Third World was for Cold War, Developing is for Globalization

Just as the term ‘third world’ was an appropriate Cold War term for “countries which were neither ‘Western’ AICs, with well-developed free market economies, nor countries of the Soviet bloc”, I view the term ‘developing countries’ as a reflection of economic globalization and view these ‘developing’ countries to be heavily laden with natural resources, and in most cases suffering from political instability, mass poverty, civil or foreign initiated conflict, or economic collapse (Calvert & Calvert, 2007).

What once was an international stage filled with individual nation-states under a model of realism, with each individual actor pursuing nation-state goals and interests, has now become an international stage where the majority of nation-state actors are integrated into a multi-level globalized economic market in which private sector actors (corporate-states) pursue interests and profits within a model of realism similar to how nation-states competed and warred with each other during the period between the Treaty of Westphalia and the end of the Second War World. With the creation of the United Nations and the United Nations Security Council after World War II, private sector globalization was granted international structure through IGOs such as the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund (which sets currency exchange rates to allow capital to move across nation-state borders), and the World Trade Organization. The Marshall Plan set the standard for private sector reconstruction.

During the Cold War era the global stage was divided into a private sector capitalist market bloc and a communist bloc, with ‘third world’ nation-states that were not affiliated to either. Once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the western nation-state powers, championing the banner of free market capitalism, and the private sector wasted little time in expanding the free market eastward to assimilate post-Soviet satellite nation-states into the global market. Some of these nation-states were anxious for the opportunity, while others, such as natural resource-rich Bosnia-Herzegovina, required UN peacekeeping intervention. Today, under the ideology that “Africans need the same things Europe and Japan needed after World War II: infrastructure, energy, integrated markets linked to a global economy”, the majority of ‘developing’ countries are in Africa and South America, many of which are still dealing with political and economic ramifications from colonialism as they transition into private sector ‘development’ (Zoellick, 2010). Similar to Marshall Plan after World War II, the private sector is brought into a nation-state under the guise of reconstruction, or some other humanitarian guise, behind the World Bank Group which “evolved from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development as facilitator of post-war reconstruction and development” (World Bank, 2012). Similar to how NAFTA impacted South America, the “World Bank Group is already working with Africans and Chinese to create industrial zones” (Zoellick, 2010).

The majorities of ‘developing’ countries become ripe for entry into, and open to the exploitation of their natural resources, by the global private sector market under three methods: 1) Political instability or post-war destruction 2) Extreme poverty, disease, sanitation, or any of the UN Millennium goals or 3) Sanctions and regime removal by unilateral nation-state or collective UN coalitions (which means the carrots did not work, so it is stick time).

This is not to say that the population of a ‘developing’ nation-state does not benefit in some areas from foreign private sector investment, but the primary goal of private sector capitalism is to maximize profit.

Calvert, Peter & Susan. Politics and Society in the Developing World, 3rd ed. (Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, 2007). Accessed on February 6, 2013 from https://edge.apus.edu/xsl-portal/site/207381/page/0f7045fd-d18a-4b96-907c-262fe631922d

World Bank. World Bank Official Web page, 2012. Accessed on February 7, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:20653660~menuPK:72312~pagePK:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html
Zoellick, Robert. 2010. The End of the Third World. The International Economy (Spring): 40-43.

International Realism: From Nation-States to Private Capital

"And every nation has its appointed term; when their term is reached, neither can they delay it nor can they advance it an hour (or a moment)." – The Quran (Al-Araf)

Introduction

                From the nation-state anarchy that emerged after the Treaty of Westphalia through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the international stage has been in constant transformation, through a series of historical events consisting of conflicts, treaties and the creation of international organizations, which have evolved world international relations into a new epoch.  From Westphalia onward, individual nation-states struggled and created alliances in order to pursue and protect national interests under the model of anarchy.  Through two major international conflicts, World War I and II, in which the victorious alliance of nation-states established a collective hegemon and inadvertently propelled a new nation-state power, the United States, to the international stage creating a world balance of power between capitalism and communism, termed the Cold War, under the influencing forces of created International Governmental Organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.  As anarchical nation-state power struggles consolidated under a single superpower nation-state after the Cold War and private sector capitalism pushed freely across the globe through mechanisms of established international governmental organizations, the world authority model of global governance which nation-state governments had evolved to became mere mechanisms utilized by a new model of anarchy that had emerged on the international stage in which private sector corporate actors ruthlessly competed for resources and interests as nation-states had once done at the time of Westphalia.  The events of the last century have brought an end of international anarchy between nation-states, consolidating and constraining nation-states under globalization, while unleashing the anarchy of private sector capitalism which has marked a new epoch in international relations.

