Analysis on Knutsen's Multi-Layered Alliances/Katzenstein and Hammer's Multilateralism-Bilateralism

While I acknowledge the legitimacy of Katzenstein and Hammer’s analysis on multilateralism-bilateralism and Knutsen’s argument on multi-layered alliances, I view their positions to be focused on sub-causes for the establishment and expansion of multilateral, bilateral, or regional alliances while neither analysis focuses on global capital expansion, regional trade blocs, the GATT/World Trade Organization, or the Bretton Woods institutions.   The two arguments are also focus on different historical eras which reflect during phases in the growth of global capitalism and the subtle paradigm shift from states to private sector entities as main actors on the international stage.  With this being said, in order to properly answer the question, I prioritize Knutsen’s theory for multi-layered alliances that identifies “groups of allies with shifting priorities and agendas” (204) as more important to the excessive psychological theory of Katzenstein and Hammer pointing to links in cultural identities shared in the west as a cause for U.S. multilateralism in Europe and bilateral approaches in Asia (587).  Both theories are not only reconcilable; they are both smaller cogs in the machine of capital globalization.

Kutsen used the debauched decade-long NATO military occupation and regime rebuilding in Afghanistan to illustrate the various views toward the future of NATO, in relation to their state interests, by selected NATO state members involved in Afghanistan and their various levels of contributions.  Kutsen focuses of what these variations will mean for the future of NATO and how each state’s policies could impact that future.  The examples of Denmark’s “Atlanticism” (Kutsen, 209) and German suspicions of NATO becoming “a mere tool of US foreign policy” (Kutsen, 216) are defining examples of how state views and interests create multiple layers within the NATO alliance, as well as any alliance.  Yet, Kutsen analyzes a NATO after the completion of a global capital market instead of the stage analyzed by Katzenstein and Hammer which was balanced by western capitalism and eastern communism.  The World Bank and the private sector already have entry into Afghanistan thanks to the UN, ISAF and NATO (UNAMA, 2014), and if that state is ever stabilized the presence will increase drastically.  Interesting enough, German President Horst Kohler, before his resignation even “justified his country’s missions abroad with the need to protect economic interests” (Kutsen, 215). 

Katzenstein and Hammer’s theories on U.S. multilateralism in Europe and their analysis on the creation of regions are also legitimate even though the article is bloated with unneeded fluff, but the authors do not detail the Marshall Plan, the IMF, the World Bank, regional trade blocs, or the expansion of global capitalism or the GATT/WTO.  I agree with the authors that pre-existing economic ties between the U.S. and Europe, along with a shared cultural identity between the two entities, played a part in the U.S. establishing a multilateral NATO in Europe while dealing on a bilateral level with member states of SEATO, but the main emphasis coming out of World War II was the expansion of capitalist globalization.  The authors bring up the issue of U.S. multilateralism in Europe despite “Germany’s pariah status following World War II” (Katzenstein and Hammer, 581).  Global capitalism needed a healthy free-market Europe, and Europe needed Germany to be a healthy free-market Europe.  U.S. bilateralism in Asia where Asian states were “shedding their colonial status and gaining national sovereignty” (Katzenstain and Hammer, 584) correlated to global capitalism because the same European colonial masters were already under multilateral agreements with the capitalist U.S., and the first thing those previous master-states did was to bring those post-colonial possessions (now independent states) into the GATT/WTO and the global “free” market.  The capital exploitation which resulted in multilateralism in Europe and bilateralism in Asia is clear by simply looking at the original members of SEATO as “only two of SEATO’s members, Thailand and the Philippines, were geographically part of Southeast Asia” (Katzenstein and Hammer, 592) and three of those original member states were western capitalist powers.

Hemmer, Christopher and Katzenstein, Peter.  2002.  “Why is There No NATO in Asia? Collective Identity, Regionalism, and the Origins of Multilateralism” International Organization 56, no. 3 (2002): 575-603.

Knutsen, Bjorn. 2011.  Issues in EU and US Foreign Policy. Lexington Books, 2011: 202-232.

