Security-based arguments for global integration

1. Security-based arguments for global integration Lecturer: Luis Cabrera Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

2. The World Government Tradition • Recall the Stoics on world citizenship (2000-plus years ago) • In China, 5th Century BCE philosopher Mozi, is reported to have said, when asked the way to “universal love and mutual benefit,” that it was “to regard other people’s countries as one’s own.” • Dante, Monarchia (ca. 1310): universal peace requires universal government • Various arguments for European unity through the 19th Century Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius in `Gladiator’

3. The 20th Century • In the first half of the 20th Century, the most prominent advocate of the world state was the novelist and social critic H.G. Wells. • His thought informed much of the work on world government that appeared following World War II, when the ideal enjoyed an unprecedented popularity. • You probably know his fiction work • http://www.waroftheworlds.com/

4. The First World Government Heyday, 1944-1950 • The first heyday of the world state, which lasted roughly from 1944 to 1950, came in part because of the devastation caused by World War II, and in part because of the terrible new dangers of nuclear weapons • Congressional hearings • Reader’s Digest 23,000 reader groups (Reves)

5. In Britain and Europe • Henry Usborne, MP, in his maiden speech to the House of Commons in November 1945, urged Parliament to lead the way to a United Commonwealth of Nations • Usborne founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group for World Government, which at its height claimed membership of more than two-hundred MPs. • In France, Sarte, Camus, and other leading intellectuals, along with tens of thousands of street demonstrators, supported “world citizen” Garry Davis’ call for a global constituent assembly.

6. Albert Einstein • It was during this period that Albert Einstein made his oft-quoted statement that he would rather face the risks of global tyranny under a world state than global nuclear war in a world of competing states. • Einstein helped establish the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, whose members staged a vigorous public campaign for world control of nuclear weapons (not WG). Einstein did support WG explicitly.

7. The Underlying Hobbesian argument • Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679 • Leviathan—1651 • Hobbes made a foundational argument for political legitimacy. To escape perpetual war and misery, he said, humans must be in political community with a firm, authoritative ruler.

8. Hobbes in the 20th Century • Most heyday authors were making versions of the Hobbesian argument. • In the new nuclear age, they said, nation-states needed “a power to keep them all in awe” and prevent them from destroying the entire world.

9. Bertrand Russell • “Either war or civilization must end, and if it is to be war that ends, there must an international authority with the sole power to make the new (atomic) bombs.”

10. Hiroshima was the spur http://www.lclark.edu/~history/HIROSHIMA/ Russell: “It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the destruction of Hiroshima.

11. Hiroshima Aftermath

13. Hiroshima AftermathBurned body of a Japanese boy

14. United Nations • Many in the heyday had hoped the United Nations would look more like a world government. • They were disappointed when the most powerful states refused to cede significant aspects of their sovereignty to the new body. • For example, the five most powerful states insisted on a Security Council veto at the San Francisco conference where the UN Charter was devised.

15. A New Heyday? • Today, growing global economic integration has revived interest in the idea among some prominent scholars • WTO • European Union • Competitive globalization • Not to mention the continuing nuclear threat • See Craig, and Cabrera, “World Government: Renewed Debate, Persistent Challenges,” in European Journal of International Relations

16. Current Proponents of security-based arguments • Campbell Craig, Aberystwyth • “In the long term, deterrence is bound to fail: to predict that it will succeed forever, never once collapsing into a nuclear war, is to engage in a utopian and ahistorical kind of thinking. … When it fails, the ensuing war is likely to kill hundreds of millions of people, and possibly exterminate the human race (172). • Craig, Campbell (2003) Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New York: Columbia University Press.

17. Alexander WendtOhio State University • Wendt, an international relations scholar best known for developing the “Constructivist” approach to the study of IR, argues that a world state is inevitable. • For Wendt, the key is the way in which a struggle for recognition by states can be seen to mirror the struggles that Hegel identified as occurring between individuals.

18. Wendt, Cont. • For Hegel, the micro-level struggle for recognition ultimately led to collective-identity formation and the development of the nation-state. • Wendt argues that states are ‘people’, and new technologies have undermined whatever strong claims might have been made for state self-sufficiency, both increasing the costs of war and enlarging the scale on which it is possible to organize a state. • States’ struggles for recognition will be as powerful as those of individuals in promoting movement toward a global collective identity and global state with a monopoly on collective violence (2003: 493).

