rent in Kabul. In Karachi, Afghans live in communities with their own schools and small businesses, and send their men intermittently back to Afghanistan to look for employment. Some women may go back to Afghanistan in the summer, and return to Pakistan to escape the harsh winter conditions. There are men and young boys who smuggle themselves out to Iran, Turkey and even further into Europe in the hope of securing jobs and incomes that they can send back to support huge extended families waiting across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our work on livelihoods of Afghan migrant communities in Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta was part of a three-country study involving Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The purpose was to examine the cross-border experiences of Afghans as part of a possible rethinking (on the part of the UN system and states in the region) of the management strategy of the largest caseload of refugees in the world. By the time we started our work in 2005, the discourse of “transnationalism” had entered the language of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the organization responsible for management of the Afghan refugees.16 This made it possible for some policymakers to make the paradigm shift from viewing Afghans solely as refugees in need of repatriation, to migrants whose complex livelihood strategies spanned borders and nations. Whether or not the states involved would rise to the occasion and make the same paradigm shift constituted a completely different question. We recommended some creative changes in policy, such as work and travel permits for Afghan migrants, citizenship for those born in Pakistan, on-going refugee status for those who continued to be vulnerable, and educational and professional opportunities for Afghan youths in Pakistan.

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In short, our findings highlighted the need for acceptance of the reality of this population’s lived experiences within transnational networks (Collective for Social Science Research 2006). However, the broader international political context was growing increasingly more conservative, and lent itself to greater strengthening of the state security apparatus, given the military government’s support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan and closer monitoring of Pakistan’s borders. Although the government has received mixed reviews concerning its sincerity in closing the border to Taliban traffic, it is important to keep in mind that completely sealing such a lengthy and historically open border would be close to impossible. Intermittently, the Pakistan government has announced, and then retracted, plans to fence the border and even to mine it to prevent people from crossing over. Yet another approach that it uses when under international pressure is to close down some refugee camps and step up repatriation efforts with the assistance of the UNHCR. A process of biometric identification of travelers at the border check-points was also enacted in order to make it easier to track them once they are inside the country. Our research has shown that camp closures actually lead to an increase in Afghan migrants in Pakistan’s cities, and the absence of government policies to facilitate their work and security only deepens their vulnerability. Our study of Afghans in Karachi also revealed that their experience is no different from that of other ethnic migrant communities that have arrived in the city from other parts of Pakistan or the region. They have clustered in illegal settlements under the patronage of tribal and/or political leaders as a means to access shelter and livelihoods. The vast city of Karachi and its many slum dwellings is a microcosm of Pakistan’s ethnic and tribal communities, which include Bengali, Burmese and now Afghan migrants who live in close proximity but not actually in a melting pot. In the case of Afghans, we found that many of those interviewed (out of a population numbering at least 200,000) came to this city when food rations dwindled to a halt during the early 1990s in the refugee camps further North in Pakistan. Afghans of Pakhtun origin made use of tribal ties with Pakistani Pakhtun groups living in Karachi, and also sought protection from religious political organizations and/or religious groups to ensure their security (Collective for Social Science Research 2005). They are not unlike other cross-border migrants to Karachi, who required patronage and protection to survive and found that ethnic, religious and tribal identities were the key factors in securing their protection, particularly in the absence of any alternatives provided by the state. Our research reveals that the livelihood strategies of Afghans in Pakistan are transnational in nature, dependent upon regular movement between countries and contingent upon families spreading their earning potential across the region. The lived experience of Afghans and Pakistanis in the border regions calls into question the relevance of state institutions to the lives of its people. Nomads, or kuchis, for example, have been following

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their cattle in and out of both countries long before the states even came into existence. When the Afghan refugee became a category of identification during the first jihad in the 1980s, the kuchi tribes were among the first to benefit from food rations. Today, government efforts to seal the borders can be devastating for the new generation of transnational and newly urbanized Afghans.17 Take the case of the Afghan man who has spent his life growing fruit in orchards outside Kandahar and selling it in Quetta and onwards in Karachi. He has his wife living in Peshawar with his children in schools there, because it is still the safest place for them and it has all the urban amenities that they have gotten used to over their years of displacement. Yet he lacks a valid Afghan passport or work permit for Pakistan and is about to lose his refugee registration card, and his children have no citizenship at all. With the loss of refugee status he has also lost his food rations, yet without a work permit he cannot earn enough within Pakistan to eat. It is difficult to classify him in today’s world, other than as a refugee, an illegal migrant, or a terrorist suspect, when in fact, he is a highly-skilled planner who has designed livelihood strategies that could show policy-makers ways towards resolving the deprivations of his people (Collective for Social Research 2006). Of course, it does not help that our Afghan survivor has become the focus of renewed world attention. If we ask him who he is, he will tell us his name, his tribe and his village, and possibly what political party he belongs to. From this information it will be possible to know his recent history and also that of his forefather, which may well have included migration from Iran, into Pakistani Balochistan, and then to Afghanistan, in an era when current borders meant nothing but the right of his tribe to migrate was intact. This man’s son may fit the profile of today’s Taliban insurgent, but the father was yesterday’s mujahideen. Yesterday’s good Muslim is today’s bad Muslim. Yesterday’s Afghan refugee is today’s father to stateless children. Tomorrow he may be dead in an encounter with Pakistani, Afghan, American, British or NATO military forces. The multiple standpoints from which to read or write this individual man’s story are dizzying indeed, the richness of which, from his perspective, only an understanding of the “local” can elucidate. However, his positionality is “international,” historically determined by political forces that are global and have been dramatically changing over the last three decades. At this point in time his life is intimately connected to the “international” and the “war on terror”; it is also determined by the cross-border tensions in the region; and it is subject to the intricacies of “local” social and political realities and dynamics that in turn have bearing on the “international.” As researchers based in Pakistan that seek to understand the lives of men such as our Afghan survivor, we give primacy to “local” experience in all its complexities and nuances. From our standpoint, this world is the most marginalized from mainstream development and political analyses.

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More recently we participated in a qualitative research study with Afghan women living in Kabul who had been recipients of micro-finance loans. The purpose was to explore if and how these women had been “empowered” through their access to credit. This was part of a multi-country study examining women’s lived experiences of “empowerment” through local or “grassroots” initiatives. The long-term goal of this research program was to explore how women experienced positive change in multiple aspects of their lives, and thereby attempt to expand our understanding of the concept based on the point of view of women impacted by these initiatives.18 Women interviewed belonged to the ethnic group known as Hazaras, who are Shia and Darri (Persian)-speaking. Their own experiences of displacement and migration over the years of conflict in Afghanistan (1978 to present) had a profound effect on how they narrated their lives. They told their stories in terms of “before” and “after” periods of displacement caused by various stages of the conflict. For example, a woman may have grown up in a village in Bamyan province, then fled after the fall of Najibullah with family to Iran for shelter while still a girl, returned from there as a grown married woman with children to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban, and so on. Women had family members dispersed across Iran, urban and rural Afghanistan, Pakistan and even some European countries. As families struggled to develop livelihood strategies they dispersed, and the old order of family and social life irrevocably changed. The discourse around Afghanistan and its people that has dominated media and even development-related analyses among Western nations is premised on a view that Afghans are a “traditional” people, and that their treatment of women exemplifies how deeply entrenched their local laws and customs are. It follows, therefore, that foreign development work and political support must work around Afghan “culture” and steer clear of violating or insulting their social mores. However, in our view the “truth” is quite different. Kandiyoti (2009: 10) puts it thus: Little thought is given to the possibility that what to Western eyes looks like “tradition” is, in many instances, the manifestation of new and more brutal forms of subjugation of the weak made possible by a commodified criminal economy, total lack of security and the erosion of bonds of trust and solidarity that were tested to the limit by war, social upheaval and poverty. From our perspective and that of other research and development experts, such as Kandiyoti, who have done extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, there is plenty of evidence that can be presented in support of this claim. If development and policy interventions in the name of helping women are to have any real impact, they will need to take cognizance of what awaits them on the ground.

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Women we interviewed always compared the life of drudgery and loneliness they led in urban Kabul to living as refugees in Iran. “Life is better in Iran” was, in fact, our name for this emerging theme in our analysis. Women said they missed the freedom to access markets, parks and other public spaces that they had enjoyed in Iran. Jobs for women are permitted; girls and boys could both study in local schools; public spaces were safe for women. Kabul could not offer such a life to them, and current living conditions were only somewhat better than what they had seen or heard about under the Taliban. The bonds of family, too, are stretched to the breaking point. This is in part due to livelihood strategies and in great part to the stresses of war, displacement and poverty. Women report how their husbands have changed and resort more and more to violence within the home as the old order of things has collapsed, and trauma, disability and deepening poverty have rendered them almost ineffectual. Governments and development organizations have been spending a great deal of time figuring out how to put Afghan refugees/migrants back into the borders of their country, and how to set up a functioning state as well, but the realities of the lives and livelihoods of Afghans have defied these efforts. In recognition of this, and following years of research and experience in this part of the world, the term “transnationalism” became an acceptable one to the UNHCR. The next difficulty remains convincing the governments of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to review their policies on migration. Instead of trying to put Afghans back into camps or on buses to Kabul, what is required is an accommodation to the reality of their survival strategies. Does this effort also require some rethinking of the traditional concepts of the “international” and the “core–periphery” debate in the field of International Relations? Certainly, the knowledge that has come out of fieldbased research, and the attempt to see the world through the eyes of Afghan men and women in specific contexts, should have some application at the level of theoretical debate. There appear to be new categories emerging from the experiences of people, such as the Afghans, that hold promise for future innovations. One such category is the concept of the “transnational.”