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.  2014.  World Bank Grants 50 million for Poverty Reduction in Afghanistan.  United Nations, 12 January 2014.  Accessed January 23, 2014.   http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?ctl=Details&tabid=12254&mid=15756&ItemID=37610

  

19th Century U.S. Manifest Destiny, Annexation and Expansion, and Slavery in Congress

Since the arrival of Europeans in North America, the concept of manifest destiny has been utilized as a justification for imperialism and expansionism.  The concept itself has deep roots to the protestant branch of Christianity and, in its various waves, has heavily associated the creation and expansion of the United States as a destiny manifested by God with strong symbolic references to ancient biblical accounts of a chosen people and a promised land.  In the first half of the nineteenth century, the ideology of manifest destiny assumed political characteristics to justify the areas of westward expansion and the annexation of Texas from Mexico, and inadvertently illuminated sharp sectional North-South and Democrat-Whig divisions that would eventually cause the American Civil War.  As in any war, the root of the American civil conflict would be caused by divided sectional interests in capital, political power, and land.

In the years leading into the conflict of 1848 between Mexico and the United States, “many Americans and Southerners still believed that it was the United States’ Manifest Destiny to eventually rule the continent.” [1], an ideology that would be fed and exploited early in the expansion era by the Democrat party within Congress and at the election polls.  One of the strongest voices for American expansionism and manifest destiny within the Democrat party was John L. O’Sullivan, who wrote in 1838 that “the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High” [2].  While the Whig party and 1844 presidential hopeful Henry Clay had “forecast that annexation would inevitably produce a war with Mexico” [3] and “opposition to Texas’s immediate annexation became the standard Whig campaign theme” [4], James Polk and the Democrats entered the 1844 election “committed to immediate annexation” [5].  Within two years of Polk’s election to presidency, war with Mexico erupted over the U.S. annexation of Texas and by 1848 “Mexico was defeated, and the United States had fulfilled its destiny, becoming a nation that spanned the entire continent.” [6].

The first significant national polarization that occurred over the annexation of Texas and westward expansion was “the emergence of the nation’s first truly mass-based two-party political system, a development that would critically affect all subsequent debates over slavery extension” [7].  Again, even in the establishment of what would become the democrat party “behind Andrew Jackson’s presidential candidacy in 1928” [8], the growing polarization factor of American slavery could be observed as Martin Van Buren had written about reviving two-party competition that would “best neutralize ‘prejudices between free & slaveholding state” [9] and as a “complete antidote to sectional prejudices by producing counteracting feelings” [10].

The second significant increase in polarization was the deepening animosity between the southern slave states and the north which “foundered on the question of slavery’s future expansion into southwestern territories” [11] and beyond.  The addition of further slave or non-slave states and the incorporation of those states into the Union would ultimately shift the balance of power in electoral votes and congressional voting.  The clever two-party competition originally promoted by Van Buren could not permanently contain the sectional tensions between Northern and Southern economic interests, and this can be clearly seen by the alignment of Democrat and Whig states in 1844 compared to 1860.  In 1844, northern states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were Democrat states.  By 1960, a sharp regional division had occurred with southern states representing the democrat party, northern states representing the Republican Party, with Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri filling in a north-south buffer zone of unaffiliated party states.

In closing, the manifest destiny of U.S. western expansion and early imperialism was a temporary political dividing factor leading into the Civil War with much larger divided regional interests.  The root of the coming conflict was the expansion or non-expansion of American slavery and the national political power shifts that slavery may or may not have caused in that land expansion and creation of new states which would hold electoral votes.  Once U.S. expansion had been completed, the political lines shifted back to north-south interest lines that reflected the true origin of the conflict: capital interests behind the economic westward expansion with “widespread introduction of agricultural machinery” [12] from the capitalist-industrial north conflicting against the westward expansion of human slavery from the south.  After all, the new technological machinery of the industrial revolution had increased production levels while reducing the required amount of manual labor in favor of the capitalist-industrial north which pushed forward the political ideology of free labor (similar to the free market concept) as introduced by Northern Republicans as they “extolled the virtues of free labor” [13].

