Nearly a year before
the September 11 attacks, news stories provided a preview of the
transnational politics of the future. In October 2000, in preparation for
the UN Conference Against Racism, about fifty American nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) called on the UN "to hold the United States
accountable for the intractable and persistent problem of
discrimination."
The NGOs included
Amnesty International-U. S.A. (AI-U. S.A.), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the
Arab-American Institute, National Council of Churches, the NAACP, the
Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and others. Their
spokesman stated that their demands "had been repeatedly raised with
federal and state officials [in the U. S.] but to little effect. In
frustration we now turn to the United Nations." In other words, the NGOs,
unable to enact the policies they favored through the normal processes of
American constitutional democracy—the Congress, state governments, even
the federal courts—appealed to authority outside of American democracy and
its Constitution.
At the UN Conference
against Racism, which was held in Durban two weeks before September 11,
American NGOs supported "reparations" from Western nations for the
historic transatlantic slave trade and developed resolutions that
condemned only the West, without mentioning the larger traffic in African
slaves sent to Islamic lands. The NGOs even endorsed a resolution
denouncing free market capitalism as a "fundamentally flawed
system."
The NGOs also
insisted that the U. S. ratify all major UN human rights treaties and drop
legal reservations to treaties already ratified. For example, in 1994 the
U. S. ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), but attached reservations on treaty requirements
restricting free speech that were "incompatible with the Constitution."
Yet leading NGOs demanded that the U. S. drop all reservations and
"comply" with the CERD treaty by accepting UN definitions of "free speech"
and eliminating the "vast racial disparities… in every aspect of American
life" (housing, health, welfare, justice, etc.).
HRW complained that
the U. S. offered "no remedies" for these disparities but "simply
supported equality of opportunity" and indicated "no willingness to
comply" with CERD. Of course, to "comply" with the NGO interpretation of
the CERD treaty, the U. S. would have to abandon the Constitution's free
speech guarantees, bypass federalism, and ignore the concept of majority
rule—since practically nothing in the NGO agenda is supported by the
American electorate.
All of this suggests
that we have not reached the final triumph of liberal democracy proclaimed
by Francis Fukuyama in his groundbreaking 1989 essay.
POST-SEPTEMBER 11
In October 2001, Fukuyama
stated that his "end of history" thesis remained valid: that after the
defeat of communism and fascism, no serious ideological competitor to
Western-style liberal democracy was likely to emerge in the future. Thus,
in terms of political philosophy, liberal democracy is the end of the
evolutionary process. There will be wars and terrorism, but no alternative
ideology with a universal appeal will seriously challenge the principles
of Western liberal democracy on a global scale.
The 9/11 attacks notwithstanding, there is nothing beyond liberal
democracy "towards which we could expect to evolve." Fukuyama concluded
that there will be challenges from those who resist progress, "but time
and resources are on the side of modernity."
Indeed, but is
"modernity" on the side of liberal democracy? Fukuyama is very likely
right that the current crisis with radical Islam will be overcome and that
there will be no serious ideological challenge originating outside of
Western civilization. However, the activities of the NGOs suggest that
there already is an alternative ideology to liberal democracy within the
West that has been steadily evolving for years.
Thus, it is entirely
possible that modernity—thirty or forty years hence—will witness not the
final triumph of liberal democracy, but the emergence of a new
transnational hybrid regime that is post-liberal democratic, and in the
American context, post-Constitutional and post-American. This alternative
ideology, "transnational progressivism," constitutes a universal and
modern worldview that challenges both the liberal democratic nation-state
in general and the American regime in particular.
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of
transnational progressivism could be described as follows:
The
ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is
not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works
with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but
the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is
born.
A dichotomy of
groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as
victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially
Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.
Group
proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism
assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions
roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not,
there is a problem of "underrepresentation."
The
values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the
perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives
insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of
minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to
reflect the worldview of the "dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct
worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be
represented within these institutions.
The
"demographic imperative." The demographic imperative
tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as
millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American
life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants
into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed
to a framework that promotes "diversity," defined as group
proportionalism.
