In post 9/11 years there have been a number of new, serious challenges facing radical politics, there has been the new hegemony of neo-liberal projects of capitalist globalization, such as the WTO, as well as the ideological obscurantism of the so-called Third Way. Furthermore, the intense disillusionment in the wake of the collapse of Communist systems nearly two decades ago has resulted in a political and theoretical vacuum for the radical Left, which has on the whole, been futile in its attempts to counter the rise of the Far Right in Europe, as well as Newman (2008) put it, “the more insidious ‘creeping conservatism’ whose dark ideological implications we are only just beginning to see unfold”. However, most serious of all, would be the re-emergence of the aggressive, authoritarian state in its new guise of security and bio-politics all of which is a reaction to the 9/11 event. The post 9/11 years have been marked with a distinct loss of civil liberties and “The ‘War on Terror’ serves as the latest guise for the aggressive reassertion of the principle state sovereignty, beyond the traditional limits imposed on it by legal institutions or democratic polities” (Newman, 2008). The ‘War on Terror’ can be seen as the forefront of this “creeping conservatism’s” initiative to reaffirm its hold on power by using the 9/11 event to do so.
(a) On Critical International Relations Theory
This case study will analyse the ‘War on Terror’ from the perspective of Critical International Relations Theory. It is in this papers opinion that the more traditional perspectives of Liberalism and Realism are myopic and far to narrow in its understanding of the interactions of state and the individuals that constitute it to adequately analyse such a complex issue the “War on Terror”. It is in this papers opinion that the continued use of such perspectives contributes to “a civil society… that thinks, reflects and analyzes complex international events through a very narrow set of theoretical lenses" (Smith, 2002). Whereas with Critical Theory, it allows greater flexibility in analysing the information at hand and would provide a more realistic critique by drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities.
(b) On criticism
Both postmodern and post-Marxist approaches to international relations can be said to be critical of the prevailing rationalist orthodoxy as well as that they both approaches share a commitment to human freedom, though differently understood. Freedom for postmodernists is negatively constituted, as resistance to determination. Where as with Post- Marxists, however, freedom is looked at in positive terms, it is the literal institution of human emancipation. From there on the approaches diverge even further as they echo the fundamental philosophical schism that divides the rational school they criticise.
Realist and postmodern approaches are sceptical about the prospective for human progress whereas idealist and post-Marxist approaches rest on the assertion of a rigid criterion of judgement (Hutchings, 2001). In so far as possible the analysis of the ‘War on Terror’ here under presented will attempt to decouple from the remainder of the critical school and codify post-Marxist analyses. Within this post-Marxist mainstream of critical theory, there are two branches that will be considered. The initial segment of this essay will consider the shared theoretical framework that structures both bodies of criticism. From here the treatment of the two branches under consideration will diverge thus sections two and three of the essay will then treat these in turn.
i. The first branch is primarily associated with the writings of Andrew Linklater as it is based on notions of cosmopolitan idealism and traces its philosophical lineage through the work of Habermas to Kant.
ii. The second branch, that can be said to be the most closely associated with the work of Robert Cox, is more eclectic as it builds most notably through the work of Gramsci on the historical materialism of Marx.
(c) On terrorism
This case study understands terrorism as a political technique that relies on the systematic use of violence to instil fear in civilian populations (Devetak, 2005a) in order push forward an agenda. It thus attempts to avoid any simplistic recourse to political labelling on the basis of the actors responsible for acts of violence; that is to say that according to the above definition, terror can equally be brandished by state and non-state groups and determination should be based on substantive analysis of the method rather than the actor that wields it.
A. The framework of criticism
The two branches of critical theory to be considered both share certain core criticisms of traditional rationalist approaches to international relations and the specific application of these criticisms to the US war on terror will be explored in the succeeding sections of this case study. In the first instance, a criticism of the bracketed ontological assumptions of the rationalist schools is shared. That this ontology is 'prior' or 'given' is vehemently disputed as the objects of analysis chosen by traditional approaches structure the questions asked and the answers received. Secondly, each branch challenges the epistemology of more orthodox approaches. In his essay entitled “Political Realism and Human Interests“, Ashley argued that positivist methodologies constitute knowledge of practical and technical interests, in other words positivists are interested in knowledge as a means of understanding and controlling the world. This understanding of what knowledge is ignores and inhibits emancipatory constitutive knowledge interests. Thus it ignores forms of knowledge that seek to reveal the relations of domination and the conditions of “distorted communication and understanding that deny humans the ability to make their future through full will and consciousness” (Ashley, 1981). This, it is argued, results in a mode of knowing that proliferates the paradigms of the past into the future.
B. Cosmopolitan Universalism
In “Men and Citizens” (1990), Linklater sets out his criticism of the morally particularistic ontology of mainstream international relations theory. He argues that the foundational enforcement of the state as the key source of subjectivity in international relations causes rigid boundaries between the self and the other. This exclusionary notion of what community is and how the individual relates to it creates a discourse that privileges the ethical rights of the citizen above those of the rest of humanity. The US “War on Terror” relies precisely on such particularism in order to privilege the perceived interests of the US above those of the rest of humanity.