 

1.  Dunning, Mike.  2001.  "Manifest Destiny and the Trans-Mississippi South: Natural Laws and the Extension of Slavery into Mexico." Journal Of Popular Culture 35, no. 2: 111.

2.  James L. O’ Sullivan.  1839.  “The Great Nation of Futurity,” United States Democratic Review 6, no. 23 (1839): 427.

3.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 10.

4.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 10.

5.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 11.

6.  John Chiodo.  2000. "Teaching about Manifest Destiny: Clarifying the Concept." Social Studies 91, no. 5: 203.

7.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 7.

8.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 7.

9.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 7.

10.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 7.

11.  Michael Holt.  2004. “The Fate of their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War” (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 4.

12.  Eric Foner.  1995.  “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men : The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War with a New Introductory Essay” (North Carolina: Oxford University Press, 1995), 72.

13.  Eric Foner.  1995.  “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men : The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War with a New Introductory Essay” (North Carolina: Oxford University Press, 1995), 34.

The Crusader, The Strategist, The Pragmatist, and The Opportunist

When discussing world leaders and classifying their leadership styles based solely on their actions or reactions, it is somewhat faulty in my opinion to over-analysis these characteristics from a psychological level without considering exterior factors, especially capital influence on a parliamentary or representative democracy or international coalitions, from the United Nations to the IMF and World Bank, under capitalist globalization.  While capital and political influences certainly impact, and sometimes force, leadership decisions, there does appear to be some interesting observations in the leadership categories provided in the Hermann, Preston, Korany and Shaw article.  Based solely on the leadership descriptions presented, it seems clear that the two leadership styles most prone to establishing or forcing conflict would be the crusader and the strategist (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 95).  While the crusader leadership style focuses on expansion and “persuading others to accept one’s message” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 95), I find Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be a crusader in his constant ideological push for strengthening the “one and only Jewish state” (Netanyahu, December 16, 2013) despite accusations of the ethnic cleansing of Bedouins through the Prawer Plan (Yiftachel, Amara & Kedar, 2014), the expansion of illegal settlements (Kershner, 2014), and consistent military incursions and aggressions into Palestinian territories.  Netanyahu, in crusader fashion, goes before the international community and the United Nations General Assembly attempting to portray Israel as a victim state on the defensive, while attempting to gather military support for international economic and military actions against Syria and Iran (Netanyahu, October 1, 2013).  Netanyahu’s leadership tactics could also be consider to display characteristics of the strategic leadership focus on achieving “agenda by engaging others in the process and persuading them to act” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 95).  Not only does Netanyahu keep pressure on American leaders to support Israeli interests through sanctions and possible regime removal in Iran and Syria, Netanyahu has close ties to pro-Israeli lobbyist organizations that extend influence on United States Congressional voting (Dvorin, 2013).  Another leader with strategic style Characteristics would appear to be Bashar Al-Assad of Syria.  In his recent attempts to hold the current Syrian regime in place, Assad showed a strategic leadership style of “maintaining one’s maneuverability and flexibility” by using heavy handed retaliation methods against (foreign funded) opposition forces while engaging Russia to intercede on Syria’s behalf in the United Nations.  Having the United Nations Security Council split on “Syria since 2011” (Charbonneau, 2013), Assad was able to avoid international constraints in dealing with opposition groups that Ghaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt were not able to avoid.

The two leadership styles likely to enhance cooperation would be the leadership styles of the pragmatist and the opportunist, although sadly these two leadership styles are also vulnerable to the influences of capital and/or military imperialism.  The qualities that support cooperation within pragmatist leadership identity is the directive focus for “working within the norms and rules of one’s position” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 95), while attempting to “uncover what will and will not work in a particular situation” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 97).  The opportunistic leader, while the label seems misleading, would also suggest enhanced cooperation with an accommodative focus for “reconciling differences and building consensus” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 97) and assessing the “current situation given the nature of the problem and considering what important constituencies will allow” (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001, p. 95).  The problem with these two leadership styles is that cooperation is not necessarily a positive thing under globalization when it comes to imperialism or state regime removal.