19. Is a full monopoly needed? • Deudney’s argument • In “Propositions” and his 2007 book, Deudney argues for non-hierarchical control of nuclear weapons in a much more integrated global system.

20. Deudney, cont. • Virtual nuclear arsenals: states would disarm but retain the ability to relatively quickly re-arm should the need arise. • Concurrent authority: states would not be able to decide unilaterally to fire a nuclear weapon -- would have to obtain a portion of the launch code from an international security authority, among related safeguards • Global constitution: would profess the world government’s primary purpose–to avoid both world anarchy and world hierarchy–and stipulating that no suprastate organ would be authorized to employ coercion beyond the application of criminal law to individuals.

21. World War III? • Deudney speculates that it could need another major war to actually launch a global government of any kind.

22. A posible critique of the straightforwardHobbesian argument • Representative arguments: Einstein, Craig • States *will* find it in their self-interest to cooperate on security matters short of creating a world government. • Iterated prisoner’s dilemma • Nuclear cooperation to date • “Imposing” WG could promote instability

23. The critical tradition • Immanuel Kant, 1795 (To Perpetual Peace): a system of democratic republics closely cooperating would be an appropriate goal for the global system. • Full world government would lead to tyranny and a stifling of democratic politics.

24. Critics, cont. • Orwell, 1941: “What is the use of pointing out that a World State is desirable? What matters is that not one of the five great military powers would think of submitting to such a thing. All sensible men for decades past have been substantially in agreement with what Mr. Wells says; but the sensible men have no power...”

25. State of the discourse: moral vs institutional cosmopolitanism • Virtually all cosmopolitan theorists (Beitz, Barry, Waldron, Pogge, Nussbaum, Moellendorf, Held, etc) say they are not advocates of a world state • They generally mean, however, a very powerful, possibly hierarchcial world state of the kind Einstein advocated

26. Moral and Institutional 2 • Most, including Pogge, Caney (and Held) advocate some form of global institutional transformation or creation to achieve human rights or cosmopolitan aims. • In some cases, the transformation called for is quite extensive.

27. “Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty” • In this, Chapter 7 of World Poverty and Human Rights, Pogge considers the global institutional reforms that arguably would flow from a moral cosmopolitan approach. • NB: Simon Caney offers a similar argument for global institutions in Justice Beyond Borders

28. His integration prescription • We need a ‘vertical dispersal’ of sovereignty • We might think in terms of some expanded EU-style integration • Some aspects of sovereignty ceded to institutions above the state to coordinate some policy (environment, economy, etc) • Some aspects of sovereignty ceded to institutions below the state (Scottish, Basque parliaments) • Guided by a form of subsidiarity (Policy is set at the lowest possible level) • Supremacy implied but not stated

29. Expected Benefits • Would reduce armed conflict oppression within states through checks and balances • Would better protect human rights • Would enhance global environment (really a principle of input/impact—right to democracy)

30. Not a centralized world state • Not some form of sovereign UN • Pogge says it would pose oppression risks his multilayered system (check-and-balance) would not. Resistance could come at multiple levels • World state could be a threat to global diversity • World state seems reachable only through revolution or global catastrophe (nuclear war, etc.)

31. Pogge: Getting there • Secession and joining rights grounded in right to democracy • After “supermajoritarian” procedure • Could secede • Could join with another territorial entity

32. Luis CabreraU of Birmingham • Cabrera argues that if cosmopolitans are serious about wanting to promote cross-border distributions of resources and opportunities, they also should promote political integration (along with economic). • He turns to the European Union as a partial model of how the creation of broader communities can promote such distributions.

33. Core Argument • 1) All persons are entitled to the resources and opportunities needed to form and pursue a robust life plan (self-development rights) • 2) International redistribution of resources and fair opportunities (trade, movement, etc) is inhibited by biases inherent in a sovereign states system • 3) Therefore, we should promote just, democratically accountable economic and political integration among states.

34. The European Union: A Partial Model (‘living laboratory’) • Distribution of Resources: • In the EU, transstate distributions have been formalized through “structural funds” initiatives. Distribution of such funds has been aimed at stimulating development and lessening the impacts of integration, mainly within less affluent states.