Nation-State Anarchy and World War I

                As the young nation-state power, the United States, was on a quietly rising path of economic strength due to its vast natural resources, its ability to export to both sides of the European balance of power and the isolated geographic distance from Europe prior to World War I, the nation-states of Europe were entangled in thick political chains of anarchy and near the brink of continental conflict.  As a natural component of nation-state anarchy, alliances contributed heavily in the conditions that caused World War I as Britain, France and Russia created the Triple Entente and Germany, Austria and Italy created a Triple Alliance.  These alliances were the direct results of concerns by Britain, Russia and France toward the rapidly rising economic and military power conversion of unified Germany, as “Germany had pulled even with Great Britain, the preeminent power in Europe, and was three times wealthier than France or Russia. In 1913, one year before the war broke out; German wealth exceeded that of Great Britain by 40 percent”.  Germany, on the other hand, had their own security concerns about being geographically encircled by the nation-states of the Triple Entente, especially the arms embargo implemented by the Triple Entente in order to prevent neutral U.S arms sales from reaching Germany.

                Commonly in regional anarchic nation-state conflicts, vulnerable satellite or colonial territories belonging to or protected by larger nation-states can often create sparks that ignite regional conflagration.  This was the case leading into World War I when, in 1914, Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany, declared war on Serbia, which was backed by Russia, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  The result was a Russian military mobilization and a German declaration of war which began what historians call the Great War, World War I.  The United States would join the side of Britain toward the end of the conflict claiming the issue of German submarine warfare and the provocative Zimmerman Telegram which offered Mexico the opportunity to become a German ally.

Nation-State Anarchy and First Attempt at Collective Security

                The defeat of Germany in World War I brought to the European surface several ramifications from the Treaty of Versailles which included German surrender of colonial possessions, heavy economic reparations on Germany and the loss of German control over the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s leading industrial area, to French occupation.  Even more important in the aftermath of World War I was the first attempt to establish a liberal model of collective security in the creation of the League of Nations.

                The liberal League of Nations was a failure in moving the world into a model of world authority in global governance mainly because it placed all nation-states, the victorious and the defeated of World War I, on equal footing as “all Council members, great and small, had a veto”.  Despite the intentions behind Wilson’s Fourteen Points plan and the League of Nations, the goal of collective security was not reached and the result was a formal meeting place for continued nation-state anarchy.   As a result, individual nation-states again came face to face with the same balance of power, along with the same fears and alliances that had originally caused World War I and Europe once again faced the rise of German economic and military power, which was erroneously left unified after World War I by the winning states of that conflict.

The Second War, Consolidated Balance of Power, and IGOs

                Several pertinent developments occurred after the conclusion of World War II, in which the winners of WWII repeated the victory of the First World War, and the United States propelled itself to the position of an international military power with nuclear capability.  Those developments were:  1) the previous mistake of nation-state equality within the failed League of Nations was corrected in the establishment of the United Nations Security Council.  2)  International Governmental Organizations aimed to promote private sector capitalism were created at Bretton Woods which would loosen private sector capitalism from the previous restraints of nation-state borders. 3)  A bipolarity balance of power developed between communism, led by the Soviet Union in the East, and Capitalism, led by the United States in the West which began a massive arms race, beneficial to private sector capitalism, which would stretch above the planet under the category of space exploration.

World Authority, UN Security Council, Bretton Woods & Cold Balance

                International anarchy on a nation-state level began degeneration with the establishment of the United Nations, and more specifically the establishment of the UN Security Council with five permanent members possessing veto power: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.  While the United Nations were successful in establishing a collective hegemony and world authority to prevent further international conflict, it did not prevent the international stage from dividing into bipolarity between the two major military superpowers after World War II: The communist nation-state of the Soviet Union, which developed nuclear weapons in 1949, and the United States, who following World War II would champion the banner of private sector capitalism by creating the Bretton Woods international organizations of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.  These International Governmental Organizations would eventually develop into powerful instruments that would allow private capital to manipulate, and eventually control at times, nation-states that had embraced or had been opened to capitalist markets.  It is the creation of the Bretton Woods international governmental organizations that mark the beginning phase of private sector anarchy on the international scene.  As the nation-states of the globe consolidated further into a world authority model under globalization, the more anarchical model of private sector competition branched out and grew more competitive.  In order to fully understand the beginning phases of capital anarchy, it is vital to understand the creations at Bretton Woods.