The
redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Transnational progressives
have been altering the definition of "democracy" from that of a system
of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among
ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks,
one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that
"to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and
perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and
share power." Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy
will come when the different "peoples" that live within America "share
power" as groups.
Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of
democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK
government report denounced the concept of "Britishness" and declared
that British history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned."
In the U.S., the proposed "National History Standards," recommended
altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing
the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined
as a multicultural "convergence" of three civilizations—Amerindian, West
African, and European. In Israel, a "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has
proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its
identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres
sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he
deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for regional "elected central
bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.
Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship.
In an important
academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully "Can
advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling
the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political
thought?"
The
idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. Transnationalism is the next
stage of multicultural ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism
is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a
plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of
what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization
requires some form of "global governance" because they believe that the
nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal
with the global problems of the future.
The same scholars who
touted multiculturalism now herald the coming transnational age. Thus,
Alejandro Portes of Princeton University argues that transnationalism,
combined with large-scale immigration, will redefine the meaning of
American citizenship.
The promotion of
transnationalism is an attempt to shape this crucial intellectual struggle
over globalization. Its adherents imply that one is either in step with
globalization, and thus forward-looking, or one is a backward
antiglobalist. Liberal democrats (who are internationalists and support
free trade and market economics) must reply that this is a false
dichotomy—that the critical argument is not between globalists and
antiglobalists, but instead over the form global engagement should take in
the coming decades: will it be transnationalist or
internationalist?
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM'S SOCIAL BASE: A POST-NATIONAL
INTELLIGENTSIA
The social base of transnational progressivism constitutes a rising
postnational intelligentsia (international law professors, NGO activists,
foundation officers, UN bureaucrats, EU administrators, corporate
executives, and politicians.) When social movements such as
"transnationalism" and "global governance" are depicted as the result of
social forces or the movement of history, a certain impersonal
inevitability is implied. However, in the twentieth century the Bolshevik
Revolution, the National Socialist revolution, the New Deal, the Reagan
Revolution, the Gaullist national reconstruction in France, and the
creation of the EU were not inevitable, but were the result of the
exercise of political will by elites.
Similarly,
transnationalism, multiculturalism, and global governance, like
"diversity," are ideological tools championed by activist elites, not
impersonal forces of history. The success or failure of these values-laden
concepts will ultimately depend upon the political will and effectiveness
of these elites.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
A good part of the energy for
transnational progressivism is provided by human rights activists, who
consistently evoke "evolving norms of international law." The main legal
conflict between traditional American liberal democrats and transnational
progressives is ultimately the question of whether the U. S. Constitution
trumps international law or vice versa.
Before the
mid-twentieth century, traditional international law referred to relations
among nation-states. The "new international law" has increasingly
penetrated the sovereignty of democratic nation-states. It is in reality
"transnational law." Human rights activists work to establish norms for
this "new international [i.e. transnational] law" and then attempt to
bring the U. S. into conformity with a legal regime whose reach often
extends beyond democratic politics.
Transnational
progressives excoriate American political and legal practices in virulent
language, as if the American liberal democratic nation-state was an
illegitimate authoritarian regime. Thus, AI-U.S.A. charged the U. S. in a
1998 report with "a persistent and widespread pattern of human rights
violations," naming the U. S. the "world leader in high tech repression."
Meanwhile, HRW issued a 450-page report excoriating the U. S. for all
types of "human rights violations," even complaining that "the U. S.
Border Patrol continued to grow at an alarming pace."
ANTI-ASSIMILATION ON THE HOME FRONT
Many of the same lawyers who
advocate transnational legal concepts are active in U. S. immigration law.
Louis Henkin, one of the most prominent scholars of international law,
calls for largely eliminating "the difference between a citizen and a
non-citizen permanent resident." Columbia University international law
professor Stephen Legomsky argues that dual nationals holding influential
positions in the U. S. should not be required to give "greater weight to
U. S. interests, in the event of a conflict" between the U. S. and the
other country in which the American citizen is also a dual
national.