The analysis that Linklater (2002) gives on the “War on Terror” is guided by the progressive notion that it is possible to universally eliminate unnecessary human suffering. In his book, he lines out both the extent to which the war on terror devalues normative progress made towards reducing unnecessary human suffering and the extent to which it creates even more unnecessary suffering. Firstly, the continued “War on Terror” has eroded the protection offered by established legal norms thus it has caused various contraventions of the well established and widely observed human rights and humanitarian legal conventions. Examples of which can be seen in conditions of detention and the legal process extended by the US to enemy prisoners at its facilities in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and also in the regime of clandestine extradition and interrogation euphemistically termed rendition. In addition to that, the various unauthorised, extra-national military operations instigated by the US in pursuit of its war aims, such as the US air strikes of January 2007 in Southern Somalia, breach the international legal principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. The US may hold the outcomes to be absolute goods, in other words the ends justify the means, however this ignores the universally agreed limits on state action as it privileges a narrowly defined US military interest above the universal rights of mankind.
Secondly, as Linklater pointed out, the pursuit by the US of its “War on Terror” has been responsible for instituting human suffering afresh. Marc Herold estimated that there were more civilian casualties that resulted from the first two months of US military action in Afghanistan than from the attacks of September 11th (Herold, 2002). This differential value placed on US and 'enemy' civilian lives is further emphasised by the United States’ willingness to use cluster munitions in areas of high civilian population density (Oliver, 2003). Arguably, US military planners consider the risks presented to US ground personnel intrinsic in mounting more targeted operations to outweigh the risks presented to the lives of Iraqi civilians by using cluster munitions. As Devetak pointed out, “[u]nchecked particularism” is used to deprive outsiders of their rights (Devetak, 2005b).
Chomsky's criticism however (2002), is based more upon the closely related principle of reciprocity; the idea that one should be subject to the same norms of behaviour that one seeks to impose on others. He is of the opinion, that according to the definition of terrorism used by the US army, the actions of US and British forces in Afghanistan also constitute international terrorism; i.e. 'a calculated use of violence to attain goals that are political ... in nature' (US Army manual quoted in Chomsky, 2002).
Linklater describes in Transformation of Political Community (1998) how the processes of state-building, geopolitical rivalry, capitalist industrialisation, and moral practical learning contribute to the monopolisation by the state of sources of political identity. The result of which is a discourse that understands a necessity of correlation between the boundaries of sovereignty, nationality, citizenship and territory and it is with such a vision of the international order that allows a causal connection between the attacks of September 11th, the Taliban regime and the Afghan 'quasi-state' to be understood. Surely criminal legal proceedings should have been instituted against those individuals implicated in the 9/11 attacks rather than the machinery of war mobilised to confront a nation? It reflects interestingly on the power relations that exist between different branches of the international relations school that the threat posed by a diffuse, transnational network was confronted by the machinery of inter-state warfare (see the treatment of the work of Ashley in section A above, for a discussion of the potential for the epistemological method of the traditional branches of international relations to introduce such oversights). Linklater argues that a decentralisation of the sites of power and a diversification of human loyalties offers the potential to alter the relationship between universality and particularity away from the totalising project of the state.
Habermas (2003) on the other hand, seems to see the “War on Terror” more of a rhetorical pretext for an extant policy of unilateral domination than an epistemologically driven error. He argues that the “War on Terror” consists of the forceful imposition of a global liberal order in place of the consensual, human rights based approach grounded in international law that preceded it. This shift is held to be best animated by opposing the continental European understanding of intervention based on giving force to the legitimacy of internationalized human rights (after the cosmopolitanism of Kant), to the Anglo-American understanding based on the imposition of a liberal international order (after the liberal nationalism of Mill). It is argued that the United States’ approach is actually a setback to the trend of the domesticisation of state power through international law that has characterised international relations since World War II. In choosing to act unilaterally, the United States has devalued this universal principle and has actually undermined its normative authority.
The thoughts of Habermas also encapsulate an emancipatory potential that is best approached from a more positive perspective. Habermas' discourse ethics is a dialogic ideal, which seeks to institutionalise inclusive democratic arrangements for decision-making, characterised by procedural fairness rather than guided by notions of moral correctness. If such a process of cosmopolitan decision-making were to be instituted, it would essentially make room for the subjectivities of all affected parties on an equal basis. Aside from that, it would also broaden the political community past the boundaries of the sovereign state and deepen the political community within the state. It was because of the fact that the US attack of Iraq failed to satisfy the conditions of discourse ethics that Habermas refuses to sanction it (Devetak, 2005b).
