Summaries:
Ernst-Otto Czempiel
Europe’s Mission: Pushing for a Participative
World Order
David P. Calleo
Balancing America: Europe’s International Duties
Ernst-Otto Czempiel
Europe’s Mission: Pushing for a Participative World Order
The highly interdependent world of today needs a different
type of foreign policy, one which aims at a well-ordered, peaceful
global society. This foreign policy gives priority to structures
that breed peace rather than to the fight against the enemies
whom the present “order” keeps generating. It strives for broad-based
participation in the emerging – and unavoidable – system of
global governance, the spread of democracy throughout the world,
and a more even distribution of wealth. The United States, now
the virtually unchallenged superpower, is tempted to embark
on a policy of strength, to impose its will on the rest of the
world unilaterally in accordance with American interests and
convenience. Europe should not try to match American military
power in order to become a superpower itself. Rather, the unique
character of the European Union as a highly participative supra-national
governance system predestines it to pioneer a new type of post-national,
post-realist foreign policy. If the EU spoke with one voice
it would exert tremendous political influence, despite its military
inferiority. Its example would have persuasive power. After
all, American society shares the fundamental values on which
the new world order is to be based.
David P. Calleo
Balancing America: Europe’s International Duties
The new tendency of the USA to pursue its foreign-policy
goals without much consideration for European preferences
has its roots in the profound transformation in the balance
of power since 1990. Europeans, in turn, tend to extrapolate
the highly specific conditions which generated and supported
the transatlantic partnership during the Cold War into the
present. In the Cold War, European security depended on America’s
superior military power, while America needed its European
allies in order to prevent Soviet expansion. It was this mutual
dependency which gave European states some influence in multilateral
transatlantic , which are bound to –USA, not so much because it lacks military power
but because it lacks political will. It would be good also
for America if Europe became more self-assertive (of course on the basis of unquestioned friendship
with America). European-style multilateralism provides a more
promising
Christoph Bertram
Europe’s Best Interest: Staying Close to Number One
For all its economic weight Europe lacks what it takes to be
a counterweight to the USA. Europeans can
remain
tied to each other by common political values as well as by
a large bloc of common interests.
John M. Owen
Why American Hegemony Is Here to Stay
Increasing American unilateralism in international affairs
can be seen as the natural consequence of the power disparity
between the
Claus Leggewie
Globalization versus Hegemony
On the Future of Transatlantic Relations
Three scenarios are emerging in the relationship between
America and Europe. The most likely one is America going it
alone on security and geo-economic questions. The alternatives
are (a) a transatlantic hegemonic alliance and (b) a global
governance system which replaces American or Western hegemony.
Unfortunately, the latter is the least likely. No superpower
has ever been as hegemonial as the USA is today. No coalition
of other powers can prevent it from setting up an international
order according to its wishes. But the hegemony is expressed
not only in superior power, but also in the attractiveness
of American solutions to world problems. Many are happy to
follow the hegemon. For this reason, no world-wide coalition
of the inferior powers against the superior power is in sight.
Rather, all that happens is isolated criticism by those who
otherwise have no objections to the willingness of the United
States to "put wrongs right". From the American
point of view, there is a certain logic about not worrying
too much about what are in any case the inconsistent preferences
of other governments, and instead relying on whatever ad hoc
alliances fit US needs. This particularly changes Germany's
importance to US foreign policy. But the future challenges
are increasingly of a nature that cannot be tackled by superior
imperial power. In the past, the US has always aimed to overcome
the European-style world of absolutely sovereign nation states
and has instead promoted the openness of its own society to
the rest of the world. Just at a time when the world is actually
globalizing and increasingly undermining the old nation state
concept, the emphasis of the USA thinks and acts increasingly
in the categories of national sovereignty. The old Europe,
in contrast, which has always thought in national terms, is
subscribing to a concept of supranational global order. It
is to be feared that the "Pax Americana" will not
be a "Pax", because the new American expression
of power is not the appropriate response to the coming threats.
Hegemony does not fit in with globalization. The concept of
world order which Europe has recently come to advocate points
to the better way. But there are also influential forces in
the United States who share this view. It is now important
to forge a new transatlantic alliance with them.