The most important foreign policy issue currently facing the United States is actually originated domestically with the heavy influence of foreign lobbyist organizations on the U.S. Congress, which directly impacts military foreign aid amounts and international sanctions.  An example of this foreign lobby influence would be the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the most powerful lobbyist organizations in the United States, which influences U.S. foreign policy through securing congressional votes through campaign contributions and political support.  It is impossible to find an effective individual leadership style to address this problem of congressional manipulation because the problem itself is disenfranchised into 435 individual votes in the House of Representatives and 100 votes in the U.S. Senate.  In the case of a representative democracy, enough capital and political influence can almost always influence a majority of the votes regardless if it is on behalf of a foreign government or a private sector corporate entity, even if it is detrimental to the state.

Dvorin, Tova.  2013.  Israel to Lobby US Congress to Prevent Iran Deal.  Arutz Sheva Israeli National News, November 10, 2013.  Accessed January 9, 2014.  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/173808

Hermann, Margaret, Thomas Preston, Baghat Korany and Timothy Shaw. 2001. Who leads matters: the effects of powerful individuals. International Studies Review 3, no. 2 (Summer): 83-132.

Isabel Kershner.  2014.  Settlement News to Wait Until Kerry Leaves Israel.  New York Times, January 1, 2014.  Accessed on January 9, 2014.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/world/middleeast/israel-to-delay-settlement-announcement-during-kerry-visit-official-says.html?_r=0

Netanyahu, Benjamin.  2013.  Full Text of Netanyahu’s Speech to the Union for Reform Judaism.  Times of Israel, December 16, 2013.  Accessed on January 9, 2014.  http://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-netanyahus-speech-to-the-union-for-reform-judaism/

Netanyahu, Benjamin.  2013.  United Nations General Assembly Speech by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, October 1, 2013.  CSPAN Video Library.  Accessed January 9, 2014.  http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SpeechbyI

Oren Yiftachel, Amara, Ahmad, and Kedar, Sandy.  2014.  Israel Says Bedouin 'Trespass' on State Land. New study: Not so.  Haartz, January 9, 2014.  Accessed January 9, 2014.  http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.566357

Wachtel, Johnathan.  2014.  Russia again blocks anti-Assad resolution at UN, as Kerry heads for Syria summit.  Fox News, January 9, 2014.  Accessed January 9, 2014.  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/09/russia-again-blocks-anti-assad-resolution-at-un-as-kerry-heads-for-syria-summit/?intcmp=latestnews

 

Nigeria: IMF-World Bank SAPs, Globalization, So-Called Trade, and the Privatization of Colonialism

     Nigeria, “a center of West African regional trade” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 526), has been a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) since 1986 and is poised to become one of South Africa’s largest economies if it can decrease “political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management” (CIA, 2013).     The state of Nigeria has abundant natural resources available for private sector exploitation, and trade, such as crude oil, coal, tin, cocoa, peanuts, cotton, palm oil, and timber (CIA, 2013).    

Nigeria, possessing an abundance of oil, made some critical historical mistakes during early phases in “the development of the petroleum industry” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 538) by abandoning their agricultural sector during the oil boom of the 1970s, with the results that “agricultural export production plummeted from 80 percent of exports in 1960 to just 2 percent by 1980” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 538).  Since the 1970s “Nigeria has relied on oil for more than 90 percent of its export earnings and about three-quarters of government revenues” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 539).  On the one hand, “the oil boom generated tremendous income; on the other, it became a source of external dependence and badly skewed the Nigerian economy” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 539) and by “1978, the government had outspent its revenues and could no longer finance many of its ambitious projects, causing external debt to skyrocket” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 538).

     The external debt to GDP ratio forced Nigeria to open up their state borders to privatization starting in 1985 under a first “structural adjustment program (SAP) with the active support of the World Bank and the IMF” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 539) which aimed to “reform the economic structures of highly indebted Third World countries as a condition for receiving international loans” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 539) by requiring “privatization, trade liberalization, and fiscal restraint” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 539).  Nigeria struggled during the first phases of global private sector assimilation and “pulled out of its IMF program in April 2002, after failing to meet spending and exchange rate targets, making it ineligible for additional debt forgiveness” (CIA, 2013), but in 2005 was granted “a debt-relief deal that eliminated $18 billion of debt in exchange for $12 billion in payments - a total package worth $30 billion of Nigeria's total $37 billion external debt” (CIA, 2013).