Gender and an expanded view of the “local” To take on women’s issues in Pakistan is an important and serious task, but contrary to what one often hears outside the country, it is an ongoing and lively engagement that has given rise to women’s civil society organizations, publications, development organizations, as well as religious groups. There is also a growing women’s professional and entrepreneurial sector and media presence. It is unfortunate that women’s experiences within Pakistan have been marked with so much violence, but as they have worked to raise awareness on these issues they have also developed solidarity in innovative ways. The persistence and seriousness of the women’s movement has

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influenced the kind of intellectual discourse that has taken shape among civil society in Pakistan, and its effect on research is now beginning to be felt as well. The study of gender in Pakistan is fraught with difficulties, not least because the state has not played an effective role in promoting the goals of gender equality and equity. The dominant paradigm through which policymakers have looked at women is that of “women and development,” in effect legitimizing investment in the human development of women based on the argument that it will further the goals of national development. However, over the last 30 years the vocal women’s movement has introduced the language of feminism into this discourse of women’s development, at least outside of government. These activists have influenced the content and direction of research on women, including that which is funded by the government, partly because they are the best-informed and most articulate experts on women’s issues. The state has been forced to work with them because they have been able to engage with international agencies and donors, and ensure that programs for women remain alive even under the most hostile political circumstances. Sustenance has come from sources unimagined just a few decades ago. The women’s movement, and feminist research within the development sector, gains its strength from the struggles of women across our borders. Donor funding has enabled them to meet each other within South Asia and elsewhere, share their experiences, and learn from one another. In the process, common platforms have been born. NGOs, journalists and activists working on a range of issues in Pakistan, including violence against women, trafficking, discriminatory legislation and religious fundamentalism, have created a community of like-minded professionals and activists who share the same perspective on equity and justice issues for women. These relationships have taken many shapes, in the form of global networks whose members share ideological or political goals, such as the Association of Women in Development (AWID) and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN). Regional or international NGOs have emerged so as to formalize these associations among women. The Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), located in Malaysia, is just one example, while the network Women Living under Muslim Laws (WLUML) has developed into an NGO with members from Arab, sub-Saharan African, South Asian and East Asian nations. Women’s networks have also been integral to founding regional initiatives, such as the South Asia Human Rights Forum and the IndiaPakistan People to People Dialogue for Peace, that have formalized a crossborder citizens’ constituency for peace when governments were unable or unwilling to reduce tensions between these two countries. Educational initiatives too have grown out of this networking. For example, CREA is a feminist human rights organization based in New Delhi that holds short courses in Nepal, bringing together women from South Asia to give them an

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opportunity to learn about feminism, understand issues such as sexual rights and study movement-building. Experts from the region are brought in to lead the sessions. The Institute for Women’s Studies in Lahore operates in a similar vein. The intellectual resources and support gained by women from participating in cross-border networks have widened their knowledge and experiential domains far beyond what would have been possible if they had remained based exclusively in the “local” domestic realm. The results of these networks have been felt at the global level, and in turn have strengthened the impact of international organizations at the national level. For instance, at the United Nations Conferences on Women (1995), Population and Development (1994) and Human Rights (1993) women networked far beyond their own borders, working together to advocate for feminist agendas to be heard; and they did so quite successfully. They then became high profile advocates to ensure their national governments implemented their international commitments. Women thus networked can be viewed as a constituency, a group that shares its feminist perspective, despite cultural and political differences, and is working to realize women’s rights and equity needs at both the state and global levels. This constituency has a standpoint of its own, and is something to be reckoned with at the levels of international advocacy and national policies, even though it operates across borders and has no national identity. It can be understand as one site of the “local” for those feminists across national boundaries that share the same perspective and, importantly, together seek to influence policies and programs that emerge from international institutions as well as national ones. It is not a sisterhood lacking in conflict and divisions, but may add up to more than the multiplicity of perspectives that women have within their own individual countries. In other words, I have more of a shared discourse and ideological perspective with feminists and women’s rights activists from other countries than I would necessarily have with women at various levels of society in Pakistan. This may in part be due to the higher level of education that women share who lead these networks, but that is not the only reason. The language of feminism is actually home-grown; its resonance lies in how it helps to elucidate and interpret the experience of women in their own lives, and for that reason it is relevant across cultural and national boundaries. Once it has been shared among women, they develop bonds that will often run deeper than religious, cultural, or political differences, which abound even within nations. Feminism also helps to bridge barriers of social hierarchy, as women researchers and practitioners are discovering through their work in the field. This explains why, in the study of women and microfinance in Kabul featured earlier, the research team was comprised of two Iranians, a Bangladeshi, a few Afghan nationals, and myself, and none of us felt inhibited by the cross-cultural reality of the study. In fact, we shared a common standpoint—based upon the themes of empowerment of our

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research project—from which to interpret the experiences of Afghans, who themselves had ceased to be simply “local” in experience or perspectives themselves. Research is integral to meeting the goals of this feminist project. In fact, women have to be able to make cogent, and even strident, truth claims in order to bring women’s experience into mainstream discourse. There is much to be shared among women from vastly different cultures about how they negotiate and resist patriarchal institutions, and this sharing helps women strategize about how to advocate for their rights globally and within their own countries or regions. It was an accumulation of evidence and organization that gave rise to the reproductive rights agenda that culminated in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. That women’s rights be recognized as human rights after years of international lobbying by women’s groups, based in the North and South, was another vital achievement. A resolution was tabled at the Human Rights Council of the United Nations as recently as 2010, stating that maternal health was a human right. Pakistan, represented on this Council, was initially uninterested and reluctant to vote in favor of this Resolution. Yet, women’s groups partnering within and outside Pakistan lobbied the government heavily, and at the last minute it endorsed this Resolution. Feminist research, giving primacy as it does to understanding the lived experiences of women, must per force be grounded epistemologically in such a way that it makes empirical claims to knowledge. Maternal deaths, for example, pose an urgent problem for us and motivate our research agenda and that of feminists in many parts of the world. Independently of whether or not we wish to avoid making strident truth claims, or believe that we can represent external reality perfectly, we need empirics. Across states and within states, inequities are experienced at multiple “local” levels and they need to be documented. Their reversal, and the eventual dismantling of oppressive institutions that support these inequities, comprise a “transnational” feminist agenda.

Conclusion This chapter has presented in some detail the work of the Collective for Social Science Research in an effort to draw out the relevance of its empirical work to the larger project of looking “inside the state,” and of engaging with knowledge production far from the center of global political power (Tickner 2003: 311) in order to enrich the discipline of IR. The implicit political project of the Collective has been to give expression to the voices of marginalized people and groups in an effort to further the goals of social justice by bringing these voices into the realms of policy and academic discourse, both in Pakistan and internationally. Its methods are based on traditional social sciences as practiced in the West. Although it has not been self-consciously grounded in a specific theoretical framework, upon closer

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reflection we find it has much in common with feminist standpoint theory in two main ways. First, it recognizes there is a political project inherent to any knowledge building enterprise; this is most apparent in the Collective’s work on Afghan refugees and on women, which situates the experiences of communities within broader “social, economic and political currents” (Presser 2005: 2068). Second, its emphasis on empirical research is part of a broader engagement that includes understanding power relations and producing knowledge that may benefit marginalized groups. It does so through giving primacy to the perspectives and experiences of people, with the understanding that this kind of research can produce “transformative knowledge” (Harding and Norberg 2005: 2011) that could help to end their marginalization. Our research findings speak to the discipline of International Relations and its quest for re-integrating the “local” into its framework by suggesting some innovative new categorizations. The livelihood strategies of conflictdisplaced Afghans in Pakistan call for the creation of a new category beyond the local–international divide that rests on the concept of “transnationalism” instead. The networks and alliances of feminists across national boundaries point to a new type of “local,” based on women’s lived experiences and the particularities of their immediate contexts, but posited on a platform that is “international” at the same time, thus calling into question the relevance of the original binary concept. Concerns with international inequalities inherent in the “core–periphery” model are mirrored in myriad critiques of the funding flows from Western countries to organizations such as the Collective and other nongovernmental organizations that operate in poorer nations. However, this discussion has shown that some of this inequality has been offset by the manner in which such flows have been used to address political and social inequities within the nations that are beneficiaries of such assistance. This funding has also been responsible for fostering a lively and growing network of practitioners and activists engaged with each other within nations and around the world. Without a doubt, such interaction is shaping social justice agendas that may in the long term further transform the “international” in unique and creative ways.

Notes 1 The Collective for Social Science Research is an independent private research organization, founded in 2001, which conducts poverty and development-related research in the context of Pakistan and the region. Its three Senior Researchers, of which the author is one, attained their university education in the United States and the United Kingdom. 2 See our website for more details: www.researchcollective.org 3 For a history of these early years of political and state development in Pakistan, see Jalal (1990). Today there are some independent private universities that have fledgling social science departments and may become the seat of renewed vigor in academic research.