Two leading law
professors (Peter Spiro from Hofstra and Peter Schuck from Yale) complain
that immigrants seeking American citizenship are required to "renounce all
allegiance" to their old nations." Spiro and Schuck even reject the
concept of the hyphenated American and endorse what they call the
"ampersand" citizen. Thus, instead of traditional "Mexican-Americans" who
are loyal citizens but proud of their ethnic roots, they prefer
postnational citizens, who are both "Mexican & American," who retain
"loyalties" to their "original homeland" and vote in both
countries.
University professor
Robert Bach authored a major Ford Foundation report on new and
"established residents" (the word "citizen" was assiduously avoided) that
advocated the "maintenance" of ethnic immigrant identities and attacked
assimilation as the "problem in America." Bach later became deputy
director for policy at the INS in the Clinton administration.
The financial backing
for this anti-assimilationist campaign has come primarily from the Ford
Foundation, which made a conscious decision to fund a Latino rights
movement based on advocacy-litigation and group rights. The global
progressives have been aided—if not always consciously, certainly in
objective terms—by a "transnational right." It was a determined Right-Left
coalition led by libertarian Stuart Anderson, who currently holds Bach's
old position at the INS, that killed a high-tech tracking system for
foreign students that might have saved lives on September 11. Whatever
their ideological or commercial motives, the demand for "open borders"
(not simply free trade, which is a different matter altogether) by the
libertarian right has strengthened the Left's anti-assimilationist
agenda.
THE EU AS A
STRONGHOLD OF TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The EU is a large
supranational macro-organization that embodies transnational
progressivism. Its governmental structure is post-democratic. Power in the
EU principally resides in the European Commission (EC) and to a lesser
extent the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The EC, the EU's executive
body, initiates legislative action, implements common policy, and controls
a large bureaucracy. It is composed of a rotating presidency and nineteen
commissioners chosen by the member-states and approved by the European
Parliament. It is unelected and, for the most part,
unaccountable.
A white paper issued
by the EC suggests that this unaccountability is one reason for its
success:"[the] "essential source of the success of European integration is
that [it] is_independent from national, sectoral, or other influences."
This "democracy deficit" represents a moral challenge to EU
legitimacy.
The substantive
polices advanced by EU leaders on issues such as "hate speech," "hate
crimes," "comparable worth" for women's pay, and group preferences are
considerably more "progressive" in the EU than in the U. S. The ECJ has
overruled national parliaments and public opinion in nation-states by
ordering the British to incorporate gays and the Germans to incorporate
women in combat units in their respective military services. The ECJ even
struck down a British law on corporal punishment, declaring that parental
spanking is internationally recognized as an abuse of human
rights.
Two Washington
lawyers, Lee Casey and David Rivkin, have argued that the EU ideology that
"denies the ultimate authority of the nation-state" and transfers policy
making from elected representatives to bureaucrats "suggests a dramatic
divergence" with "basic principles of popular sovereignty once shared by
both Europe's democracies and the United States."
In international
politics, in the period immediately prior to 9/11, the EU opposed the U.
S. on some of the most important global issues, including the ICC, the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, the Kyoto Global
Warming Treaty, and policy towards missile defense, Iran, Iraq, Israel,
China, Cuba, North Korea, and the death penalty. On most of these issues,
transnational progressives in the U. S.—including politicians—supported
the EU position and attempted to leverage this transnational influence in
the domestic debate. At the same, the Bush administration on some of these
issues has support in Europe, particularly from parts of the British
political class and public, and elements of European popular opinion
(e.g., on the death penalty.)
After 9/11, while
some European nation-states sent forces to support the U. S. in
Afganhistan, many European leaders have continued to snipe at American
policies and hamper American interests in the war on terrorism. In
December 2001 the European Parliament condemned the U. S. Patriot Act (the
bipartisan antiterrorist legislation that passed the U. S. Congress
overwhelmingly) as "contrary to the principles" of human rights because
the legislation "discriminates" against non-citizens. Leading European
politicians have opposed extraditing terrorist suspects to the U. S. if
those terrorists would be subjected to the death penalty. Even a long-time
Atlanticist, like the Berlin Aspin Institute's Jeffrey Gedmin, questions
the "basis for a functioning alliance" between the U. S. and Western
Europe.