35. European Union, Cont. • Opportunities: • Accompanying the growth in distributions of resources has been increasing distribution of opportunities in the form of free movement. • The right of free movement was first granted to workers, and more recently to all citizens of almost all member states. They can live and work anywhere in the union, and to stand and vote in local elections and EU elections. • http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=338

36. Why a “Partial” Model? • The European template can’t necessarily be laid over the world as a whole. • The “Democratic Deficit:” Citizens of member states continue to have only limited input on the policies that increasingly affect their lives. • And that Eurozone crisis…

37. Why Integrate? Three Biases Against International Redistribution • 1) Westphalian Foundations: • The interests of citizens give states their moral standing and justify recognition by other states of norms of territorial integrity, non-intervention and internal sovereignty. • The moral imperative on states’ leaders in such a system is to protect and promote the interests of their own citizens. • Thus, if leaders attempted to extend routine distributions to noncitizens, they would be subverting their individual mandates.

38. Three Biases, Cont. • 2) Electoral Bias: • Leaders have powerful, self-interest based incentives to give more weight to the needs and interests of their own citizens than noncitizens. • In democracies, the primary set of interests to be considered by leaders is that of the electorate • In more hierarchical regimes, the primary interests taken into account are those of powerful elites in government, industry, the military and other sectors.

39. Third bias: Own-case bias • States are generally the final judges in their own cases • Locke: great potential for conflict discord in the state of nature • Current system: each state determines its own obligations to others. • Social psychology: ‘naive realism’. We tend to think that we are non-biased, while also thinking that others are biased. • Replicated at state level? Part of reason why demands made in behalf of global poor may seem unreasonable? (Singer)

40. Own-case bias, cont. • The global system lacks a neutral judge able to determine obligations through consistently applying fair principles • Encourages an ‘ownership’ view of states by their citizens, and a rejection of distributive claims, including claims to distribute membership in the form of immigration • Possible case in point: one-sided and restrictive ‘points-system’ immigration regimes.

41. Own-case bias and internal violations • The lack of a neutral suprastate judge also gives states considerable power/latitude in the treatment of their own citizens • ECHR provides a partial model of a neutral suprastate judge able to consistently apply agreed principles in such cases. (Compliance uneven but perhaps surprisingly good)

42. An Integrated Alternative • If the sovereign states system impedes international distributions because it encourages an inward-looking stance on the part of states or state leaders, • then a more integrated system should promote such distributions. • It should promote the view that much larger sets of persons have interests in common that should be protected and promoted in common.

43. Integrated Alternative, Cont. • To promote just, democratically accountable integration, the integrated alternative should include these features: • Subsidiarity: Policy is set at the lowest appropriate level, and lower levels have the right to challenge decisions made above. • Supremacy: decisions made at higher levels are binding on lower levels, though subject to challenge • Individual Standing: Individuals should have the ability to challenge unreasonable rights rejections by states and at higher levels.

44. Moving Toward the Integrated Alternative • International Trade and Constitutionalization of Trading Blocs: • Creation of free-trade areas such as the European Union leads to an increase in trade and other international exchanges. • Increasing exchange increases incentives for countries to adopt common rules. • It also leads to increasing numbers of disputes and international precedents set as disputes are resolved.

45. Possible Sites of Integration • NAFTA: • Former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada has proposed that NAFTA evolve in a direction similar to the European Union. • Transfers of aid for infrastructure and development • Fox also has been a strong advocate of freer immigration

46. Possible Sites, cont. • The World Trade Organization: • The WTO already has achieved considerable constitutionalization of the global trading system. • Its Dispute Resolution Body has made a number of significant rulings.

47. Possible Sites, Cont. • The World Trade Organization is not directly democratically accountable to citizens of member states. • Its policy formation and dispute resolution processes are not open to the global public. • Thus, it is not an example of accountable integration.

48. What to Do? • The argument offered here suggests that we should advocate the creation of democratically accountable institutions above the state. • We also should advocate that existing supranational bodies such as the EU, WTO and NAFTA be made more directly accountable to the individuals within states who are affected by the decisions they make, and • That they be extended as and where possible (Turkey, Mexico, etc.)

49. A Global Government? • A fully-integrated global system would be the preferred outcome if it best ensured fulfillment of self-development rights for all individuals. • However, the argument does not depend on that outcome. • Even if we believe a global government would not be feasible or desirable, the argument gives us resources for the near-term reform and transformation of the global system.