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4 The evolution of the links between religion and politics in Pakistan is discussed in Haqqani (2005). 5 The most comprehensive account of these early years of the modern women’s movement in Pakistan is Shaheed and Mumtaz (1987). 6 One such example is the current affairs monthly magazine, Newsline, established during the military rule of General Zia ul-Haq, by a group of female journalists who resigned their posts from another monthly magazine in protest against the publisher’s acquiescence to government restrictions on reporting. It remains a leading English-language source of political and cultural analysis (see www. newslinemagazine.com). 7 “Honor killing” is the practice of executing women and men for suspected illicit sexual relations outside of marriage, the evidence of which may only be a chance encounter of the suspects in a public place. The killing is usually done by a father or brother of the accused woman and is mandated by a tribal council of elders, not through any formal law enforcement. The presumably guilty couple may be tortured prior to their execution. From January to June 2010 a total of 280 such cases were reported in the newspapers (Aurat Foundation 2010). A review of how politicized the female body is in Pakistan can be found in Mumtaz (2010). 8 For example, the author is part of a group established by a department in the provincial government of Sindh to help push through legislation at the national level to standardize the age at marriage as 18 for both boys and girls. The current law permits the marriage of girls at the age of 16, and is thus discriminatory against women and girls. Early marriage contributes to myriad health problems associated with early childbearing, which is one reason why the state is willing to consider this legislative reform. Through inviting the formation of such advocacy groups, the government is in effect requesting the support of evidence-based research and expert opinion. 9 See, for example, Arturo Escobar (1995) and his critique of development and the “modernization” of the “third world” by the “first.” 10 The multi-lateral donors include the United Nations agencies, European Union, and the World Bank. Smaller but high-impact assistance has come from the Netherlands, Norwegian, Canadian and German governments. There have been periods when the Japanese government has been the largest bilateral donor to Pakistan. Assistance from USAID has been irregular, although it stands to increase now and cannot be as closely associated with the development of discourses as discussed here. 11 While the details are too vast for the purposes of this discussion, one illustrative example is the series of research consortiums funded primarily by the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom that involve multicountry five-year studies in areas such as citizenship, poverty reduction and women’s empowerment (see www.researchcollective.org for the Collective’s role in some of the studies, and see www.pathwaysofempowerment.org to get an overview of one such research consortium involving five different clusters of countries across the globe). 12 I am referring here to the Pakistani state as described by Bose and Jalal (1998: 201–38). 13 Without any sense of irony, given its own dependence on external financial support from many of the same sources, the government regularly levels verbal and often legal attacks on donor-funded NGOs, accusing them of undermining the state’s authority, receiving money from Western governments to pursue un-Islamic causes, and/or trying to spread Western values and ideas that have no relevance to the national culture. For details, see Weiss and Gilani (2001).

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14 There are other hurdles to cross beyond working in multiple languages. In a four year study on the effect of conflict on women, the interviewers of Afghan refugee women belonged to two separate groups: those who spoke Darri and those who spoke Pushto. Transcribers were different altogether, for they needed to know how to type in these languages. Translators were another specialty group, since the transcribers mostly did not know English or Urdu! 15 See, for example, Schatzman and Strauss (1973) and Spradley (1979) for discussions on the ethnographic interview. There are also numerous methodological issues and ethical considerations involved in conducting qualitative research in settings where there are potential security risks for respondents (Khan 2002). 16 Our partner organization, Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, conducted two more studies on transnational networks and migrant workers from Afghanistan’s Western provinces into Iran. See Stigter (2005a and 2005b). 17 No doubt in recognition of the broader implications of Afghan transnationalism, the UNHCR issued a call for proposals for a research study to measure the economic contributions of Afghans in Pakistan. 18 The study is part of the research program named “Pathways of Women’s Empowerment” funded by Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID).

References Aurat Foundation (2010) “Incidents of Violence Against Women in Pakistan Reported During January to June 2010,” Press Briefing, Islamabad: Aurat Publication and Information Service Foundation. Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal (1998) Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, London and New York: Routledge. Collective for Social Science Research (2005) Afghans in Karachi: Migration, Settlement and Social Networks, Kabul: Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit. —— (2006) Afghans in Pakistan: Broadening the Focus, Kabul: Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit. Escobar, Arturo (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Harding, Sandra (1997) “Comment on Hekman’s ‘Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited’: Whose Standpoint Needs the Regimes of Truth and Reality?” Signs, 22(2): 382–91. Harding, Sandra and Kathryn Norberg (2005) “New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction,” Signs, 30(4): 2009–15. Haqqani, Husain (2005) Pakistan Between Mosque and Military, Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jalal, Ayesha (1990) The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kandiyoti, Deniz (2009) “The Lures and Perils of Gender Activism in Afghanistan.” The Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 21 January 2009). Khan, Ayesha (2002) The Linkages between Scholarship and Advocacy: From a Feminist Analysis of Research on the Karachi Conflict, Working Paper No. 80., Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad.

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Mumtaz, Khawar (2010) “Pathways of Empowerment: Bodily Integrity and Women’s Empowerment,” in Firdous Azim and Maheen Sultans (eds), Mapping Women’s Empowerment, Dhaka: BRAC Development Institute and The University Press Limited, pp. 235–60. Presser, Lois (2005) “Negotiating Power and Narrative in Research: Implications for Feminist Methodology,” Signs, 30(4): 2067–90. Schatzman, Leonard and Anselm Strauss (1973) Field Research: Strategies for a Natural Sociology, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Shaheed, Fareeda and Khawar Mumtaz (1987) Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? London: Zed Books. Spradley, James (1979) The Ethnographic Interview, Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. Stigter, Elca (2005a) Transnational Networks and Migration from Faryab to Iran, Case Study Series, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. —— (2005b) Transnational Networks and Migration From Herat to Iran, Case Study Series, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Tickner, J. Ann (2006) “On the Frontlines or Sidelines of Knowledge and Power: Feminist Practices of Responsible Scholarship,” International Studies Review, 8 (3): 383–95. Tickner, Arlene B. (2003) “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium, 32 (2): 295–324. Weiss, Anita M. and S. Zulfiqar Gilani (2001) Power and Civil Society in Pakistan, Karachi: Oxford University Press.

Index

Aarhus University 292 Abdalla, Ulil Abshar 261 Abdel Aal, Abdel Monem Said Aly 37 Abend, Gabriel 108 Aberystwyth school 52, 61 Acharya, Amitav 1, 5, 7, 15 Acton, Lord 166 Adar, Gombe Korwa 306 advocacy work 324, 335–7, 346 Afghans: Pakistani research 329–34 Africa: absence in globalization literature 183–200; alliances with external powers 134; civil wars 133; elites 118, 121, 127, 305, 308; external interference 301; as integral to world economy 134; politics 118, 119, 120, 127, 128, 132, 134, 301; scholars 4, 124–5, 131, 198–9, 305, 306, 316, see also South Africa Africa-focused intelligentsia 199, 200 Africa-focused picture of globalization 184, 185 African cities 193–4 African National Congress 124 African perceptions, of the international 301–16; Africa’s position in the international system 305–7; colonial legacy 303–5; domestic/international divide 315; multiple internationals and the futility of constructed boundaries 307–15; obstacles in writing about 302 African Renaissance 198, 199, 309 African state, analyses 117–35; African state as an object 121–5; Anglophone political science 117–18; beyond structuralism and determinism 125–9; dysfunctions and inefficacy

of postwar intervention 117; marginality of African analysts 117–18; state, ideology and failure 129–33; time, space and their derivations 119–21 Africanization 127, 304 Afro-centrism 126, 198 Afro-Marxist regimes 126, 127, 132, 133, 305–6 Afro-socialist regimes 132–3 agency: African 122–3, 126, 127, 128, 129, 134, 304, 306, 315; non-core scholars 28, 43 Agnew, John 2, 4, 5 Ajulu, Rok 306 Ake, Claude 305, 306 Al Saadawi, Nawal 233 Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies 36, 37 Al-Attas, Syed Naguib 254 Al-Bashir, Omar 312 Al-Faruqi, Ismail Raji 266 Al-Helmy, Burhanuddin 256, 257, 265 Al-Mashat, Abdel Monem 38 Al-Mawdudi, Abdul A’la 266 Al-Raziq, Ali Abd 260 Algeria 31, 132, 133, 190, 232 Alker, Hayward 5 Alliance for Progress 96 alms-giving (zakat) 237 Althusser, Louis 184, 185, 186 American security studies: journals 50, 57, see also Euro-American bifurcation Americanization 237, 239 Amin, Galal 237, 238, 241, 242, 243 Amin, Samir 125, 236, 305 Andrade, Mario 306 Anglo-Perak Treaty (1874) 256

Index Angola 126, 127, 132, 133, 134 Angola Task Force 124 anti-colonialism 163; Africa 125, 126; African scholarship 17; Arab world 31, 33; Southeast Asia 256 Appadurai, Arjun 12 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 307 Arab Human Development Reports 230–1, 268 Arab identity 32, 33, 35 Arab Institute for Security Studies 36 Arab League 31 Arab national security 37, 38, 39, 41 Arab perspective, globalization 228–46; complex approaches to 234–8, 244–5; historical memory 19, 230, 234, 242–4; holistic approach 229, 234; ICT revolution 238–42; political origins of study 17; socio-political and economic conditions of scholarship 230–4 Arab scholars 29, 30, 35–9 Arab security: Arab/non-Arab distinction 15; conceptions 35–9, 42; practices 30–5, 42; standard perspective 28–30 Arab Spring 239 Arab Strategic Yearbook 36 Arab Thought Forum 36, 37 Argentina 94, 96, 98, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173 Arias, Oscar 99 Arias Plan (1987) 99 arms trafficking 102, 103 Asad, Talal 278, 280–1 Asha’rite theology 259 Ashrawi, Hanan 237, 238, 239, 241, 242–3 Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) 335 Association of Muslim Intellectuals 259 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Malayan loyalty to 266; regional forum (2002) 80–1 Association of Women in Development (AWID) 335 Assyaukanie, Luthfi 261 Ataturk, Kemal 260 Atlanticist orientation 218 Audi, Robert 277 Aufklärung 285 Australia 171, 172