     Nigeria is a member state of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, along with the World Bank and IMF, and “is the United States' largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly due to the high level of petroleum imports” (U.S. Department of State, 2013).  The United States is also the “largest foreign investor in Nigeria, with U.S. foreign direct investment concentrated largely in the petroleum/mining and wholesale trade sectors” (U.S. Department of State, 2013). The Nigeria-U.S. trade relations are bilateral as “U.S. imports from Nigeria include oil, cocoa, rubber, returns, and food waste” (U.S. Department of State, 2013) and “U.S. exports to Nigeria include wheat, vehicles, machinery, oil, and plastic” (U.S. Department of State, 2013).  

While 16.8% of Nigeria’s exports are imported by the United States, the remaining Nigerian export trade percentages are broken down to the following foreign states: “India 11.5%, Netherlands 8.6%, Spain 7.8%, Brazil 7.6%, UK 5.1%, Germany 4.9%, Japan 4.1%, France 4.1%” (CIA, 2012).  Indeed, colonialism is not dead, it has simply been privatized.  Looking at imports into Nigeria, China is the top importer with 18.3% of all imports into Nigeria followed by the U.S. at 10.1% and India with 5.5% (CIA, 2013).

     The largest barriers to increasing foreign investment, expanding trade, reduce debt, increase GDP, and continue full integration into globalization for Nigeria are “political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management” (CIA, 2013).  Like many other so-called developing states, Nigeria’s options are to take the ‘carrot’ with interest rates, risk international isolation, or eventually take the ‘stick’.     

Resources

Central Intelligence Agency.  2013.  CIA Fact Book: Nigeria.  Accessed December 28, 2013.  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html

Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger, and William Joseph. Introduction to Comparative Politics, 6th edition.  Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2013.

U.S. Department of State.  2013.  U.S. Relations with Nigeria.  Accessed on December 29, 2013.  http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2836.htm

 

NAFTA: Mexico - U.S., Free Trade Zones, Transformation of Jobs, and the Private Sector

     While actually “preceded by the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) on January 1, 1989” (Hartman, 2013, 7), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was “negotiated during the late 1980s and early 1990s under George H. W. Bush and became operational in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration” (Papp, Johnson, & Endicott, 2005, 420).  NAFTA established a so-called free trade area between the states of the United States, Canada, and Mexico by “eliminating tariffs and other economic and noneconomic barriers” (Papp, Johnson, & Endicott, 2005, 420) in order to promote regional trade.  Supporters of the agreement suggested that the agreement was healthy for expanding trade and could improve living conditions in all three states, but critics warned that private sector “capital would move to Mexico to take advantage of lower labor costs and lower environmental standards” (Papp, Johnson, & Endicott, 2005, 421). 

Free trade zones such as NAFTA are established to strongly benefit the international private sector under globalization and allow the regeneration of private sector capital profits under vastly reduced or completely eliminated tariffs that would normally be due to the states in which these capitalist entities operate from and/or profit in through importing and exporting.  Under these so-called free trade zones, a private sector capitalist entity can extract natural resources from one developing state, manufacture those natural resources into product in another state with lower wage requirements, and finally move the finished product into a consumer state for consumption and capital profit without ever paying tariffs to any of the states involved.  The statistics resulting from free trade can be very tricky, so one must look closely.

Since NAFTA began, “total U.S. employment has increased by 23 million jobs from 1994 to 2008” (Hartman, 2013, 16).  While U.S. population growth and non-NAFTA trade agreements by the U.S. certainly influenced this trend in U.S. job increase, NAFTA and other U.S. trade agreements that have removed state import/export tariffs have also allowed manufacturing jobs to leave the United States for states such as Mexico with lower wage requirements and be replaced in the United States by customer service jobs such as shipping, retail, and jobs supported by consumerism.  This argument can be supported by the fact that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) “into the United States has increased far more rapidly than FDI into Mexico, implying that the jobs created by investment flows into the United States far exceed the jobs lost due to capital flows into Mexico” (Hartman, 2010, 16).  These jobs may “far exceed the jobs lost”, but they are not the same category of jobs and will evaporate under an economic crisis or with the end of ignorant consumerism.