                The International Monetary Fund, with its current 188 nation-state members, “came into formal existence in December 1945, when its first 29 member countries signed its Articles of Agreement. It began operations on March 1, 1947.”   The International Monetary Fund is the organization that sets the international exchange rates between various nation-state currencies.  This international exchange rate is the vital human skeleton for international private sector capitalism and allows capital to cross national borders and assume various physical and monetary forms depending on final destination.  After World War II the International Monetary Fund “began to expand in the late 1950s and during the 1960s as many African countries became independent and applied for membership. But the Cold War limited the Fund's membership, with most countries in the sphere of influence not joining”.  The World Bank, on the other hand, is an International Governmental Organization, also with 188 nation-state members, that had earned its international reputation through nation-state reconstruction efforts, with conditional loans to open private sector investment into devastated post-war European nation-states after the Marshall Plan, and in aftermath of the Cold War, intensified efforts of ushering private sector capital into post-Soviet states in Eastern Europe and post-colonial nation-states in Africa.  Today, it is the reconstruction of post-colonial African nation-states by the World Bank and the infiltration of the private sector while in the period following the Cold War and the emergence of the U.S. international hegemony, Eastern Europe was the primary target.  In order to grasp the U.S. position within the World Bank, “The five largest shareholders are, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States”, three of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Private Capital Utilization of World Authority

                Using war ravished Europe as a successful test bed for a global private sector market, “The original Bretton Woods plan was at first subsumed by the Cold War. The Marshall Plan announced in 1947 provided the USA with a more immediate bilateral way to ensure stabilization, investment and reconstruction in Western Europe.  Nevertheless, by the 1950s both the IMF and the World Bank were modestly assuming a place in the international economy.”

                The restricting boundaries of the Cold War prevented any further expansion of international capitalist markets into the Soviet sphere of influence, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States was instantly propelled to the level of unilateral superpower in the ashes of what was the most equally distributed international balance of power in history.   As a true champion of international private sector capitalism, the United States and her lesser nation-state allies instantly went to work through so-called United Nations Peace Keeping missions throughout Eastern Europe in order to spread the private market eastward into former Soviet satellite nation-states and bring them into the world market.  The United States was a founding member of the dual International organizations created at Bretton Woods, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and these two organizations would be main instruments in spreading private sector capitalism as far as it would extend after the United States Cold War victory against Soviet Communism.  The utilization of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, along with the economic and military might of the United States in the United Nations Security Council were pivotal in expanding capitalism eastward through so-called UN peacekeeping operations in territories left unstable, politically void or politically divided, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina.  While the private sector ushered in by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had ridden the coattails of United Nations peacekeeping operations in many post-colonial African and post-Soviet nation-states in order to target natural resources, the example of the 1992 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina will clearly illustrate the methodology that is utilized by these organizations.

UN Peace Keeping Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina

                The war in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 was a direct result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.   Bosnian independence from Yugoslavia plunged the territory into civil war as “Bosnian Serbs did not want to break away from Yugoslavia, and so the Serbs left the Bosnian parliament to form their own parliament. The Bosnian Serb decision to split from the Bosnian parliament inspired the Bosnian Croats to also declare their autonomy”.  The early UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a territory plunged into civil war, had difficulty in achieving, through proposed peace negotiations, the goal of stabilizing a unified Bosnian independence, and a government that could be brought into the world market, and eventually UN peacekeeping efforts were turned over to NATO military air strikes,  Operation Deliberate Force, and the champion of world capitalism, the United States, led the way by providing the most military and most economic contributions to operational missions.   This was the case until “U.S. troops marked the end of their nine-year peacekeeping role in Bosnia on Wednesday [December 24, 2004] as NATO prepared to hand over the task to the European Union in December [2004]” .