343

authoritarianism 234, 236; African 117, 126; Latin American 97, 98, 105 Awang, Haji Abdul Hadi 265 axiology: China’s new concept of security 83 Ayoob, Mohammed 105, 140, 141, 155 Backheuser, Everardo 94 Badawi, Abdullah Ahmad 264–5 Bader, Veit 277 Bahrain 239 Banarjee, Paula 144–5 bandwagoning 105 Barakat, Halim 235 ‘Bargain of 1957’ 262–3 Barnett, Michael 33 Baroudi, Sami 236, 242, 243 Barrán, José Pedro 172 Barre, Siad 134 Baubérot, Jean 281 Bayart, Jean-François 127–8, 304, 306 behaviouralism 126 Benin 126, 132, 133 Berg-Sørensen, Anders 277 Berlin Conference (1884–5) 131, 189 Betts, Richard 62 Bhabba, Homi 6 Bhargava, Rajeev 278 Bhutto, Benazir 324 Biersteker, Thomas 5, 139 Bigo, Didier 54 Bilgin, Pinar 5, 6, 8, 14, 65 Blaney, David L. 2, 10 Bluitgen, Kåre 288 body: cultural globalization and 237 Bogaturov, Aleksei 209 Bolivia 166, 176 Booth, Ken 52, 61 border thinking 7 borders 144, 145, 146, 153; Afghan-Pakistan 330, 331, 332; kinship and arbitrary nature of 309–10 Boron, Atilio 174 Bose, Sugata 153–5 Botswana 190 boundaries: African 303, 309; Indian Ocean 154; maritime 158; and statehood 144, 149 Bourdieu, Pierre 12, 54 Brazil 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104, 166, 212 Brazzaville 132, 133, 134

344

Index

Britain 176; MEDO proposal 31; treaty with Iraq (1948) 33 British empire: influence in Latin America 172; informal policies 164 British Malaya: separation of religion and state 256 Bukharin, Nikolai 211 Burawoy, Michael 58 bureaucratic-authoritarian model 97, 98, 169 burka controversy: France 281 Bush, George W. 283–4 Buzan, Barry 1, 7, 15 Cabral, Amilcar 306 Canada 50, 171, 172 Canal Treaty 31 capabilities: state formation 143, 144 capacity building 99, 106 capital 131, 133, 169, see also finance capital; global capital capital accumulation 170, 193 capitalism 126, 127, 152, 234, 235, 241, see also global capitalism; industrial capitalism Cardoso, Fernando H. 97, 172 cartographies: political space 151–2 cartoon crisis: Denmark 288 case studies 13–20 Catholicism 281 censorship: Middle East 233, 234, 238 Center for Arab Unity Studies 36, 37 Central America: democratic security 100 Central American peace process 92 centralization 146, 151, 167, 189 Chad 191 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 10 Charter (SCO, 2002) 86 Chaturvedi, Sanjay 155 Cheah, Pheng 6–7, 8, 9, 11 Chile 94, 96, 98, 104, 168, 171 China 301; African perceptions 308 China security: culture and 73–7, 88; politics 72; Shanghai Co-operation Organization 72, 86–7, 88; theorizing 16, 77–86; thinking 72 Chinese Position Paper on China’s New Concept of Security 81 Chinese school of IR 5 Christian Democratic Party: Denmark 287 Christian Democratic/Social Union of Germany 285

Christianity 218; Denmark 287–9; and Latin American military 96; secularization as Westernization of 254, see also Orthodox Christianity; Protestant Christianity church and state: separation of 164 church tax: Germany 285–6 cities see African cities; global cities citizen security 105 Citizens and Subjects 119 civil wars: African 133 civil-military relations 107 civilizationists 217 Claassen, Casper 308 Claiming the International 13 Clash of Civilizations 217 Cohen, Benjamin 6 Cold War 132, 134; Middle Eastern perspective on threats to security 28; Turkey as junior partner in security studies 39; US pursuit of security interests, Latin America 95–6, see also post-Cold War Collective for Social Science Research 322, 323, see also Pakistan, social science research Colombia 99, 103, 104, 166, 168 colonialism 146, 229; Africa 117, 128, 130, 132, 188, 189, 303–4; Arab perspective, globalization 230, 234, 242–4; cartographic anxiety 154; Congo 123; division of labor in IR 7; origins of IR 2; and secularism, Southeast Asia 255–6; South Asia 147, see also neo-colonialism colonization 93 Colorados 166 The Coming Anarchy 127 common development: Chinese security theorizing 84, 85, 86 common security 81, 82 communism 28, 97, 126 comparative secularism 276 Compilation of Islamic Law (1991) 258 concepts: importance of historicizing evolution of 18–19; variation in meaning and usage 14–15 Conferences of Defense Ministers of the Americas 102 confidence-building 100, 101, 105, 107 conflict resolution: African 313; peaceful 85 Confucianism 19, 72, 74–7, 87 Confucius Institute 76

Index Congo 123, 125, 127, 132, 133, 134, 135, 310 Connolly, William 277 constructivism: in Confucianism 76, 83; in security studies 50, 52, 56, 58 consumerism 235, 237, 241 Contadora Group 99 context/context-boundedness 14, 17, 49 cooperation: China’s new concept of security 81, 82, 83, 87, 88; inter-Arab 32, 34; regional, Latin America 100, 106; Russian-Islamic 212–13; ubuntu 313 Copenhagen School (CS) 52–3, 61 core-periphery structure: of IR 1, 7, 9, 334, 338 corruption: Africa 126, 128, 129, 132; Middle East 232, 236 Costa Rica 99, 168, 171 Cote d’Ivoire 127, 132, 133, 134, 190 Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa 117 Council on Foreign and Defense Policy 210 Council for the Muslim Cult 281 Councils of the Islamic Religion 263 Couto e Silva, Golbery do 97 Cox, Wayne 5 CREA 335–6 Creating Community in the Americas 106 critical cosmopolitanism 7, 11 critical peace research 52 critical political economy: globalization and Russian 210–13 critical security studies 52, 61, 65 critical theory 52 cross-border networks: women’s 335–6 Cuban Revolution (1959) 96 cultural dialogue 211, 212, 220 cultural essentialism 19, 217–18 cultural globalization 236–8 culture: Arab 237, 238; Chinese 73–7, 88; European 288; German 286; Western 275 Cultures & Conflicts 54 currency devaluation 118, 126 Dacey, Austin 283 dana 254 Danilevski, Nikolai 217 Danishness 287, 289

345

dar al-harb 267 dar al-Islam 267 Darul Arqam 265 Das Gupta, Ashin 149–51, 155, 157 Davidson, Basil 305 dayyan 254 de-securitization 54, 65 Decalo, Samuel 123 decentering of IR 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 20 Declaration on Security in the America 102 Decline of the West 217 decolonization 2; Africa 121, 122–3, 126, 130, 303; Arab world 28, 31, 32 democracy: Germany 284–5; global culture of 243; lack of, in Middle East 235–6; promotion of, Russia 210; security linked to 107, see also pluralist democracy; pro-democracy movement; representative democracy Democratic Action Party (DAP) 264 democratic peace theory 50; in Russian IR 213–15 democratic security: Latin America 98–101, 105, 107 democratization 190; Chinese security theorizing 84, 85; global 238; Latin America 99; Middle Eastern governments 246; Russian response/ views to Western 207; Russian scholars of global 214–15; South America 92 Denmark: secularism, nationalism and Christianity 287–9; state-church bonds 282; study of religion 292 Department of International Relations (St Petersburg) 213 dependency theory 4, 161, 170–1, 305 Derg 127 Derrida, Jacques 277 Dessouki, Ali Eddin Hilal 36, 235, 241, 242 deterrence 79, 101, 105 development: African 125; Chinese security thinking 79; Latin American 97–8, 170 Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) 335 diasporas: African 188, 198, 304; Arab 238, 239; Islamist 266 dictatorship 117, 122, 164

346

Index

difference: Arab security studies 27, 41; in IR scholarship 2–11 diplomacy: Chinese 78, 87 Dirks, Nicholas 146–7 diversity: cultural 238; hybridity and preservation of 7; Latin American states 166 division of labor: international 170; in IR scholarship 7, 8, 9, 35–6, 61, 107 Doe, Samuel 134 domestic insecurity: Latin America 93, 101–3 drug trafficking 82, 102 Dugin, Alexander 217–18 duniawi 261 Dussel, Enrique 11 Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA) 161, 170 economic globalization 192–5, 214, 241 economic growth: China 86–7; globalization as an opportunity for 306; Latin America 98; Middle East 240, 241 economic liberalization: Arab perspective, globalization 240–2 economic reform: Russia 208, 218, 219 economy: sub-Saharan 188, see also global economy; political economy Ecuador 92, 166, 176 Effendi, Djohan 260, 261 Egypt 31–2, 34, 123, 132, 190, 232, 233, 241, 302 elites: African 118, 121, 127, 305, 308; Arab 241; global 241; Indian 141, 148; Latin American 166, 167 emancipation: security in terms of 52, 65 empirical research: Arab lack of 231; Pakistan 338 ‘encrusted’ sovereignties 145–6 energy sector: Russia 206–7, 219 English language: cultural globalization 237 Enlightenment 41, 152, 275 environmental degradation 82, 211, 212 epistemology: China’s new concept of security 82–3 Escudé, Carlos 166 Ethiopia 126, 127, 132, 133, 134 Eurasianist orientation 218 Euro-American bifurcation, security studies 50–1; intellectual

traditions 51, 56–9; organization of the field 51, 59–63; practical usages 51, 63–4 Euro-centrism 12, 245 Europe: cultural influence 171; as model for Latin America 168; post-Cold War security agenda 63–4 European Journal of International Relations 63 European security studies: schools 48, 52–6, see also Euro-American bifurcation European Union 63, 143, 190, 191 Evangelical-Lutheran church 287 exceptionalism 11; South Asia 144–9; US 56 existential threat: Muslims perceived as, Denmark 287; in security discourse 53 expert communities: Latin American security studies 105–7 Faletto, Enzo 97, 172 Fanon, Frantz 305 fatwa 261, 263, 265 Federal Constitution (Malaysia) 264 Feldman, Noah 282 Felipe II 163 feminism/feminists 11, 52, 55, 233, 335, 336–7, 338 feminist standpoint theory 338 Ferguson, James 130–1, 184–5 Ferme, Mariane 129 Fernandes, Florestan 104 feudalism: Indian 146 finance capital: producing globalization as 192–5 Five Principles (Indonesia) 257–8 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence 83, 86 Ford Foundation 99, 106, 232 foreign monies see international donors foreign policy 16; African 308, 310; American 124, 245; Chinese 78, 79, 82; Indian 148; and IR 3, 4; Malaysian 266; and the RIAL 99; Russian 207–8, 210, 212, 213, 217, 218; security studies 49, 51; state as main actor 173; Turkish 35, 39–40 Foucault, Michel 54 Fox, Jonathan 281–2

