Showing papers in "Alternatives: Global, Local, Political in 1990"

Security, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of World Politics

Abstract: The dilemma before us seems obvious enough. Threats to people’s lives and well-being arise increasingly from processes that are worldwide in scope. The possibility of general nuclear war has been the most dramatic expression of our shared predicament, but potentially massive ecological disruptions and gross inequities generated by a global economy cause at least as much concern. Nevertheless, both the prevailing interpretations of what security can mean and the resources mobilized to put these interpretations into practice are fixed primarily in relation to the military requirements of supposedly sovereign states. We are faced, in short, with demands for some sort of world security, but have learned to think and act only in terms of the security of states. Symptoms of this dilemma are readily apparent. States are less and less convincing in their claims to offer the security that partly legitimizes their power and authority. Moreover, processe’s set in motion by the demands of military defense evidently make us all more and more insecure as inhabitants of a small and fragile planet. Whether judged through apocalyptic images of extermination, in terms of the comparative costs of missiles and medical facilities, or on the basis of accounts of the integration of military production into the seemingly benign routines of everyday life, we know that it is scarcely possible to invoke the term %ecurity” without sensing that something is dreadfully wrong with the way we now live. Elements of this dilemma have been familiar for a considerable time. They have provoked controversy ever since the states system emerged from the decaying feudal hierarchies of early modern Europe. The contradiction between the presumed legitimacy of war and claims about reason, progress, enlightenment, and civilization has

Whose Rights? A Critique of the “Givens” in Human Rights Discourse:

Abstract: We seem to be entering a twilight zone in the history of human consciousness - marked both by accelerating threats to human diversity and survival, and by new assertions of the human spirit from a variety of vantage points. Theoretical assumptions and categories through which human reality has been comprehended and shaped with such confidence have not only become obsolete, but have become stumbling

Towards a Cross-Cultural Environmental Ethic

Abstract: Discussions on environmental ethics have reached their high-water mark in the United States, whether measured in terms of column inches of print space, enrollments in college courses or the surest indicator the intensity of the debate. With the setting aside of wild areas being regarded as the best gauge of an ecological conscience, the development of environmental ethics has been closely linked to the growth of the US wilderness movement. Battles over the creation, preservation, and extension of wilderness areas form the backdrop against which the US environmental community has examined and reexamined its ethical responsibilities towards nature. Apart from the wilderness crusade, three factors se6m to have given a major impetus to modern debates on environmental ethics. Ever since the California historian Lynne White indicated the Judeo-Christian ethos, the part played by different religious traditions in annihilating (or safeguarding) nature has come under close scrutiny. White's attack led many Christians to look towards reviving traditions of stewardship that had been suppressed within their own religion; others, abandoning Christianity altogether, enthusiastically embraced non-Western religions that were believed to be more in harmony with nature.2 A second major influence on the debate has been a guilt complex more specific to the United States. In the often unavailing attempt to resist the equation of a dollar sign with their culture, US citizens have increasingly pointed to their remarkable system of national parks.

The Forms of Internationalization: Representation of Western Culture on a Global Scale

Abstract: A new international society is in the process of forming in which international and global as opposed to national and state-centered social relations are ever more prominent. It is a society of global economic forces multinational corporations in production, distribution, and finance, that are integrated laterally more than ever before and a global division of labor in which the exploitation of unskilled labor in the poor nations of Asia, Latin America, and southern Europe, and in the southern United States can drive down wages and eliminate jobs in the advanced states of Western Europe and other regions of the United States. It is also one of unsettled identities. In such a context the "privileged theory and usual categories of international relations come unhinged, and more imaginative and critical theories are necessary to understand emerging forms of international and global social relations. For too long, the understanding of international society has been statecentered, rendered in terms of a society of states. Such a viewpoint elides the plurality of identities actual and possible within international society, thereby limiting the potential grounds for struggle and change. I shall begin to reenvision the political theory of international society.

After Socialism: Capitalism, Development, and the Search for Critical Alternatives

Abstract: The startling political events that erupted throughout nearly all the “actually existing socialist states” of the world during 1989 totally dominated the mass media for weeks on end, and rightly so. Never before has a global systemic revolution of such proportions been experienced in a manner to draw vast numbers everywhere into participation, if only passively for most, via television.’ The revolution swept away regimes, basic political and economic structures, and military alliance systems in Eastern Europe, thereby terminating with obvious concurrence by the Soviet Union the Cold War and four decades of authoritarian socialism. The day the Wall came down in Berlin November 9, 1989 well marks symbolically the culmination of that revolutionary year. Elsewhere, among the actually existing socialist states, the revolution has been smothered by a return to repression as in the People’s Republic of China, somewhat limited as in the Soviet Unibn in response to mounting ethnic violence, threats of secession, and economic decline, or held off as in Cuba. But everywhere these regimes seem marked for extinction. Although Western experts on the Soviet bloc had long instructed all who would listen to believe in the absolute locks’tep control that Communist parties had over their people, the revolution proceeded to overthrow one-party monopoly throughout Eastern Europe and curtail its scope and hold in the Soviet Union, and everywhere in the bloc to carry through a massive assault on Communist state economic theory and practice. It was this vital dimension that triggered the flush of victory dances in the West: the events of 1989 marked what has been hailed as both the victory of democracy and the “The Triumph of Capi-