Mexico may have inherited an increase in manufacturing job during the early phases of NAFTA, but “there has been an actual decline in Mexican manufacturing employment” (Hartman, 2010, 17) and “about 30% of the jobs that were created in maquiladoras (export assembly plants) in the 1990s have since disappeared” (Hartman, 2010, 17).  This decline of manufacturing jobs in Mexico is due to new technological advancements in manufacturing that reduce the amount of human labor required for generating profits by the capitalists, and new trade agreements allowing the private sector to establish manufacturing efforts in other developing states with even lower wage requirements.  The poor working conditions that the capitalist non-state entities establish in developing states such as Mexico should also be noted.  The NAFTA agreement itself “included a side accord regarding labour rights and standards, although these provisions have even fewer teeth than the EU measures” (Scholte, 2000, 168).  In addition, “income inequality has been on the rise in Mexico since NAFTA took effect” (Hartman, 2010, 20) and “compared to the period before NAFTA, the top 10% of households have increased their share of national income, while the other 90% have lost income share or seen no change” (Hartman, 2010, 20).  This is a general characteristic shared by the majority of states touched, or slowly strangled, by capitalism.

In closing, neither NAFTA nor any of the other free trade agreements under globalization strengthen the state for future sustainment or development.  NAFTA and other free trade agreements are established to transition capital regeneration from the state to the private sector, and especially allow the private sector exploitation of so-called developing states to take on very parasitic characteristics.  

Resources

Daniel Papp, Loch Johnson & John Endicott.  2005.  American Foreign Policy: History, Politics, and Policy.  New York, NY: Pearson

Scholte, Jan. 2000. Globalization: a Critical Introduction. London, England: MacMillan.

Stephen W. Hartman.  2010.  “NAFTA, the Controversy,” The International Trade Journal 25, no. 1 (December 2010): 5-34, accessd December 28, 2013, https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/group/226023/Hartmann%20NAFTA%20Controversy.pdf

 

Comparing Modern Iran to Authoritarian Periods in China and Mexico?

     The Iranian government can possibly be compared in some aspects to the once-authoritarian governments of China and Mexico before those states opened their borders to international capital globalization, but the main differentiating point, especially as disdainfully viewed by the capitalist proponents of so-called ‘western’ democracy, is the Islamic element of the Iranian state.  Pro-capitalist western media sources consistently propagandize Iran as being undemocratic in nature, but this is mainly political slander that is quite baseless since 98% of the Iranian population is Muslim (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 599) and 98% of a population represents a democratic majority. 

In addition to the Iranian government structure being equally divided among executive, judicial, and legislative branches, the Iranian presidency is elected by the general populace, the 290 seat unicameral legislative branch is elected by the general populace (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 609), and the Assembly of Experts is elected by the general public  (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 601).  Considering that all citizens of Iran over the age of 18, both male and female, have the right to vote (Kesselman, Krieger, and Joseph, 599), it is quite unclear how anyone who actually takes the time to study Iran with a bit of cultural relativity can make the statement that it is not a democratic Islamic state.

China and Mexico, on the other hand, have seen sweeping political structural reforms, based predominantly on materialistic political and economic strife, throughout the decades of international capitalist consolidations and evolutions from industrialism to modern capital globalization.  During the 1950s, the People’s Republic of China “took decisive steps towards socialism” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 629) and “private property was almost completely eliminated through the takeover of industry by the government and the collectivization of agriculture” ( Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 629).  Under the authoritarian period under Mao Zedong, China conducted multiple political reforms such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in attempts to industrialize the state under Communism, and at times unleashed oppressive government crack downs under Zedong, such as the destruction of “countless historical monuments and cultural artefacts because they were symbols of China’s imperial past” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 629) and attacking any political opponents “thought to be guilty of betraying his version of communist ideology, known as Mao Zedong Thought” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 629).  Of course, during this period of closed-market authoritarianism, western capitalist critics categorized China and Communism as evil, but today is bestowed with lower import tariffs to many capitalist states.  This is a played-out tactic of capitalist propaganda, once used against China and the Soviet Union, and today is used against Iran.