Index Framework Treaty on Democratic Security in Central America 100 France 176; laïcité as state religion 279–81; postcolonial connections 129; study of religion 291 Francophone Africa 303 freedom 175, 207, 213, 214, 230; at odds with national security 96; human rights 235, 268; intellectual 117, 246; limits placed on, France 280; suspension of 34; to capital 133, see also religious freedom Freedom House 215 Frelimo 127 Frente de Libertaçao de Moçambique 127 Friedman, Thomas 214 friend-enemy dichotomy 19, 97, 315 frontiers 144–5; colonial 149; pre-colonial 154 Fukuyama, Francis 215 Gabon 132, 190 Gavshon, Arthur 124 Gaylard, Robert 311 Geertz, Clifford 253 gender: research, Pakistan 334–7 General Assembly (UN) 211 ‘geocultural epistemologies and IR’ project 1–2 geographies of centrality 193 geography of knowledge 2, 4, 16 geopolitics: Latin American security 94–5; Western security theories 63–4 Georgia 219 Germany 212; as a model for Latin America 164, 167; religious dualism and state inclusiveness 284–7; scientific forestry 145; study of religion 292 Gewald, Jan-Bart 128 Ghana 123, 127, 132, 133 Gifford, Prosser 122 global capital 193, 194, 310 global capitalism 7, 121, 175 ‘global cities’ concept 193, 194 global community 197, 198 global division of labor: IR scholarship 9, 107 global economy 130, 134, 193, 196, 197, 310 global governance 120, 188, 189, 190, 192, 241

347

global migration flows 190, 191 global order 4, 6, 12, 17, 83, 120, 130, 189, 240 global politics 83–4, 120, 128, 190, 191 Global Shadows 184 Global Transformations 187–92 globalization 12, 131; African perceptions 306; African scholars and alternative conceptions of 198; Arab-Middle East 17; case studies, and use of concepts 14–15; crises in 196; critical approaches to 200; historical influences 143; and the Indian Ocean 153–4; Latin America 17, 161, 168, 170, 173, 174; neoliberal concept 206; responses to see Arab perspective; Russian perspective; Russian nationalism 206–8; Southeast Asia 266 Globalization and Its Discontents 195–7 Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money 187, 192–5 globalization literature, absence of Africa in 183–200; inequality in knowledge production 199; surface-level reading 184–5, 187; symptomatic reading 185–97 Gokalp, Zia 257 Goldblatt, David 187 Goma 191 goodwill: Chinese culture 19, 74–6, 81, 88 Gorbachev, Mikhail 213, 219 governance: neo-patrimonial 235; post-colonial Africa 122, see also global governance; liberal governance Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 77 Grovogui, Siba 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, 313, 314 Guatemala 166 guerilla insurgency movements: Africa 124; Latin America 96 Guinea 123, 127, 132, 133, 134 Guinea Bissau 126, 132, 133 Gunn, Jeremy 280 Gupta, Akhil 144 Hamati-Ataya, Inanna 8–9 Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul 15, 18, 19 Hamid II, Sultan Abdul 257 Harding, Sandra 11

348

Index

harmonious world: Chinese security theorizing 84–6 harmony 19, 75, 76, 81, 85, 88 Hart, Gillian 120, 125, 131 Hasan, Wafaa 15, 17, 18, 19 Ha-shimite monarchy 31 Hazaras 333 he (harmony) 19, 76, 81, 85, 88 headscarf controversy 280, 286 Hegel, Georg W.F. 175 Heidegger, Martin 55 Heilbronner, Robert 215 Held, David 187–92, 197 Hemispheric Security Commission 102 Herz, Mônica 14, 15, 17 hierarchical division of labor: IR scholarship 35–6 Highest School of Economics (Moscow) 213 historical memory: Arab perspective, globalization 19, 230, 234, 242–4; and myth South Asia 19 historicism 51, 56, 147–8 historicity 119, 127, 128 historicization: evolution of concepts 18–19; of the state 143, 144, 156 history: bound with secularization 254; in the case studies 19; organizing meaning 152; as predetermined 306 HIV/AIDS research 327 Hochschild, Adam 127 Holsti, Kal 64 Houphouet-Boigny, Felix 134 Houtondji, Paulin 307 hudud code 263 human nature 75, 85 human rights 126, 235, 312, 314, 337 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan 324, 326 Human Rights Council of the United Nations 337 human security 82–3 human trafficking 103 humanism 83, 212, see also ubuntu humanity 313, 314, 315 Humanizing Globalization 238 Huntington, Samuel 217 Hurd, Elizabeth 291 Hussein, Mahmoud 305 Hussein, Saddam 34 Huysmans, Jef 54 hybridity 6–7, 305

Ibrahim, Saad 33, 232 ICT revolution 238–42 idealism 85, 148 identity: African 128, 307; Arab 32, 33, 35; concepts of the international 307, 308; laïcité and French Republican 279; Muslim 266; Southeast Asia 16, see also national identity ijtihad 261 ijtihad jama’i 261 immigrants: Latin America 166, 167; skepticism against, Denmark 288 immigration: Africanization of the West 304; debates, Germany 286; policies, Latin America 166 imperialism 152; Africa 122, 130, 132; cultural essentialism 19, 218; division of labor within IR 7; origins of global governance 189; origins of IR 2 Inayatullah, Naeem 2, 10 independence: Arab states 31; Latin American 93; Malayan 262; Russian 209, 217 India 148–9, 212, 308 India-Pakistan conflict 64 India-Pakistan People to People Dialogue for Peace 335 Indian Congress Party 124 Indian Ocean, rule in 140, 149–53; spaces of flows 153–6 Indonesia: religion and secularism 257–62 industrial capitalism 186 industrial revolution 125, 176 industrialization: Latin America 95, 97, 98, 168 inequality: economic 194, 241; power 242; worldwide 131 Inquisition 163 insecurity: Islamists’ adoption of non-violent practices 34; Middle Eastern 29; non-military 31, 32; as a product of discourse and policy 54; Russian 209; Turkish 40–1 Institute for Women’s Studies (Lahore) 326, 336 institutional weakening: Latin America 102–3, 105, 106 intellectual traditions: in security studies 51, 56–9 Inter-American Democratic Charter (2001) 101

Index Inter-American Reciprocal Defense Treaty (1947) 95–6 inter-Arab relations 33, 34 internal/external dynamics: Arab perspective, globalization 235–6 International Conference on Population and Development 337 international division of labor 170 international donors: Arab scholars, and fighting off 29–30; funding of women’s NGO’s, Pakistan 324; and IR scholarship 17–18; Latin American security studies 17–18, 106; marginalization of Arab universities 232; Pakistan social science research 326–7 International Islamic University (Islamabad) 323 International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) 266 International Labour Organization (ILO) 191 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 117, 126, 133, 196, 232, 240 international political economy 305 International Political Sociology 63 international relations: Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence 83; functions of culture 74; lessons of ubuntu 311–15; and Muslim secularism 265–7; South Asia 140–4 international relations scholars: African 4, 124–5, 131, 198–9, 305, 306, 316; Arab 29, 30, 35–9; critical 322; non-core 5, 6, 7, 8–9, 12, 28, 43; Turkish 29, 39; Western 228–9 international relations scholarship: academic literature 14; African 302; alternative 11; colonial origins 2; core-periphery structure 1, 7, 9, 334, 338; decentering of 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 20; decolonization 2; difference and power in 2–11; disciplinary mechanisms that work against diversity 3–4; division of labor 7, 8, 9, 35–6, 61, 107; efforts to recognise contributions from non-core sources 1; excluded categories 18; exposure of provincialism 2, 3; and foreign monies 17–18; indigenous worldviews 19; local, political, economic and social contexts 17; local schools 8; non-core 1, 3, 7, 8, 27; in particular geocultural and