                As the region of Bosnia-Herzegovina began a stabilization process after the Dayton Peace Accords, the World Bank was eagerly present with lofty promises of reconstruction funding and the ushering in of foreign private sector capital investments which would target domestic natural resources in minerals, petroleum, hydropower, and other resources of commercial importance in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Private Capital Anarchy and Nation-State World Authority

                From the example of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Serbia, it becomes clear that nation-state governments under the world authority model burden the economic costs of military action and also burden the blood of lost national sons and daughters while private sector actors, using the instruments of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in order to gain access to the natural resources inside nation-state borders while burdening nothing except capital spending to generate capital profit.

What began as the establishment of an international market spanning from the United States to war ravished Europe, gained acceleration with eastward expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union and southward in post-colonial nation-states.  On the modern stage, nation-states, such as Iraq and Libya, that do not accept private sector ‘carrots’ are often removed by UN and NATO military ‘sticks’ and promptly rebuilt by the World Bank Group and private sector investors.  In extreme cases of military occupation, unsuspecting military members are placed on the ground to stabilize the region for private sector profiting.  The danger of these UN-NATO operations, often the results of brilliantly placed, inescapable economic sanctions, is that the most powerful military nation-states on the international scene today are representative democracies and representative democracies are the easiest governments on the international stage to be influenced or purchased into political or military action through the capital of domestic or international lobbyist forces.

With the massive increase of multi-national corporations battling for the opportunity to accumulate capital profits, the nation-states that have created the international organizations to promote capitalism and opened the international stage for private sector capitalism have become consolidated, and concreted, into a world authority model of global government that is easily manipulated, used and discarded by the anarchy of private sector capital actors.  The international stage is no longer the sole property of nation-states, for nation-states have become the indentured servants of the new international actor, private sector capital.

 

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Ghoniem, Amira A.  United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Improvements for Mission Success.  University of Stanford, 2003.  (Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297a/United%20Nations%20Peacekeeping%20Operations.pdf)

International Monetary Fund Website.  History of the IMF, Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.imf.org/external/about/histcoop.htm)

Nau, Henry. Perspectives on International Relations. 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2012).

Treaty of Westphailia.  Yale Law School.  Lillian Goldman Law Library.  Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy.  (Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/westphal.asp)

U.S. Troops Mark End of Mission in Bosnia.  Associated Press.  November 25, 2004, accessed December 27, 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11164-2004Nov24.html)

Woods, Ngaire.  The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, p. 955.  (Accessed on December 29, 2012 from http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/Woods%20for%20Routledge.pdf)

World Bank Group Website.  About the World Bank, Leadership.  (Accessed December 27, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:22428930~menuPK:1697011~pagePK:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html)

Zimmermann, Arthur.  The National Archives.  (Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/education/lessons/zimmermann/images/decoded-message-l.jpg&c=/education/lessons/zimmermann/images/decoded-message.caption.html)

Private Sector Betrayal of the Nation-State that Championed the Banner of Capitalism

               

                The United States has been a member of the United Nations Security Council since its inception after the conclusion of World War II and possesses permanent member veto power with the other four permanent members of the Security Council: China, France, Britain and Russia.  Since the emergence of superpower status on the international stage following World War II and being elevated to the role of the premiere hegemonic international superpower after the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States has always championed capitalism and the international free market.  In 1984, President Ronald Reagan told the nation that he would “propose a broader strategy in the field of international trade--one that increases the openness of our trading system”.  The political position of the United States, that of private sector capitalism, has been clearly evident in her association in International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), as well as the United Nations peace keeping missions that she has participated in over the past three decades.

Conclusion of the Cold War, the Rise of U.S. Hegemony and the Utilization of IGOs

                After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States was instantly propelled to the level of unilateral superpower in the ashes of what was the most equally distributed international balance of power in history.   As a true champion of international private sector capitalism, the United States and her lesser nation-state allies instantly went to work through so-called United Nation Peace Keeping missions throughout Eastern Europe in order to spread the private market eastward into former Soviet satellite nation-states and bring them into the world market.  The United States was a founding member of the dual IGOs created at Bretton Woods, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and these two IGOs would be main instruments in spreading private sector capitalism as far as it would extend under the balance of power after the conclusion of WWII, bolstering an international market across war-ravished Western Europe through the Marshall Plan, and extending capitalism even further eastward after the victory of the Cold War against Soviet Communism.  The utilization of these two private sector structured IGOs, the World Bank and IMF, along with the economic and military might of the United States in the UN Security Council were pivotal in expanding capitalism eastward through so-called UN peacekeeping operations in territories left unstable by politically voids or political divide, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Understanding the Roles of the World Bank and the IMF

                In order to understand the true planning process of the United States and her nation-state, and private sector, allies in spreading the international capital market eastward after the collapse of the international balance of power with the Soviet Union after the Cold War through UN peace keeping missions in Eastern European former Soviet satellite territories such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is imperative to understand the purpose and roles of the IMF and World Bank. 