Robert Chr. van Ooyen
Modern Realism – Another Case of Political Theology
On Robert Kagan's Arguments
International politics is driven not only by facts, but also
by the theoretical context of understanding within which the
facts are interpreted. This also applies to the provocative
arguments of Robert Kagan, who interprets the current
disturbances in transatlantic relations as an expression of
fundamentally different world views. Whereas, he posits, Europe
orients itself towards a Kantian paradise of freedom, peace
and prosperity, the United States is concentrating on the
exercise of power in a Hobbesian world – idealism on the one
side, realism on the other. According to Kagan, idealistic
concepts have been a constant thread in the tradition of European
thought, even in "modern" or "realistic"
thinkers like Marx, Weber or Popper, and they have for some
time been experiencing a renaissance resulting from Europe's
military weakness. In fact, Europe's security-policy illusionism
evolves parasitically under the protection of the US military
shield. Morals in international affairs appear, thus, as a
strategy for wimps. However, Kagan reveals in this analysis
that he is a "political theologian". His reduction
of the concept of politics to the perspective of power has
nothing to do with an understanding of political "reality".
It is based on the myth of the sovereignty of power, creative
and self-creating, and thus quasi-divine. But political power
is only ever human power and is thus not sovereign. Anyone
claiming, like Kagan, that international relations cannot
be "ordered" by processes institutionalized by international
law and by politics, anyone who denounces morals as mere trickery
by the weak, understands political reality just as little
as the idealism he criticizes.
Natan Sznaider
Israel: Ethnic State and Pluralistic Society
The State of Israel gained its international legitimacy from
the condemnation of anti-Semitism which emerged following the
Holocaust. Beyond this international legitimacy, Israel can
only look to ethnic and religious origins, a foundation for
legitimacy which is not accepted nowadays by a large part of
the world. But even the legitimacy of the state derived from
the Holocaust comes up against the problem that the globalized
Holocaust memory has reallocated the ethnic attributes of perpetrators
and victims into categories of right and wrong. Furthermore,
Israel is a "state surrounded by enemies", and the
sociological laws of the "enemy-free state", as found
in many societies in Europe today, do not pertain there. The
specific linkage of ethnically based state identity and Jewish
religion distinguish Israel clearly from the post-Enlightenment
states of the so-called West. Even if there are apparently equal
rights, the fundamental identity of the state excludes the non-Jewish
citizens. The peace process was not only a political process
in which two parties worked to overcome a conflict, but also
a cultural battle of modernity against tradition. The inner-Jewish
ethnic and cultural conflicts must be understood in terms of
the imperative of the ethnic state. In that state, these conflicts
can bring integration; outside of the ethnos, they cannot. The
peace process was primarily supported by that section of the
population which enjoys the greatest similarity to Western "bourgeois"
groups. It entailed an attempt to give Israel a secular, post-Zionist
identity. The social and cultural contrasts between the various
Jewish groupings in the population became drastically aggravated.
But liberal principles are finding life increasingly difficult
in Israel's new violence-dominated reality. The war situation
has reactivated the old, already shaky Zionist identity. The
conflict with Israel's enemies does not permit a truly "civil
society" to emerge in the country, since this sort of society has to be one at
peace. And the achievements in establishing the rule of law
are also being dismantled. Whilst the enmity of the Arabs is
reinforcing national cohesion – on the basis of an exclusive
identity – this concept of identity and the political structures
resting on it are increasingly undermining the country's external
legitimacy. Israel's future will be focused around this problem.
Uwe Halbach
Oil and Identity in the Caucasus
The break-up of the Soviet Union resulted in many more or less
violent conflicts in the Caucasus region between the Caspian
and Black Seas, none of which has been settled so far. These
conflicts, several of which have assumed the nature of real
wars, largely originate in the struggle by ethnically defined
groups to escape from a pre-existing state structure. The aim
has generally been to form a separate independent state. In
the case of the efforts by Nagorno-Karabakh to break away from
Azerbaijan, there is also the prospect of joining a different
state – Armenia. Whilst the conflicts are primarily fueled by
the identity issue, they are exacerbated, extended and altered
by economic factors. However, the oft-cited "Great Game"
between major and medium-sized powers to gain power over the
Caspian oil and its transport routes plays a subordinate role.