349

academic settings 13–14; political origins 17; political secularisms and 289–93; provincialization of 2, 9; religion in 275; Russian 205, 208, 213; search for the ‘other’ 5, 10; social power 6; space for alternative histories 3; state action/discourse 16–17; state-centric character 4, 15–16; theory deficit 107 international relations scholarship 48, see also security studies; Western IR International Relations Scholarship 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14 international security 81, 214 International Security 56, 57, 58 International Studies Association (ISA) 5 international system 131, 191; Africa’s position in 305–7; equated with US foreign policy 245; Muslim governments’ participation 266; Russian position in 214, 219; unipolarity 208, 209, 220; US imperialistic literature 171 International Trends (Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy) 215 Internet 187, 198, 239, 261 inward-looking security 39, 98, 103 Iraq 31, 33, 34, 207, 244 Islam: concept of religion 254; Germany 286; Indonesia 257–62; Malaysia 263–5; and secularism 254, 268, see also political Islam Islam Hadhari 265 Islamic Development Bank (IDB) 266 Islamic State 260, 263, 264, 265 Islamic State Discussion 263 Islamism 266, 267, 269 Islamist movements 232–3, 265 Islamists 34, 232, 245, 255, 258, 265, 266, 268, 269, 276 Islamization 151, 264, 268, 323 isolationist policy: China 82 Israel-Palestine conflict 29, 233, 242, 243 Italy 176 Jaber, Abu 29 Jackson, Henry F. 124 Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus 4 Jackson, Robert H. 124 Jacoby, Tamara 28 Jakarta Charter 258 Japan 212

350

Index

Jefferson, Thomas 282 Johannesburg conference (1998) 198 Joint Studies Program in International Relations in Latin America (RIAL) 99 Jones, Branwen Gruffydd 1 Jones, Richard Wyn 52 Jordan 31, 232, 233 justice ( yi) 75, 85, see also social justice Kabul 330, 334, 336 Kamola, Isaac 10, 14, 17, 18 Kandiyoti, Deniz 333 Kaplan, Robert D. 127 Karachi 323, 330, 331, 332 Katzenstein volume 58 Kaunda, Kenneth 134 Keller, Edmond J. 306 Kennedy, John F. 96 Kenya 127, 190, 191 Khalaf, Samir 233, 238, 244 Khan, Ayesha 15, 16, 17, 18 kin-based systems 141 King Leopold’s Ghost 127 kinship: arbitrary nature of borders 309–10; perceptions of the international 307–8 Kjellen, Rudolf 94 Klein, Naomi 127 knowledge: change in 12; claims to 11; favouring of core 107; hegemony, reproduction of 107; legitimate 10; locally grounded 322; as production 185–6; transfer, Latin America 96; transformative 338, see also geography of knowledge; policy knowledge; sociology of knowledge knowledge production: inequality in 199; Middle East 230–1; Pakistan 324; Western IR 8–9 Korany, Baghat 36, 37, 38, 235, 241, 242 Kozyrev, Andrei 213 Krause, Keith 52 Kremenyuk, Victor 215 Kremlin 205, 206, 207, 208, 213, 219 Krishna, Sankaran 305 Kulke, Hermann 145–6 Kuwait 34 Laabas, Belkacem 240 laïcité: as state religion, France 279–81, 291

Laidi, Zaki 124 Lake, Anthony 124 Lakshmi, Aishwarya 147–8 ‘lands of recent settlement theory’ (LRST) 171–2 Latin America: elites 166; inter-state conflict 92; subordinate relations with global powers 99 Latin American security studies: democratic security 98–101, 105, 107; domestic insecurity and transnational threats 93, 101–3; expert communities and policy knowledge 105–7; foreign theoretical knowledge 109; geopolitical doctrine 94–5; international funders 17–18, 106; invisible theory 107–8; national security doctrine 95–8, 100; parochialism 103–4; research agenda 101–2; security thinking 92–3, 100; state-centrism 104–5 Latin American state 161–76; foreign influences 161, 163, 167; historical development 161; historical perspective 162–5; international as a destructive force 169–72; international as a positive force 167–9; IR scholarship 16–17; military as caretaker of 96; relationship between state and nation 165–7; scholarly analysis 172–5 Lattimore, Owen 141 Lavrov, Serge 213 Law on Basic Religious Justice (1989) 258 Lebanon 233 Lefebvre, Henri 131 Leitkultur 286 lekgotla 313 Lemuria 145, 152–3 Lenin, Vladimir 210 Leontyev, Constantine 217 liberal essentialism: globalization and Russian 213–17 liberal governance: globalization as 187–92 Liberal Islam Network 261–2 liberalism: Latin American 162–3, 164, 167, 168; modernization identified with 125–6; post-colonial salvation 127; statist version 105 Liberia 127, 132, 133, 134 Libya 31, 207, 239

Index Linklater, Andrew 11 lived experiences 17, 19, 310, 331, 333, 337, 338 local: gender and an expanded view of 334–7; South Asian affinity with 145 local histories 7, 11 lofty morality 19, 75 López-Alves, Fernando 15, 17, 18 Louis, Wm. Roger 122 Lumières 285 Lumumba, Patrice 122, 123 Lutheran Augsburg Confession 284 McGrew, Anthony 187 Machel, Samora 127, 306 MacLean, Sandra J. 301 Madagascar 126, 132, 133, 134 madinah 254 Madjid, Nurcholish 258, 260–1 Makdisi, Karim 29 Malay Nationalist Party (MNP) 256 Malay-Indonesians 255–6 Malaysia: oil-related aid 266; religion and secularism 262–5 Mali 132, 133 Mallavarapu, Siddarth 15, 16, 18, 19 Mamdani, Mahmood 119, 125, 199, 305 Mandela, Nelson 156 Maoism 77–8 marginalization: academic treatments of globalization 183; Africa 200, 304, 306; African scholars 198; knowledge production and an ending 338 Mariam, Mengistu Haile 127, 134 Martin, Lenore 28 Marx, Karl 146, 185, 186, 210 Marxism 72, 126, 132, 258, 305, see also Afro-Marxism Masina, Nomonde 313 mass praetorianism 98 Massamba, Guy 306 Matar, Jamil 36 Mazrui, Alamin 304 Mazrui, Ali 122, 304, 305 Mbeki, Thabo 199 Mbembe, Achille 193–4, 302, 306, 307, 309 Medvedev, Dmitry 207, 219 Mencius 75, 76 methodology 57, 83, 126, 229, 327–9 Mexico 97, 99, 108, 166, 167, 168, 176

351

Mezhdunarodnyye protsessy (International Trends) 215 micro-histories 153 Middle East 228; deficits in 230–1, 234; globalization in the Arab 17; scholarship in 35, see also individual states Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO) 31 Middle East Peace Process 32 Middle Eastern security 28–30, 36 Middle Easterners: Western scholars’ descriptions of 228–9 middle power theory 313 Mignolo, Walter 7, 10, 11 migrants: study of Afghan 329–34 migration 102, 103, 190–1 Mikkelsen, Brian 288–9 militaries: Latin America 94, 96, 100 militarism 29, 211, 212 military coups: Africa 123–4 military focus: security 28, 29, 35, 38, 39 militias: Africa 133, 135 mimicry: difference as 6, 7 Minter, William 124 Mittelman, James H. 6, 196 modernism: Islamic 261 modernity 2–3, 7, 126, 131, 152, 167, 253, 284–5 modernization: adaptive 238; culturally-sensitive 212; Latin America 95, 97, 98; logical positivism 253; secular 269; South Asia 145; Southeast Asia 268; theory 125–6, 167, 169, 170; Turkish security study 41 Mohamad, Mahathir 263 Momani, Bessma 15, 17, 18, 19 Mondlane, Eduardo 306 Mongol tribes 141 Moral Majority 283 morality 19, 75, 126, 282, 283, 312, 313 Moreland hypothesis 149–50, 157 Morocco 232 Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) 213 Moten, Abdul Rashid 268 Mozambique 126, 132, 133, 134, 306 mu’amalah 260 mufti 263 Mugabe, Robert 134, 312 Mugabeism 307 Mughal empire 146, 147, 151

352

Index

Muhammad, Ashaari 265 Mujani, Saiful 261 multiculturalism 212, 279, 281, 286, 289 Murithi, Tim 314 Murphy, Craig 314 Muslim secularism: and international relations 265–7 Muslim Students’ Association 260 Muslims: Denmark 287–8; Malay-Indonesian interaction with 256; organization of, France 281 Mu’tazilite theology 259 Mutiny novel 147–8 mutual trust 81, 86, 88 Muzakarah 263 Nahdlatul Ulama 261 Nahum, Benjamin 172 Najjar, Fauzi 237 Nandy, Ashis 140, 141, 148, 152, 155 Nasakom 258 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 32, 33, 34 Nasser, Houda A. 235, 237, 238, 239, 240 Nasution, Harun 258, 259–60 nation-building see state-building nation-state: German concept of 286; Latin America 165–7; modern 190; territorial 154, 155, 188 national identity: Danish 289; German 286; Latin American 163, 166, 175–6 national interests 126, 128, 214 national security 12, 52, 105, 214, 233; Arab 37–41; China 80, 85 national security doctrine 95–8, 100 national security state 97 National War College 96 nationalism 229; Denmark 287–9; Malay 256; Marxism combined with 306; modern Indian 154–5; political Islam and 257; Russian 206–8, 219; South African 309; Southeast Asia 256 nationalists: Malay 262 nationalities: elimination of competing, Latin America 165–6 nativism 306–7 NATO 30, 31, 35, 39, 42, 132, 216 natural disasters 102, 103 Nayak, Meghana 2, 9, 10, 13 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 307 Nehru, Jawaharlal 304, 308 neo-colonialism 122, 126, 200, 301, 306

neoliberalism: Africa 133, 135; concept of globalization 17, 206; Latin America 161, 168, 169, 173, 174 Neto, Agostinho 127 networks: security and defense 106–7; women’s cross-border 335–6 New Order regime 258, 259 new scramble for Africa 301 New Zealand 171, 172 Nietzche, Friedrich 55 Nigeria 190, 302, 304 Nkoana-Mashabane, Maite 312 Nkrumah, Kwame 121, 122, 127, 135 nomads 331–2 non-alignment 304; Arab world 27, 31, 41 non-core IR 1, 3, 7, 8, 27 non-core scholars 5, 6, 7, 8–9, 12, 28, 43 non-core security studies 64–6 non-governmental organisations: donor funding 324, 327 normative theory 3, 52 North-South 7, 82, 303, 307, 308 Nossal, Kim Richard 5 Nuttall, Sarah 193–4 Nyerere, Julius 127 Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges 125 Obama, Barak 207 objectivity 18, 119, 127, 275 O’Donnell, Guillermo 97, 169 Olympia, Sylvanius 122, 123 Oman 239 ontology: Chinese security theorizing 82, 85 Organization of American States (OAS) 95–6, 101, 102 Organization of the Islamic Conference 212 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 266 organized crime 82, 102, 103 Orientalism 35 Orthodox Christianity 217 Oszlak, Oscar 170 other 5, 10, 189, 314 Othman, Abdul Hamid 263 Ottoman empire 151 outward-directed look: security 28, 39 Pakhtuns 330 Pakistan Institute for Labour and Education Research 326