Both realists and
neoconservatives have argued that some EU, UN, and NGO thinking threatens
to limit both American democracy at home and American power overseas. As
Jeanne Kirkpatrick puts it, "foreign governments and their leaders, and
more than a few activists here at home, seek to constrain and control
American power by means of elaborate multilateral processes, global
arrangements, and UN treaties that limit both our capacity to govern
ourselves and act abroad."
CONCLUSION
Talk in the West of a "culture
war" is somewhat misleading, because the arguments over transnational vs.
national citizenship, multiculturalism vs. assimilation, and global
governance vs. national sovereignty are not simply cultural, but
ideological and philosophical. They pose Aristotle's question: "What kind
of government is best?"
In America, there is
an elemental argument about whether to preserve, improve, and transmit the
American regime to future generations or to transform it into a new and
different type of polity. We are arguing about "regime maintenance" vs.
"regime transformation."
The challenge from
transnational progressivism to traditional American concepts of
citizenship, patriotism, assimilation, and the meaning of democracy itself
is fundamental. If our system is based not on individual rights (as
defined by the U. S. Constitution) but on group consciousness (as defined
by international law); not on equality of citizenship but on group
preferences for non- citizens (including illegal immigrants) and for
certain categories of citizens; not on majority rule within constitutional
limits but on power-sharing by different ethnic, racial, gender, and
linguistic groups; not on constitutional law, but on transnational law;
not on immigrants becoming Americans, but on migrants linked between
transnational communities; then the regime will cease to be
"constitutional," "liberal," "democratic," and "American," in the
understood sense of those terms, but will become in reality a new hybrid
system that is "post-constitutional," "post-liberal," "post-democratic,"
and "post-American."
This
intracivilizational Western conflict between liberal democracy and
transnational progressivism accelerated after the Cold War and should
continue well into the twenty-first century. Indeed, from the fall of the
Berlin Wall until the attacks of September 11, the transnational
progressives were on the offensive.
Since September 11,
however, the forces supporting the liberal-democratic nation state have
rallied throughout the West. In the post-9/11 milieu there is a window of
opportunity for those who favor a reaffirmation of the traditional norms
of liberal-democratic patriotism. It is unclear whether that segment of
the American intelligentsia committed to liberal democracy as it has been
practiced on these shores has the political will to seize this
opportunity. In Europe, given elite opinion, the case for liberal
democracy will be harder to make. Key areas to watch in both the U. S. and
Europe include immigration-assimilation policy; arguments over
international law; and the influence of a civic-patriotic narrative in
public schools and popular culture.
FOURTH DIMENSION?
I suggest that we add a fourth
dimension to a conceptual framework of international politics. Three
dimensions are currently recognizable. First, there is traditional
realpolitik, the competition and conflict among nation-states (and
supranational states such as the EU). Second is the competition of
civilizations, conceptualized by Samuel Huntington. Third, there is the
conflict between the democratic world and the undemocratic world. My
suggested fourth dimension is the conflict within the democratic world
between the forces of liberal democracy and the forces of transnational
progressivism, between democrats and post- democrats.
The conflicts and
tensions within each of these four dimensions of international politics
are unfolding simultaneously and affected by each other, and so they all
belong in a comprehensive understanding of the world of the twenty-first
century. In hindsight, Fukuyama is wrong to suggest that liberal democracy
is inevitably the final form of political governance, the evolutionary
endpoint of political philosophy, because it has become unclear that
liberal democracy will defeat transnational progressivism. During the
twentieth century, Western liberal democracy finally triumphed militarily
and ideologically over National Socialism and communism, powerful
anti-democratic forces, that were, in a sense, Western ideological
heresies. After defeating its current antidemocratic, non-Western enemy in
what will essentially be a material-physical struggle, it will continue to
face an ideological-metaphysical challenge from powerful post-liberal
democratic forces, whose origins are Western, but, which could be in the
words of James Kurth, called "post-Western."
WATCH ON THE WEST,
Volume 3, Number 6, May 2002. Published by permission of the Foreign
Policy Research Institute, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA
19102-3684 (www.fpri.org).