Cultural Technological Futures

Abstract: International development agencies have become increasingly concerned about the relationship between culture and economic develop ment. In particular, one conclusion of the UNESCO report Priority Future oriated Studies for the Year 2000 was the need to identify alternative paths of cultural development. “For culture in the face of the trend towards cultural homogenization, the main challenge consists of guaranteeing cultural plurality, that is, ensuring the exercise, maintenance and betterment of diverse cultural alternatives in a new political and social order, that articulates them in conditions of equality and makes possible their mutual enrichment. Thus, cultural plurality is seen not as an obstacle, but as a resource, the basis and a promise for the construction of societies that are fairer, more democratic and more creative.”’ This same motivation is apparent in the Committee for Development Planning of the United Nations (CDP) view of the human resources approach offered in the 1988 report Human Resources: A Neglected Dimension of D ~ e @ m a t * in suggesting that “human resources may be dormant waiting to be tapped, lacking perhaps an organizational initiative. Sometimes these capabilities can be tapped thrbugh participation at the grass roots level. The obstacles may arise from gross inequalities in power, wealth, and income between different classes in society. A lack of freedom of association and organization may constitute a barrier in some cases. . . . Discriminatory practices based on gender, race, Caste, [and] religion effectively preclude equal ezonomic or social participation by some groups. Illiteracy, limited education and knowledge, lack of confidence, passivity, etc. also constitute barriers to the participation of individuals and groups in society.” A recent UNESCO position paper, Human fisources Development:

The United Nations System as an Unfinished Revolution

Abstract: It is common to question the efficiency of the United Nations (UN) in maintaining world order, which is equated largely with the good management of the business entrusted to it by its member states. It is, however, uncommon to ask about its efficiency in creating a new order,To be sure, the creation of a new kind of world order was not envisaged at its incep tion: the United Nations was intended, rather, as a scheme to maintain the kind of world order that the victors of World War I1 saw fit. But with the increase in the number of members that did not even exist at the time of its creation and with the evergrowing perception of the need for global unity, it has become pertinent to ask more about the relevance of the United Nations to the creation of a new kind of world order. The maintenance of an order can be meaningfully discussed only if there exists an order that the components of the system agree to maintain. Conversely, in the absence of an agreed on status quo, the efficiency of an entity should rather be measured against its potential to bring about an order that the majority of those components deem necessary a d desirable. And this is exactly the situation with which the UN has been faced since the 1960s. A paradigmatic change emerged at that time. The relationship between the UN system and the international system Was a widely discussed topic after the partial demise of the prospect that the UN might or should some day evolve into a kind of world government. A preeminent framework concerning this question was to concentrate on the reciprocal impacts between the two systems.' Despite some ambiguity as to the sense in which one is to designate the UN as a system in its own right, the framework proceeded roughly as follows. On the one hand, the impact of the international system on the UN system reflects various characteristics of the states system, with its prevalent norms and understandings of behavior, such as the pursuit of

Must the Quest Be Elusive? Restoring Ethics to Theory Building in International Relations

Abstract: The protracted search for a theory that accounts for patterns of transnational interaction remains frustrated. Consensus bver paradigmatic principles that would guide research and theorizing has not been achieved, and, as a consequence, no approach commands wide respect. At best, theoretical movements in international relations have alternated from one approach to another without demonstrating either the inadequacy of the old approach or the superiority of the new.’ International relations research today, therefore, has failed to reach agreement about several fundamental issues: (1) the central questions to be asked, (2) the basic units of analysis (e.g., states or nonstate actors), (3) the levels of analysis2 at which various questions should be explored, (4) the methods by which hypotheses should be tested and unwarranted inferences prevented, ( 5 ) the criteria by which theoretical progress is to be judged, and (6) how inquiry should be organized in order to generate the knowledge that will lead t? international peace, prosperity, and justice. Why is disarray in the field of international relations so pervasive? Why are the cleavages so deep? Some argue that international politics embodies such a comprehensive, complex, and constantly changing set of interrelated phenomena that the quest for a theoretical treatment that contains both universal validity and ethical relevance is hopeless. This perspective finds all international relations theories necessarily bound by time and place, and irrelevant to moral concerns. The most that can be sought from international relations theory, according to many critics, are middle-range or partial theories that account only for

The Discourse of Exploitation and the Exploitation of Discourse

Abstract: Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and military governments, as well as to the most free and popular.

Europe 2000: A Peace Plan

Abstract: The autumn revolutions in the year 1989 have opened up a unique development perspective for Europe: Never before in Europe were there solely democratic and constitutional states (Albania being the one exception) , and never before has there been a realistic perspective of attaining a peace system and security structure that was acceptable to all concerned. It is true that there is no forcible interconnection between internal constitutionality and a peaceful behavior toward the outer world but there is a plausible one since peaceful conflict management within societies and violent military strategies tend to exclude each other. Thus, developed liberal democracies no longer waged war on each other during the past few decades. A potential for peaceableness as inherent in the inner structure of constitutional states becomes applied practice at the moment when their external behavior is governed by a variety of intergovernmental and intersocietal institutions for the purpose of cooperation. This allows the security dilemma existing between s?vereign states to be largely resolved, and wherever confederative or federal structures emerge, even to be completely resolved. After the end of the East-West conflict, the main issue for Europe during the last decade of this century will be the establishment of just such a structure of durubb peace. Given an internal constitutional character of $he European states, the basic elements for such a structure will be an institutionalization of cooperation and measures for peaceful conflict settlement and collective security.