Index Pakistan, social science research 322–38; active listening 328; Afghans and transnationalism 329–34; coaxation of state 16; community profiles 328–9; data gathering 329; donor funds 326–7; engaged nature of 17, 323–7; gender and an expanded view of the ‘local’ 334–7; interviews 327–8; methods and methodology 327–9; quantitative surveys 329 Pakistan’s People Party 323 pan-Africanism 117, 124–5, 135, 200, 306 pan-Arabism 32, 33–4, 36, 42, 239 pan-Islamism 256, 257, 267 Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP) 256 Panama 99 Pancasila 257–8, 259, 260, 261 Paramadina Foundation 260 Paris school: security studies 54–5, 61 parochialism 5, 103–4 Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) 264, 265 patrimonial state 146, 156 patriotism 154, 155, 283 Pavlovski, Gleb 212 Paz, Pedro 172, 175 Peace of Augsburg (1555) 284 peace research 61–2 ‘peaceful development’ strategy, China 84, 85 Pearson, Michael 149 peripheral see core-periphery Perraton, Jonathan 187 Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant 124 Peru 92, 94, 104, 166, 176 pesantren 260 Philippines 266 Philpott, Daniel 291 Piagam Jakarta 258 Pinochet, Augusto 97 Piscatori, James P. 267 place-boundedness: economic globalization 192–5 policy: and security studies 58, 59, 62, 65, 101 policy knowledge: Latin American security studies 93, 105–7, 108 policy-making: and globalization 196–7 political authority 16, 17, 19, 112, 131, 140, 143, 146, 150, 155, 189, 339 political autocracy 232, 236, 239

353

political development 253; Russia 207; underdeveloped countries 169 political economy: post-Soviet 210, see also critical political economy; international political economy political leaders: African 121–2, 132, 134, 304; cultural environment 74; Southern African 305; as threat to Arab security 33–4 political leadership: Chinese security thinking 77, 88; Russian 216 political parties: Latin American 166, 168 political secularisms: and IR practice 289–93 political space: alternative cartographies 151–2; dominance of Western IR 4 political threats: Arab perspective, globalization 235–6 political violence 117, 129 politics: African 118, 119, 120, 127, 128, 132, 134, 301, see also colonial politics; geopolitics; global politics; religion/politics; world politics popular culture 128, 233 Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola 127 population purification: Latin America 166 populism 164 Portsmouth treaty (1948) 33 positivism 51, 56–7, 64, 119, see also logical positivism; post-positivism; typical positivism post-Cold War: Chinese security theorizing 80–2; expectations of political convergence 206; geopolitics of Western security theories 63–4; international system as pluralistic unipolarity 209, 220; threats to global peace and security 82 post-colonial Africa 125; analysts 129–30; experience 135; French connections 129; governance 122; liberalism 127; politics 118 post-colonial statehood: Arab world 28, 31, 42; South Asia 140–1, 156–7 post-modernism 55, 119 post-positivism 56, 57, 119 post-structuralism 52, 55, 119 poverty 132, 206, 212; Africa 310; Arab perspective, globalization

354

Index

240–2; globalization 306; in security thinking 79 power: of the elite 241; and inequalities 242; in IR scholarship 2–11; and territory, Latin America 94 power distribution 105, 109, 121, 131, 214 power relations 7, 246, 305, 338 pragmatism 78, 208, 268, 306 privatization 126, 168, 174, 241, 280 pro-democracy movement: Pakistan 324 pro-Western stance: Turkey 31, 32, 35, 42 The Production of Space 131 Program on Regional Security Cooperation 106 Protestant Christianity 289 Protocol of Washington (1992) 101 provincialism of IR 2, 3, 9 Puchala, Donald J. 65, 303 Putin, Vladimir 206, 207, 209, 212 Rahman, Tunku Abdul 262, 263 Ramaswamy, Sumathi 145, 152–3 RAND 62 Rassemblement Democratique Africain 124 Rastsiraka, Didier 134 rationalism 50, 119, 125, 126, 257 rationality 53, 60, 73, 122, 128, 152, 275, 278, 292 Ratzel, Friedrich 94 Rawls, John 277 Razak, Najib 264 realism 57, 105, 141, 209–10 Redefining Security in the Middle East 28–9 Reed, William C. 309–10 reflectivity 50, 56 reflexivity 59, 61 Reformation 284, 285, 287 regional security: Middle Eastern perspective 28–30 relativism 10, 11, 155, 254 relevance: in security studies 58–9, 65, 106, 109 religio 254 religion 13, 218; as an excluded category in scholarship 18; in international relations studies 275; Islamic concept 254; and secularism, Southeast Asia 254–5, 256–65; Western scholars’ use of word 254;

Western social sciences and rejection of 253 religion/politics 276; Denmark 287, 288; France 279, 280, 281; Germany 284, 286; theorists 277–8; United States 281–2, 283, 284 religious courts: Southeast Asia 258, 263, 264 religious dualism: Germany 284–7 religious education: Germany 285; United States 282 religious freedom: France 280, 281; Germany 286, 287; Virginia 282 religious fundamentalism: Danish resistance to 288, 289; weakening of Arab universities 234 ren (benevolence) 75–6, 85 Renamo 133, 134 representative democracy 101, 190 repression 97, 98, 100, 132, 235 Resolution 1080 (OAS) 101 Responsibility to Protect 312 Revolutionary United Front 135 Ricardo, David 186 rights-based approach: to religion 286, 287 risk society 56 Robb, Peter 147 Rodney, Walter 125, 305 Rosberg, Carl G. 124 Ross, Dorothy 56 Rostow, W.W. 125 Ruggie, John Gerard 141, 146 rule of law 121, 124, 125, 132, 134–5, 191, 215 Rumley, Dennis 155 Russian perspective, globalization 205–20; critical political economy 210–13; cultural essentialism 19, 217–18; dominant approaches 208–13; factors explaining 218–20; international and domestic levels 205; liberal essentialism 213–17; opposing approaches 213–18; realists 209–10; state action/discourse 16 Russkaya doktrina 218 Rwanda 191 Said, Edward W. 3, 12 Saidi, Nasser 240 Sandler, Schmuel 281–2 Santiago Declaration (1991) 101 santrinization 259

Index Sarkozy, Nicolas 281 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino 163, 168 Sasley, Brent 28 Sassen, Saskia 143–4, 146, 187, 192–5, 197 Sassou NGuesso, Denis 134 Saudi Arabia 34 School of the Americas 96 Scott, James 145, 147 Secretary General (UN) 211 secular modernization 269 secular religiosity 259 secular/religious divide: Latin America 164 secularism 12; as a doctrine 276–7; as foundational to scholarly practice 18; and Islam 254, 268; literature on 277; perceptions of 276; in Southeast Asia see Southeast Asia, see also Western secularisms secularization 253–4, 277; Southeast Asia 256, 257, 262, 263 securitization: Copenhagen School 52, 53, 65; Latin American security studies 107–8 security 12, see also Arab security; China security; Latin American security; Middle Eastern security security community 63, 81, 88 Security Council (UN) 211, 212 Security and Defense Network in Latin America 106 Security Dialogue 63 security politics: China 72; global 83–4 Security Studies 57 security studies: beyond the West 64–6; emergence of 49; ‘golden age’ 49, 58, 62; Latin America see Latin American security studies; as sub-field of IR 48; transatlantic split see Euro-American bifurcation; variation in meaning and use of concepts 14, see also American security studies; European security studies security theorizing, China 16; Chinese culture 73–7, 88; ideas of an ‘harmonious world’ (2001-present) 84–6; new concept of security (1992–2001) 80–4; Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) 86–7, 88; strategic shift in (1978–91) 77–9

355

security thinking: feminist 55; Latin America 92–3, 100; Turkey and Arab world 27, see also security theorizing Selbin, Eric 2, 9, 10, 13 self-censorship: Middle East 233, 234 self-reliance 27, 78, 82 self-sufficiency: advocates of Russian 217, 218 Senegal 127 Senghor, Leopold Sédar 306–7 September 11 attack 102, 197, 276 Sese Seko, Mobuto 134 Sezer, Duygu 40 Shakhnazarov, Georgi 211–12 Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) 72, 86–7, 88 Shanghai spirit 86, 87 shari’ah 257, 258, 264–5 shari’ah courts 263, 264 shari’anization 259, 265 Sharma, Aradhana 144 Sheikh, Mona Kanwal 10, 15, 16, 18, 19 Shillam, Robbie 1 Shirkat Gah Women’s Collective 326 Shivji, Issa 305 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism 127 shu (generosity) 76 Siang, Lim Kit 264 Sierra Leone 132, 133, 135 Silencing the Past 119–20 Singer, Peter 267 slavery 117, 189, 303 Smith, Adam 186 Smith, Karen 15, 16, 19 social justice 10, 131, 197, 240, 241, 258, 338 social order: harmonious 75, 76; as military goal, Latin America 96–7 social sciences: Arab 230, 231; Eurocentric 245; Latin America 104; Pakistan see Pakistan; and security studies 51, 56–7; Western 253, 254 sociology of international relations 27, 56, 59 sociology of knowledge 4, 14, 16, 139, 229 soft secularism 265, 268 solidarity 333; African 307, 312, 313; international 241; women, Pakistan 334