Not only did all the conflicts in the region break out at a
time when dreams of Caspian oil – which have since become far
less exciting – had yet to determine policies. Also, the outcomes
of the various conflicts have been of little relevance for the
pipeline projects. It is true that the region has probably gained
– perhaps only temporarily – greater geopolitical significance
due to the Caspian oil, but it has proved hard to instrumentalize
the ethnic tensions in favor of one or other geopolitical player.
The opposite has rather been the case: the local Caucasian parties
to the conflict have instrumentalized the emerging oil industry
– and not only it – for their own ends. On the one hand, this
means that they have used their force-backed access to economic
resources to fund their "cause". On the other hand,
criminal and quasi-criminal groupings have emerged to enrich
themselves in the regions which have become increasingly "government-free"
and thus susceptible to "lawlessness". But this latter
aspect should not imply that the enrichment motive has determined
the subsequent course of the conflicts. On the contrary: the
conflicts continue to be characterised by the willingness of
the parties to accept great material sacrifices in the interest
of their own identity-defined cause. In fact, the various wars
and the resulting "peaceless" stalemates have produced
a massive economic decline coupled with a corresponding impoverishment
of the population. Subsistence economies have grown up throughout
the region at the lowest level – not only in the rebel-controlled
areas, but throughout the various states. To an increasing extent,
it is the Islamic factor which links the regional anarchy with
world politics. It particularly plays a role in the Chechnya
conflict: some of the rebels stress their Islamic identity.
Russia legitimizes its intervention – of which Moscow has largely
lost control – as a fight against Islamicist terrorism. Beyond
this, the "government-free" regions of today's Caucasus
could serve as potential havens for terrorist groups.
Andreas Maurer
Less Bargaining – More Deliberation
The Convention Method for Enhancing EU Democracy
The decision-making processes of the European Union are centered
on negotiation processes – which largely take place behind
closed doors – between the governments of the member states,
and are so distant from the individual citizens that their
public acceptance is increasingly under threat. And there
is no obvious remedy. After all, in the classical model of
representative democracy, majority decisions rely on the willingness
of the respective minority to subordinate itself to the majority
decision. This can only be expected on the basis of a fundamental
feeling of belonging together. In other words, it would need
a European people, a European "demos", which does
not yet exist. But such a demos can also be gradually formed
by joint policy-making in the course of which a common political
public is formed. This suggests that it would be important
to make progress on the process of forming a European political
public. This aim could be served by the concept of "deliberative
democracy", which focuses not on majority decision, but
on the joint search, by means of an open exchange of arguments,
for solutions – where possible consensual in nature – to shared
problems. The polity would thus become more democratic if
forums for such "deliberation" were set up. The
"deliberative" search for the best decisions creates,
if it involves broad participation, that public which makes
up a democracy-capable "demos". In the course of
the further development of the EU, forums for open deliberation
have been set up on two occasions. One was the "Convention
on the Charter of Fundamental Rights", which met from
the end of 1999 until fall 2000. The other is the "Convention
on the Future of the Union" set up at the end of 2001.
Both of these were or are entrusted with elaborating recommendations
for fundamental decisions affecting the development of the
EU – recommendations to be presented to an Intergovernmental
Conference for a decision. The "Convention Method"
points to new ways to democratize the EU decision-making processes,
because, separately from all rules on who is responsible for
what, it brings members of the European Parliament and of
national parliaments together with government and Commission
representatives for an intensive, results-oriented exchange
of views. Even though it does not directly change anything
in the decision-making process, the Convention Method creates
scope for the representatives of the people at EU and national
level to substantively influence EU policy. These two Conventions
are a first step, not yet a breakthrough. But the European
Parliament and the national parliaments themselves have an
opportunity to grant a greater role to the Convention Method
in future and thus to promote a substantial democratization
of the Union.
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