An Independent Society: Poland under Martial Law

Abstract: On December 13, 1981, after sixteen months of an uneasy coexistence between the communist state and the Eastern bloc's firstever independent trade union, Solidarity, General Jaruzelski, as head of a self-appointed Military Council of National Salvation, imposed martial law ,on Poland. Thousands of militants and intellectuals were placed in administrative detention without a warrant; and thousands more were to be interned, arrested, and sentenced. All trade unions-and almost all student and professional associations-were suspended and later banned, newspapers were seized, and military censorship was imposedl A curfew was enforced, telephones switched off, and the borders sealed. Protest was met with violence and the first dead (although the coup itself was bIoodless) fell several days later. In all, martial law was to claim over the years a hundred dead and thousands wounded, over ten thousand jailed and a yet-undetermined number harassed, fired, and forced into emigration. For the Poles, martial law meant a brutal reimposition of the communist system the country had been resisting ever since the outcome of World War I1 had brought it under Soviet control. I shall relate the story of Polish civil resistance to military rule. Political opposition, under conditions of martial law, was not an option; and armed opposition had never been one. On these grounds, the authorities had presumably surmised that, .once their rule was firmly reestablished, the Poles would have no alternative but submission-and official propaganda said as much. What happened, in fact, was the exact opposite to their expectations: an entire society tried to go underground, as it were, there to continue its activity not so much against the regime as in spite of its presence and goals. One could see in this the realization of a slogan invented by leading oppositionist Jacek Kurd, who, mindful of the final defeat of the bloody riots of 1970, warned resistors, \"Do not burn down [party] committees: set up your own.\" \

Alternatives for the 1990s

Abstract: s we enter the last decade of the twentieth century, political events A have been moving with extraordinary rapidity. Transformations in Europe, both East and West, have been the most dramatic expression of contemporary fluidities, but they in turn cannot be understood apart from more fundamental alterations in the structutes of global geopolitics and the accelerations of an increasingly integrated world economy. Some have been tempted to interpret these events in familiar categories. They have applauded the longdelayed \"end of ideology\" or the apparent victory of capitalism and modernity over socialism and tradition. More sanguine observers, however, have suggested that recent events merely reinforce suspicions that familiar categories do not always offer the best interpretation of what is going on. Since its founding in 1974, Alternatives has sought to challenge many of the assumptions that, under conditions of Cold War and pax amerkana, have long seemed so persuasive, but that have now come under increasingly sustained criticism. At a time when attention to the demands of state power was thought to constitute the essence of \"realism,\" Alternatives has been more interested in evidence of shifts toward more global structures and loyalties. At the same time, it has refused the temptation of uncritically accepting these shifts at the expense of more local identities and sensibilities. At a time when sequential stages of economic growth were thought to constitute the essence of \"development,\" Alternatives has been more interested in claims that social and economic life might be more appropriately organized in relation to human needs and ecological sustainability. At a time when ideas about legitimate knowledge were dominated by positivistic accounts of science and the separation of facts from values, Alternatives has underlined the importance of normative theory and even utopian speculation. And at a time when the analysis of world affairs was conducted

The Constitutional Promotion of Human Rights in Eastern Europe

Abstract: Society is infinitely more complex than we can express through our theories, educated pessimism, and romantic hopes. Life often challenges our theoretical confidence, based on elaborate analyses, and confirms our half-thought, cautiously articulated intuition. Life demonstrates the limits of our knowledge, the relativity of evm undeniable values, and the play of forces from the past that incomprehensibly Undermine the intentions of the present. Against the background of scientific breakthroughs-almost unimaginable accumulations of knowledge-a strong feeling prevails that basic, fundamental questions remain unanswered. Furthermore, in spite of all our knowledge, there seems to be an insurmountable discrepancy between our insights and the results of our actions. Unintended consequences transform even the best intentions into their opposites. Just when we explain to ourselves that a more ra'tional direction of development is evolving in a society, an unpredicted regression, an involution, occurs. Just when we convince ourselves that some societies are hopelessly static and irreversibly petrified, unprecedented changes and radical reforms are initiated. In one moment the character of the political Gstem is the obstacle to change; in another the economic crisis is a grave hindrance to political democratization. In one moment constitutionalism is of no relevance for the functioning of reality due to the type of political poww in another its irrelevance stems from the type of powerlessness of the soci-. ety. In the first case, it is suspended by the arbitrary interpretations in the function of political domination; in the second, by disintegrative tendencies, the unresolvable conflicts life produces. We assume that dramatic economic/political problems are directly and exclusively the result of an existing political system, only to witness