356

Index

Somalia 132, 133, 134, 191 South Africa 126, 190, 199, 301–16, 302; multiple internationals and the futility of constructed boundaries 207–10; ubuntu 19, 311–15 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 312 South American Peace, Security and Democracy Commission 99, 100 South Asia Human Rights Forum 335 South Asia, rule in 139–57; exceptionalism 144–9; Indian Ocean 149–53; IR, sovereignty and stateness 140–4; spaces of flows 153–6; study of state formation 139–40 Southeast Asia 253–69; colonialism and secularism 255–6; identity and secularism 15–16; Islam and secularism 268; Muslim secularism and international relations 265–7; religion and secularism 254–5, 256–65 Southern Cone 94, 95, 97, 168, see also Argentina; Chile; Costa Rica; Uruguay sovereignty 12; African 134, 135, 303, 309; Arab states 31; European models 188–9; Latin American security and 102; Russian 205, 206, 207, 214, 216, 217; South Asia 140–4; Westphalian 139, 156, 188 Soviet interventionism 28, 31, 32 Soviet Union 30, 31 Spain 176 Spanish legacy: Latin America 163, 164 spatiality of rule/identity 143, 145, 146, 147, 151, 154 Special Security Conference (OAS) 102 speech act: securitization as 53 Spengler, Oswald 217 Spies, Yolanda 308 Staatskirchenrecht 284 The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto 125 staple theory 171, 172 Stasi Commission 280 state 12; action/discourse and IR scholarship 16; case studies, and use of concepts 15; historicization of 143, 144, 156; production of values, interests and norms 131; separation of religion and 164, 256;

view of security, avoidance of 52, see also African state; Latin American state; Western states state autonomy: Latin America 169, 170, 171, 172, 175 state formation: Argentina 170; in IR 142–4, 156; South Asia 139–40, 145–6 The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly 127 state sovereignty see sovereignty state-building: Africa 133; European experiences 142–3; geopolitical approaches to security 94; Latin America 164; South Africa 309; Turkey and the Arab world 30, 41, 42 state-centrism: Arab security 35, 38; in IR scholarship 4, 15–16; Latin American security studies 104–5; Middle Eastern security 28 statehood: African perceptions of the international 309; South Asian exceptionalism 144–9; struggle for 229; universality and relativity of 155, see also post-colonial statehood stateness: South Asia 141, 146 Stiftung, Friedrich Ebert 106 Stiglitz, Joseph 187, 195–7 Stockwell, John 124 strategic studies see security studies Strategic Studies and the Middle East 29 structural adjustment: Africa 126, 133, 184–5, 196; Middle East 232, 242 structuralism 126, 127 sub-Saharan Africa 188, 190, 304, 308 subject of security 82–3 subjectivity 127, 134 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 148–9, 150 Sudan 191 Suharto, President 258, 259 Sukarno, President 257, 258 Sunkel, Oswaldo 172, 175 Surkov, Vladimir 207 surveillance 54, 147 symptomatic reading 184; absence of Africa in globalization literature 185–97 Syria 34, 233, 239 syura 257

Index tamaddun 254 Tamkoç, Metin 39 Tanzania 123, 127, 132, 133, 306 Tarabichi, Georges 236–7, 238 tawhid 260 Taylor, Charles 134 Taylor, Ian 305, 306 technologies: and security 54, see also ICT revolution Tempels, Placide 306–7 terrorism 55, 102 Thailand 266 theology/science: Denmark 292 theory 12, 93, 108; building 7–8, 15; critical 52; deficit 15, 107; feminist standpoint 338; modernization 125–6, 167, 169, 170; normative 3, 52; production 104; security 49; validity of 119, see also democratic peace theory; dependency theory; ‘lands of recent settlement theory’; middle power theory; staple theory think tanks 49, 61 third world 2, 7, 12, 65, 105, 141, 200, 211, 326 threat(s): of conservative leaders to Arab security 33–4; constant perception of, Latin America 95; to global peace and security 82, 83; to Middle Eastern security during Cold War 28, see also existential threat; political threats; transnational threats Tibi, Bassam 28 Tickner, Arlene B. 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 15, 17, 65, 99, 105, 107, 322 Tilly, Charles 142–3, 146 tipping points: state formation 143, 144 Touré, Sékou 127, 134 trans-state society of Arab peoples 32, 33, 34, 38 transnational threats: and domestic insecurity, Latin America 101–3 transnationalism: study of, Pakistan 329–34 Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality (1925) 30 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph 119–20, 125 Truth and Reconciliation Commission: South Africa 312 Tschirigi, Necla 232 Tsygankov, Andrei, P. 14, 16, 19 Tunisia 127, 241

357

Turkey: foreign policy 39–40; invitation to join Arab League 31; IR studies 35; NATO membership 42; pro-Western stance 31, 32, 35, 42; security conceptions 39–41, 42; security practices 30, 31–2, 34, 42; security thinking 27 Turkey’s Quest for Security through Defensive Alliances 39 Turkey’s Security Policies 40 Turkish scholars 29, 39 Turner, Frederick Jackson 171 Tutu, Desmond 311, 312 ubuntu 19, 311–15 ubuntufication 314 ukhrawi 261 ul Haq, Zia 323, 324 Ülman, Haluk 40 ummah 34, 255, 256, 257, 265, 266, 267 UMNO 264 underdevelopment 4, 79, 135 The Underneath of Things 129 Unita 133, 134 United Arab Emirates 31 United Kingdom see Britain United Nations 101, 211–12, 266, 327 United Nations Conferences on Women 336 United Nations Development Program 230–1, 268 United States: academic community 5; alliance relations, Turkey 39, 42; blamed for global financial crisis 219; concerns, Soviet interventionism 32; dominance of intellectual hegemony 4–5; foreign policy toward Africa 124; historical consciousness 56; imperial aspirations and study of Africa 117; institutional debate on redefinition of security 102; invasion of Iraq 244; IR scholarship 5, 58; MEDO proposal 31; post-Cold War agenda 63; pursuit of security interests, Latin America 95–6; religious studies 291; secularism 281–4, see also American security studies universalism(s) 10, 11, 155 universality 4, 7, 10, 11 universities: African 17, 117–18; Arab 231, 232, 234; division of labor between think tanks and 61;

358

Index

Pakistani 323–4; theory production 104 Uribe, Álvaro 107 Uruguay 96, 98, 166, 168, 171 value debate: Denmark 288–9 values: Arab 237; Danish 289; Russian 207, 214, 217 Van Binsbergen, Wim 128 Van Dijk, Rijk 128 Van Hensbroek, Pieter Boele 314 Vanneman, Peter 306 Varas, Augusto 99 Varga, Yevgeni 211 Vasco da Gama 149–50 Vattimo, Gianni 277 Venezuela 99 victimization discourse: Africa 306 violence: Africa 117, 128, 129, 134, 190, 196, 304, 308–9 Wæver, Ole 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 27, 105, 107 Wahib, Ahmad 260, 261 Wahid, Abdurrahman 260, 261 Walker, Rob 4 ‘wall of separation’ 282, 283 Waltzian structural realists 141, 156 war on terror 63, 86, 243, 330, 332 Weber, Max 167 West/non-West 6, 32, 303 Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation 96 Western IR: challenge to dominance of 1–2; challenge to exclusive universalism 11; conceptualizations of globalization 200; hegemony of, and the blocking of local theory building 7–8; knowledge production 8–9; new national schools and referencing of 5–6; policing boundaries of legitimate knowledge 10; political space and dominance of 4; US intellectual hegemony 4–5; US IR spoken as 6 Western secularisms 275–93; Denmark 287–9; France 279–81; Germany 284–7; political secularisms and

IR practice 289–93; United States 281–4 Western security theories: geopolitics of 63–4 Western social sciences 253, 254 Westernization 6, 41, 254 Westphalian sovereignty 139, 156, 188 Wheeler, Nick 314 Why is IR a Decreasingly American Social Science? 5 Williams, Mike 48, 52 Wiredu, Kwasi 307 women: Afghani 330, 333–4, see also gender Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) 335 women’s movement: Pakistan 334–5 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 106 World Bank 126, 195, 196, 232, 240, 327 world politics 2, 3, 216 world systems 170, 200, 305 World Trade Organization (WTO) 196 Wulf, Christian 286 xenophobia 308–9 Xhosa 311, 313 Yasin, Yevgeni 214 Yeltsin, Boris 205, 213 Yemen 31 yi ( justice) 75, 85 Yongtao, Liu 14, 16, 19 Young, Crawford 122–3, 303 Young Turk movement 257 youth gang violence 102, 103 Yugoslavia 207 Zaire 132, 133, 134 zakat 237 Zambia 132, 133, 134, 306 Zeleza, Paul T. 306 Zemin, Jiang 80 Zimbabwe 133, 134, 313 Zughoul, M.R. 235, 237