Not long after the Cold War's end, with its heady promises of a
liberal “new world order,” the idea of “empire, long
thought buried … with its twin brother (or sister) called
‘imperialism’ … has made what can only be described
as a most dramatic intellectual comeback.”1
Yet, while
recent events may have propelled the term again onto the front pages of
political and intellectual publications alike, I will argue that liberal
thought in international relations has always been imperialist.
2 See Cox 2003 for a
list of recent publications under the heading of “Empire”
from a variety of political and intellectual positions.
“Imperialism” is, of course, a notoriously loose term. In
what precise sense is it used here? I define as
“imperialist” any political thought that explicitly
involves three key elements: a justification of interventions aimed at
changing the cultural, economic, and political constitution of a target
society; an argument for disregarding a lack of consent on the part of
the latter; and, finally, a principled willingness to deploy the threat
or use of military force to bring about the above-mentioned changes.
This definition requires clarification. Historically,
nineteenth-century imperialism was generated not least by private
actors pursuing economic interests abroad; when these activities met
with local resistance, the European actors enlisted the military
support of their governments.3
Even in its
nineteenth-century heyday, then, imperialism was pursued “by
informal means where possible and formal means where
necessary.”
4 Hence, one
can speak about imperialism even in the absence of formal colonial rule
that is certainly not propagated by contemporary liberals.
Yet these private economic and public military interventions did
require a systematic justification. This justification, historically,
contained two main elements: first, the claim that the target societies
were aggressive and did not comply with (European) international law;
second, that European cultural, economic, and political development
represented the highest stage of human development, so that its spread
to non-European societies would benefit the latter as well as humanity
at large. Hence, the aim of changing the cultural, economic, and
political constitution of the target societies provides the key
justification for imperialist interventions.
This understanding of imperialism has to be distinguished from
international interaction in general—which inevitably influences
the cultural, economic, and political constitution of the interacting
parties. Therefore, only interaction without the consent of one
party—that is, intervention—can be considered imperialist;
and this lack of consent requires the principled justification of the
threat or use of force. Only when all three criteria are met can one
speak unambiguously of a justification of imperialist policies.
The argument set out below in support of this claim has four main
parts. First, I demonstrate that liberal internationalism fulfills the
three criteria for the justification of imperialist policies. In order
to substantiate this charge, it is necessary to take seriously
Hoffmann's injunction: “[E]xamination of the
plight of liberal internationalism must shift to the flaws and
limitations of liberalism itself.”5
Because contemporary liberal thought in international relations almost
invariably enlists the authority of Immanuel Kant, I restrict the
discussion to those varieties of liberal thought that engage with
Kant.
6 There are, of course, liberal
strands of thought in international relations that do not refer to
classical authors, such as the “Harvard School of
Liberalism.” Long 1995.
These varieties of liberalism generally lean toward either a
“statist” or a “cosmopolitan”
interpretation.7
Because the purpose of this article is to
demonstrate that these approaches share the justification of
imperialism while arriving at this conclusion via different
methodological routes, I roughly distinguish between an empirical and a
normative approach. I represent the empirical reading of Kant by the
democratic peace thesis that occupies the most influential position in
the academic discourse. Kant is used by a variety of normative
approaches, ranging from the cosmopolitan democracy project, through
the moral cosmopolitanism of theories of justice (represented here by
Beitz), to the work of Rawls.
8 Commonly
identified with the cosmopolitan democracy project, or with
institutional or political cosmopolitanism, are Held
1996, Archibugi 1992 and 1998, and Linklater 1996
and 1998, while moral cosmopolitans such as
Beitz 1979 and 1983
share the belief in the universal validity of moral principles, but do
not necessarily advance specific institutional arrangements embodying
them. Rawls's 1973 domestic work A
Theory of Justice has influenced theories of justice tremendously,
while his 2001 international contribution The Law of Peoples
shares much with the democratic peace thesis. Nevertheless,
methodologically he clearly belongs to the normative, rather than the
empirical, strand of liberal thought. I will restrict my discussion to
the work of Beitz and Rawls because not all moral cosmopolitans engage
with Kant. See Barry 1998 and 1999. Others, while they must be considered
Kantians, are more concerned with Realizing Rawls. See Pogge 1989. Moreover, while sharing a
methodological position, Beitz and Rawls differ considerably in its
application to the international sphere and, thus, together with the
cosmopolitan democracy authors, cover a wide range of normative liberal
thought.
Having established that these liberal theories fulfill the three
criteria for a justification of imperialism, in the second part of the
article I demonstrate that such arguments find no support in Kant.
Indeed, an alternative interpretation of Kant, based on his analyses of
the historically specific causes of war, will demonstrate that
contemporary liberal thought advocates precisely those policies that
his Perpetual Peace attempted to rule out. Specifically,
Kant's call for republican constitutions has no basis in the
contemporary world, yet liberals prioritize it. Where Kant attempts to
overcome the security dilemma, liberals reproduce it between liberal
and nonliberal states. Where Kant limits the right to trade as a basis
of imperialism, liberals propagate it. This inversion thus reproduces
every single element of the causes of war Kant identified.