C. Historical Materialism
Cox (2002) understands the development of world society over time using historical materialism through Marx and from this approach he uses the synchronic dimension to investigate the arrangement of material forces instituted at a given point in time. The social, economic and political processes that lead to changes in this systemic arrangement is not manifest externally, however it can be inferred by arranging synchronic slices in the diachronic dimension. In the words of Marx, "circumstances make men as much as men make circumstances" (1932) thus this approach stresses the fact that current manifestations of world society are directly a function of previous ones. It is the relations of production, which is broadly understood to include cultural institutions like the education system, church and press that produce the social conditions that enable 'behaviours consistent with ... [the] arrangement of power relations in society' (Cox, 1983), that structure transitions from the present to the future and thus hold the key to shaping alternative visions of the future.
As Cox sees it, the historically specific and mutable character of the current world system is emphasised by this perspective. I would imagine that he would look to broaden the conservative framework in which understandings of the war on terror are set. The focus of the lens the “War on Terror” brings to bear on world politics is as notable for what it excludes as for what it describes. The attacks of 9/11 can be seen to target the symbols of the projection of US military and financial power overseas. However, the political realisation of the war on terror brackets and expands the projection of this power while objectifying the reaction thereto as an externality to be managed. Cox would implore that we focus on the manner in which the social conditions and cultural institutions currently instituted have facilitated growing global poverty and inequality and the asymmetric application of legal procedures, that we understand the structural underpinnings of immanent material problems in global society.
In the analysis of Cox, the concept of historical materialism is augmented by that of hegemony, an idea he inherited from Gramsci. On the basis of a historical survey, Cox asserts that hegemonic world order can be said to exist when consensual rather than coercive power prevails, when commonly held interests are shared and relations of domination are latent (Cox, 1983). Hegemonic world orders rest on the regulation of inter-state conflict and a globalised mode of production that unites civil society in different countries. The social, economic and political structures that sustain hegemony are more consistent and complimentary at the core than in peripheral societies where the contradictions between modern economic or political modes and traditional social ones can cause reactions to spring forth.
This understanding of the functioning of hegemony reads the attacks of 9/11 as a counter-hegemonic force, an attempt to challenge the prevailing order. Cox (1983) allows for this to happen in two ways, through 'wars of movement' (physical battles) and 'wars of position' (propaganda battles), asserting that only wars of position are likely to succeed in conditions where the hegemonic order is strongly embedded. It is fair to say that the norms of multi-lateral dispute resolution through international institutions and the global application of free market economics (after Fukuyama) were relatively strongly embedded at the turn of the millennium. The US reaction to the counter-hegemonic attacks of 9/11, paradoxically, engenders greater potential for systemic change than did the attacks themselves. The attacks of 9/11 met with almost universal international condemnation, but the doctrine of unilateral war posited by the US in response has unleashed dissonance in civil society. This reaction in civil society threatens the cultural constitution of the state-society complex (i.e. the 'relations of production' in the broad sense understood above) and by implication the world order. Much of the work of Cox has focussed on possibilities immanent in history for bottom-up social change that will eventually alter forms of state and of world order (see for example Cox, 1999).
Conclusion
When compared to the voluminous output of postmodern scholars in response to the attacks of 9/11 and the associated declaration of a war on terror, the post-Marxist response has been surprisingly muted. Perhaps this reflects the current academic fad within the critical school? Or perhaps mainstream critical scholars consider the strategic and meta-theoretical debates that have traditionally animated the school more important? Either way, given the primacy of the debate on global terrorism in the rest of the academy, it seems strange that more has not been written. That which has been written, has tended to animate that classical philosophical territory between particularism and universalism. Critical theory has retreated, through the immanent critique and multi-lateral cosmopolitanism from bald assertions of universally applicable moral principles, but continues to rely on a belief that progress towards universality remains possible and desirable.
The social contract of security has been shown to constitute political communities through practices of inequality and ‘unfreedom’. The deferral of equality through the creation of the Leviathan makes the liberty granted to a selective and partial form of freedom, allowed to some in the conditions of the ‘silence of the laws’. Yet, the spectre of equality is the greatest danger to the Leviathan. In Hobbes, the multitude can challenge the right of the sovereign to judge on good and evil and manifests itself as an equal judge. The multitude gives shapes to the equal right of publicly using one’s judgement that Kant will later on see as the premise of the Enlightenment. However, if in Kant, this right is still submitted to a selection, to a division of the social positions according to the division of labour, post-Marxist interpretations of equality radicalise it by rendering equality as a maxim for action mobilised against situations of social and political wrongs. ‘Peace, security and order’ as Hobbes defined the function of the modern state attempt do away with the politicisation of debasement, enslavement and contempt. In moral terms the case presented against the war on terror is a compelling one, but the perspectives offered are not immediately striking or novel. Is it then the manner in which we conceive of and produce knowledge about the world order that produces problems therewith? Or does a Manichaean war on terror justify the application of whatever means are deemed necessary to combat it?
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