The IMF, with its current 188 nation-state members, “came into formal existence in December 1945, when its first 29 member countries signed its Articles of Agreement. It began operations on March 1, 1947.”    The IMF is the organization that sets the international exchange rates between various nation-state currencies.  This international exchange rate is the vital human skeleton for international private sector capitalism and allows capital to cross national borders and assume various physical and monetary forms depending on final destination.  After WWII the IMF “began to expand in the late 1950s and during the 1960s as many African countries became independent and applied for membership. But the Cold War limited the Fund's membership, with most countries in the Soviet sphere of influence not joining”.  The World Bank, on the other hand, is an IGO, also with 188 nation-state members, that had earned its international reputation through nation-state reconstruction efforts, with conditional loans to open private sector investment into devastated post-war European nation-states after the Marshall Plan, and in aftermath the Cold War, intensified efforts of ushering private sector capital into post-Soviet states in Eastern Europe and post-colonial nation-states in Africa.  Today, it is the reconstruction of post-colonial African nation-states by the World Bank and the infiltration of the private sector while in the period following the Cold War and the emergence of the U.S. international hegemony, Eastern Europe was the primary target.  In order to grasp the U.S. position within the World Bank, “The five largest shareholders are, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States”

UN Peace Keeping Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina

                The war in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 was a direct result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.   Bosnian independence from Yugoslavia plunged the territory into civil war as “Bosnian Serbs did not want to break away from Yugoslavia, and so the Serbs left the Bosnian parliament to form their own parliament. The Bosnian Serb decision to split from the Bosnian parliament inspired the Bosnian Croats to also declare their autonomy”.  The early UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a territory plunged into civil war, had difficulty in achieving, through proposed peace negotiations, the goal of stabilizing a unified Bosnian independence, and a government that could be brought into the world market, and eventually UN peacekeeping efforts were turned over to NATO military air strikes,  Operation Deliberate Force, and the champion of world capitalism, the United States, led the way by providing the most military and most economic contributions to operational missions.   This was the case until “U.S. troops marked the end of their nine-year peacekeeping role in Bosnia on Wednesday [December 24, 2004] as NATO prepared to hand over the task to the European Union in December [2004]”.

                As the region of Bosnia-Herzegovina began a stabilization process after the Dayton Peace Accords, the World Bank was eagerly present with lofty promises of reconstruction funding and the ushering in of foreign private sector capital investments which would target domestic natural resources in minerals, petroleum, hydropower, and other resources of commercial importance in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Private Sector Betrayal of the Nation-State Champion of Capitalism 

                In closing, international history clearly illustrates how the United States has championed private sector capitalism from that nation-state’s emergence onto the international stage as an economic and military power, the victory over communism during the Cold War, and becoming the leading superpower on the globe.  IGO instruments such as the UN, NATO and so-called peacekeeping operations, backed by nation-state members’ military and economic power but mostly burdened by the U.S., forced open the way for private sector capitalism in Eastern Europe and post-Colonial Africa through private sector IGO/NGOs such as the World Bank Group and the IMF, along with the World Trade Organization.  The rise of the United States as a single nation-state hegemon, steering and clearing the way for private sector NGO activities through IGO military and political operations, marked the evolution from individual nation-state actors vying for power to private sector corporate actors consolidating and owning the international stage.  With American corporations becoming international and many others manufacturing in foreign nation-states with lower wage requirements in order to maximize profits, it is time to consider whether private sector capitalism has forsaken the nation-state that has championed the banner of private sector capital on the international stage .  

References

Ghoniem, Amira A.  United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Improvements for Mission Success.  University of Stanford, 2003.  (Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297a/United%20Nations%20Peacekeeping%20Operations.pdf)

International Monetary Fund Website.  History of the IMF,( Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.imf.org/external/about/histcoop.htm)

Ronald Reagan.  State of the Union Speech, 1983.  Public Broadcasting Website.  (Accessed on December 27, 2012 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/reagan-union-1983/)

 U.S. Troops Mark End of Mission in Bosnia.  Associated Press.  November 25, 2004, accessed December 27, 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11164-2004Nov24.html)

World Bank Group Website.  About the World Bank, Leadership.  (Accessed December 27, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:22428930~menuPK:1697011~pagePK:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html)

Global Governance Models and the Future

The different forms of global governance models are world hierarchy, world authority, and world anarchy and world constitutionalism.