After Mao’s death in 1976, Xiaoping’s leadership ushered in an era where “state control of the economy was significantly reduced” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 630) and “private enterprise was encouraged” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 630) with “unprecedented levels of foreign investment” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 630) which began an early deregulation process which made China ripe for global capital integration.

     Mexico’s authoritarian period caused similar results, but produced numerous violent and tumultuous changes throughout the state’s government structure.  Mexico dabbled in democracy early on after the establishment of “the Mexican Constitution of 1917” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 441), but instability and corruption were constant problems in strengthening a collective Mexican government despite “vast new amounts of oil were discovered in the Gulf of Mexico” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 442) during the 1970s.  Under the presidencies of “Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988) and Carlos Salinas (1988–1994)” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 442), reforms were put into place to “limit the government’s role in the economy and to reduce barriers to international trade” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 442), and the joining of NAFTA under Salinas’ began an early deregulation process which would be ripe for global capital exploitation.

     Iran has also seen political changes such as the White Revolution, which attempted “to promote economic development and such social reform as extending the vote to women” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 584), but the most important Iranian government reformation was not based on economics or political strife.  The Islamic Revolution of 1979 transformed the Iranian state into an Islamic state and “a new constitution was drawn up in late 1979 by the Assembly of Experts” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 587) which integrated the principals of Islam into the state structure (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 587).  Khomeini himself “argued that Islam and democracy were compatible since the vast majority of people in Iran respected the clerics as the true interpreters of the shari’a, and wanted them to oversee state officials” (Kesselman, Krieger & Joseph, 2013, 589) to ensure Islamic principles.

     In closing, it appears that Iran is more democratic now than China or Mexico have ever been, possibly even the United States, and that these accusations of undemocratic rule, to include those incorporated into the course textbook, are simply productions of western bias and a lack of cultural relativity.  A state is not undemocratic because they choose not to have a McDonalds or Walmart on every block. or because their females do not choose to run around have nude and center their social existence on self-destructive Hollywood music videos, or because they do not choose a money worshipping society, and a state is not undemocratic because they do not wish to deregulate state natural resources and be raped by foreign capitalists.

Resources

Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger, and William Joseph. Introduction to Comparative Politics, 6th edition.  Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2013.

Colonialism to Globalization: Free Trade is Adverse to the Developing State

     The effect of free trade on so-called developing states is an adverse one, and is only different from colonialism in the fact that under globalization it is now the private sector exploiting the natural resources of the so-called developing state in order to generate private sector capital instead of the state exploiting the natural resources of an occupied colony.

     The North-South economic divide did not occur overnight and imperialism in the form of colonialism played a major part in creating states that are currently referred to under globalization as developing states.  In order to provide a few examples of this phenomenon, Brazil “was a Portuguese colony” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 388) that was allowed independence in 1822, “Spain ruled Mexico for three centuries” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 437), and “Nigeria was a British colony from 1914 until 1960” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 183).  The phenomenon of colonization molded “one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production, for supplying the other part which remains a chiefly industrial field” (Marx, 1867), and this division evolved the under globalization to include exploited and consumer states.

It may be noted that the deregulation and the privatization of a so-called developing state’s natural resources occurs, after being trapped under excessive national debt, through conditional loans from the IMF and World Bank, now known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which are forced on states on the brink of failure due to unbalanced debt to GDP ratios while regional trade blocs allow multi-national (or non-state) private sector corporations to exploit natural resources and cheap labor in developing states while moving natural resources and finished manufactured products to consumer states with no tariff barriers.  In 1982, Mexico was among one of the first SAP packages “under the close guidance of the IMF and the World Bank” (Benería, 1999, p.1) and was basically a response to the “international financial community to the prevailing fear of the financial crisis that could have developed if many governments defaulted” (Benería, 1999, p.1).  IMF and World Bank SAPs are aimed “to shift resources and economic activity from the public to the private sector” (Benería, 1999, p.2) and the “easing of rules regulating foreign investment, increasing the degree of globalization of the economy and emphasizing the production of tradables over non-tradables” (Benería, 1999, p.2) by those entities with the most private capital to invest, hence foreign capital infiltrating the so-called developing state.