Under the world hierarchy category, the text uses IGO relationship examples of Islamic empires, Communism and Colonialism. The idea that Islamic governments are unwilling to work well with non-Islamic governments should be dispelled by looking at the UN General Assembly, and communist governments often receive most favorite nation status from capitalist nations. Does the IMF still offer currency rates for communist nation-states? As for colonialism, I hold the view that it never truly ended and actually evolved into private sector colonialism through IGOs such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO. It is possible that a centralized unitary government may exist one day on the international stage, but I would have to predict it to emerge out of the private sector if it ever occurred.

The world authority example is evident in the United Nations hegemony of the UN Security Council. As the text book states, there is no significant role for NGOs under the world authority because the dominant forces are really not pressured by NGOs and will only utilize the information and influence generated by NGOs if it does not conflict with the economic-military-political interests of the most powerful nation-states, or if that information can be used to justify occupation or regime removal which would generate more revenue off natural resources. The UN has been able to work for several decades now, but it is evident that members of the five-seat Security Council are beginning to develop differing interests that they deem vital for protection or enhancement, and our children could very possibly see the UN begin to develop similarities to the League of Nations during their lifetime.

World Anarchy, or realism, is where I would expect the international stage to return to, if not for globalization and the quickening consolidation of world capital by international private sector blocks. At some point since WWII, and more specifically since the Cold War, the shift in power has evolved from nation-states to private capital. As things stand now, I predict a realist model of individual pursuits by private sector (corporate states, if you can call them that) similar to how nation-states competed after Westphalia.

World Constitutionalism, with its examples of the EU and UN general assembly, are nice illusions using examples of democratic voting by people or parliaments, but the weight of the votes are stacked in most important international IGOs like the UN and EU, or even more dangerous is the element of votes vulnerable to purchase by private sector lobbyists (which can be found in domestic representative democracies all the way up to international, parliamentary structured IGOs).

The future will be interesting.

Models of World Order

             The four models of world order are: 1) International Anarchy 2) Global Governance 3) World Hegemon and 4) World State.  The four models are also sub-categorized under the areas of supranational authority(World Hegemon; World State) and no supranational authority (International Anarchy; Global Governance), and effective norms and values (Global Governance; World State) and no norms and values (international Anarchy; World Hegemony). 

                International Anarchy relates to the academic school of international realism because sovereign nation-states remain the main actors on the international stage and continue to pursue their national interests with little or no international authority, as “the model postulates the impossibility or at least the long-term ineffectiveness of universally valid norms and rules in international politics” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 269).  I do support this model as reality, but I think that the period of history that this model represented has long past and whether it will one day return is currently only worth contemplation.

                Global Governance is an over-optimistic world model which declares the “possibility of sustained cooperation between states and non-state actors on the basis of international and transnational agreement on binding norms and rules” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 274).  The model of Global Governance views international cooperation as a horizontal structure, instead of a vertical hierarchy established by a superior nation-state power or military-economic hegemon acting as an authoritative international overseer. 

                The World Hegemon model views international organizations as instruments or institutions to establish and maintain world hegemony, whether by a single polar power or by multiple powers.  In this model, a single nation-state or an alliance of nation-states can further their individual economic-political-territorial-military interests through a hegemony that often comes disguised as an international organization using “carrots and sticks” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 270).

                Economic globalization and true democratic authority through international organizations are the cornerstones of the World State model and are considered to be essential to the process of civilization.  This model seems very far reaching and unattainable in the future because under the guise of international cooperation between nation-states, a power hierarchy will always exist to disrupt true international democracy and equality.  There will never be an inherently ‘good’ and honest democracy as power rules the international stage, the actors involved and the human element.

                When I view and contemplate which model is the most realistic model of world order, the only plausible choice is the model of world hegemony.  I clearly see a collective hegemony, each individually interested in individual nation-state interests, very precisely established in the United Nations Security Council.  I believe the victors of WWI attempted to set up a world state model on the international stage with the failed League of Nations, but after a second war and the realization that a world state model was impossible, the United Nations and the UN Security Council was established under a world hegemony model and has been successful in holding a collective hegemon for over 60 years (though I do not think it will last for another 100 years).

                I just do not see how anyone could look at the UN as anything other than a perfect example of the World Hegemony model.

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 268-278.

 

European Human Rights and Global Human Rights

The reason why human rights in regional Europe developed in a more progressive manner, over the past 35 years, compared to the global human rights system of the United Nations since 1945 is due in large part to the end of the Cold war and the expansion of western capital into the European eastern bloc. The Helsinki Final Act established in 1975 was broadly about political and economic issues of bringing the post-Soviet satellite nation-states into the world economy, but also “included human rights provisions” and established “fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 247). It should be noted that although the political principals of opening the eastern bloc to western markets were the main structure at work, the influencing efforts by the Human Rights Watch and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe played an intricate part in inserting the final human rights achievements into the final 1975 act.

The United Nations, while accredited with being the example for the Helsinki framework concerning human rights, is not able to fulfill the standards they set as a global organization due to the realist identification of nation-state interests. The permanent members of the UN Security Council have veto power which allows certain members to veto resolutions which condemn accused human rights violators if the economic or political circumstances demand it. I have used the example many times in the first six weeks of this course, but many nation-states in the UN General Assembly have viewed, and proposed resolutions of condemnation concerning, Israeli military aggression toward the Palestinians, which have included many civilian deaths during those aggressions, only to see the resolutions automatically vetoed by the United States due to economic and political ties with Israel.
The result of Europe being the main battlefield of WWII and the atrocities of the Holocaust, Europe was very sensitive to the issues of human rights through their first hand experiences. Western Europe created the Council of Europe which formed an institutional frame for protecting human rights. In 1950, the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was signed and in 1961 the European Social Charter was signed, which guaranteed that citizens of signatory member-states would be assured of equal housing, economic rights, and legal rights.

Can you remember what was occurring in the United States in the 1960s?

Interestingly, the supervision of human rights in Europe under the Council of Europe, compared to the politically bias and hypocritical monitoring of global human rights by the UN, requires each member state to submit a written report every two years on their human rights commitments which is not exclusively government written, but also includes input from trade unions and employment organizations reviewed by a Committee of Experts. Unlike the UN, individuals as well as nation-states are allowed to file complaints.

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 248-248.

International Organization Interdependence and Human Rights

“The existence of such international moral interdependencies crucially depends on the activities of transnational networks of human rights organizations which construct local human rights violations as global problems which require governance beyond the nation-state.” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 242)

The United States can ensure (and contain through sometime dishonest justifications) their domestic civil rights just as the European Council is able to ensure and contain so-called human rights regionally, but as far as global human rights exist, the international organizations (and nation-states) on the global stage fall under rank order beneath the United Nations hegemon of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Global human rights and humanitarian efforts can only be achieved as long as they do not infringe upon the economic, military and political interests of these five nation-states or their allies (both nation-state and private sector) in political and economic interests.

International non-governmental organizations, civil society actors such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch, often generate useful information on alleged human rights violations in nation-states. Depending on the political and economic interests of the permanent members of the Security Council, information generated by civil society actors can either be utilized as international propaganda to gain international support for sanctions and possible military action, such as what occurred in Libya, or can be simply ignored due to differing interests within the permanent Security Council member-states, such is the current case with Syria and has long been the case with Israeli military aggression against the Palestinians.

“The preamble of the UN Charter reaffirms ‘faith’ in fundamental human rights, the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small” (Kruck, Rittberger and Zangl, 243)

The United Nations charter is empty of sincerity and is complete hypocrisy. There can be no true framework for global human rights if those rights only exist for some, not all. How can it be viewed otherwise? A prime example of this hypocrisy was in 2011 when the United States, one of the most powerful permanent members of the UN Security Council, boycotted the UN sponsored Durban World Conference on Racism in 2011 because the conference would address Israeli human rights allegations.  If this hypocrisy concerning human rights is so openly displayed for all nation-states to see, then why even pretend there is a Santa Clause?

In short form, IOs and NGOs can apply pressure and provide information, statistics and proposals to the main IGO (UN) for human rights issues and the UN can use that information in earnest efforts to affirm human rights, use the information for to gather international support for corrupt political aims, or simply ignore the information altogether.

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).