What once was colonial exploitation by states has shifted to exploitation by multi-national private sector entities backed by a Bretton Woods structure of globalization established by agencies such as the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.  Brazil opened their doors to foreign private sector infiltration in 1990 under Fernando Collor de Mello, who “agreed to put Brazil on the path of free-market policies with reforms that included the privatization of state enterprises and the deregulation of the economy” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 404).  In the early 1990s, NAFTA and “the liberalization of the Mexican economy and opening of its markets to foreign competition increased Mexico’s vulnerability” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 450) to foreign private sector exploitation as “deregulation gave the private sector more freedom” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 450).  Finally, during the second half of the 1980s Nigeria adopted a structural adjustment program “with active support from the World Bank and IMF” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 539) which promoted a policy that “state-owned businesses would be sold to private (nonstate) investors, domestic or foreign” (Kesselman, Krieger, & Joseph, 2013, 539).

The recent trend of regional trade blocs have followed closely on the heels of successful SAPs which have resulted in deregulated state ownership of natural resources in so-called developing states, and that trend has allowed the private sector, or multi-national (non-state) corporate entities, to invest (exploit) natural resources and cheap labor from so-called developing states and move manufactured products across state borders to consumer states without being charged tariffs in order to regenerate capital off of the so-called developing state’s natural resources, which are now owned, in many cases, by the same private sector entities after the implementation of the International Financial Institutions conditional SAPs on the so-called developing state.

All three so-called developing states discussed belong to trade blocs.  While Mexico is a member of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Brazil is a member of the trading bloc Mercosur with member states Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela which allows private sector tariff-free movements of natural resources.  This is illustrated by the fact that “Mercosur exports have grown to $61.89 billion in 1994 from an annual average of S34 billion for the 1984-86 period” (Hudgins, 2012) while “purchases from the U.S. grew to $17 billion in 1995 from $6.68 billion in 1990” (Hudgins, 2012) as a result that “Mercosur countries have been reducing trade barriers to nonmember countries as part of their World Trade Organization commitments” (Hudgins, 2012).  Nigeria is a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) which is comprised of “54 independent Muslim states” (Naqvi, 1998, p.285), many of them post-colonial possessions, consisting of a “high degree of concentration of economic activity: more than half of its GDP, exports and imports come from just six countries” (Naqvi, 1998, p.285).

     Free trade may provide short-term hope for the developing state choking on international debt, but is primarily aimed at generating capital by a parasitic private sector through the extraction of natural resources from so-called developing states.  It allows the exploitation and exhaustion of a state’s natural resources, basically transferring those natural resources into capital that does not remain within the structure of the state for the future and therefore weakens the state for future stability.  In closing, free trade is adverse to the long-term future of the so-called developing state.

Resources

Edward Hudgins.  2012.  “Mercosur Hasn’t Caused Trade Diversion.”  Cato Institute.  Accessed December 27, 2013.  http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/mercosur-hasnt-caused-trade-diversion?print

Lourdes Benería.  1999.  “Structural Adjustment Policies.” The Elgar Companion to Feminist Economists.  Accessed December 26, 2013. http://www.arts.cornell.edu/poverty/Papers/Beneria_SAPs.pdf

Karl Marx.  1867.  “Das Kapital.”  Public Domain.  Accessed on December 26, 2013.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm 

Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger, and William Joseph. 2013. Introduction to Comparative Politics, 6th edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth

Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi.  1998.  “Globalisation, Regionalism and the OIC.”  Journal of Economic Cooperation Among Islamic Countries 19, 1-2 (1998):285-308, accessed on December 27, 2013.  http://www.sesric.org/jecd/jecd_articles/ART97100112-2.pdf