In the third part I show that this un-Kantian path of reasoning taken
by liberal thought today is, however, not without classical precedent.
Mill's liberal theory provides a perfect match and, unlike Kant,
Mill—famously—did justify imperialism. Yet this parallel
reveals more than the logic of justifications of imperialism or,
indeed, its failures in spreading liberalism or reducing international
conflicts. A close reading of Mill (in the final section) will
demonstrate two fundamental flaws of the liberal position itself. For
when Mill turned his attention to British society, he was forced to the
empirical conclusion that the latter's representative institutions
did not, after all, guarantee the realization of liberal ideals, thus
undermining the philosophical grounds on which such a state was
accorded more rights than others. Furthermore, Mill's political
theory dramatizes how liberal ideals cannot be realized by illiberal
means; in a quite profound way, as I show later, the latter contradict
the foundational claim on which liberal ideals rest. Mill never
resolved the contradictions that these findings introduced into his
social thought; yet their implications for contemporary liberal
internationalism are central to its ongoing dilemmas.
In conclusion, I demonstrate that the political consequences
unfolding from liberal imperialism show an uncanny resemblance through
the ages. From the involvement of Victorian Britain in India, through
liberal foreign policies during the Cold War and since its end, the
tendency toward interventionism is inseparable from general liberal
beliefs in the nature of nonliberal societies. These beliefs are
irrespective of the merits of particular cases. While, therefore, not
all interventions are imperialist, all liberal justifications of
interventions are. The revived prominence of the concept of empire
today is not simply a contingent reaction to recent political
challenges; at a deeper level, it arises from the standard liberal
reaction to the very existence of nonliberal states.
Liberalism and Kant
How do the empirical and normative strands of liberal international
thought enlist the work of Kant? In what ways do they fulfill the three
criteria of imperialist thought mentioned above?
The democratic peace thesis is so widely known in international
relations that it needs only a brief summary here. Doyle, in the most
influential statement of this thesis—Kant, Liberal Legacies,
and Foreign Affairs,9
defines liberal states by the
legal equality of citizens, a representative government, private
property, and a market economy.
10 Doyle 1996, 5f. There are variations in the
definition of “liberalism” or “democracy”
amongst the contributors to the democratic peace thesis. Russett 1996a, for instance, speaks about
democracies being characterized by voting rights for a substantial
number of citizens, contested elections, and an executive either
elected or responsible to an elected body. Owen
1996, meanwhile, defines a liberal democracy as a state in which
the dominant ideology is liberal and citizens have leverage over war
decisions. These variations are not pertinent to the argument in the
following pages, so I will essentially follow Doyle's
exposition.
Statistically, he notes, such liberal states
“have yet to engage in war with one another,” while they do
quite “liberally” go to war with nonliberal states.
11 Doyle argues that Kant's
Perpetual Peace
“offers the best guidance” for an explanation of this
statistical evidence.
12 Because citizens bear the burden of war, they are
generally inclined toward caution; and republics, in which the
citizens' opinions are represented, are therefore less war prone
than other forms of government, as Kant argues in the First Definitive
Article.
13 These liberal states or republics establish a mutual trust amongst
themselves, based on similar political institutions and values,
supported by growing economic interdependence. They engage in
nonviolent conflict resolution with each other that, over time,
establishes a separate peace between them.14
Again, the arguments vary slightly. Russett sees two
possible explanations for the peaceful behavior of democracies. The
cultural model assumes that the norms of peaceful conflict resolution
in domestic affairs are projected onto foreign affairs, while the
institutional model assumes that the constraints operating in
democratic decision making provide time for alternative forms of
conflict resolution. The cultural model is not based on Kant and,
therefore, falls outside the purview of this article. The critique
developed later in this article, however, is also valid here inasmuch
as this model, too, defines “the culture, perceptions, and
practices” of liberal states as peaceful, and consequently has to
look for the sources of war and aggression in nonliberal states. Russett 1996b, 92. The critique I develop below
does not take issue with the hypothesis that liberal publics perceive
themselves as peaceful and nonliberal states as aggressive, but rather
with the theoretical sources of this perception.
This separate
peace is equated with the Federation of Free States that Kant sketches
in the Second Definitive Article.
15 In the Third Definitive
Article, he “adds the material incentive” by allowing for
the “spirit of commerce” represented in liberal economic
theory.
16 But, argues Doyle, the same principles that account for the liberal
peace also explain the wars between liberal and nonliberal states,
because the latter do not share the same political values and
institutions, are expected to be aggressive, and easily become targets
of liberal “missionary” policies.17
World
peace is, then, a distinct possibility that can either be pursued
through a liberal foreign policy, or expected through
“nature's secret design”—as set out by Kant in
the First Supplement.
18 Leaving aside the “natural” road, one must now ask how
liberal foreign policies pursue the goal of world peace. Because
liberal ideals are realized in liberal states—sufficiently, at
least, to make these states more peaceful than nonliberal
states—the aim of a liberal foreign policy lies in a systematic
promotion of “liberal principles abroad”;19
that is, in changing the cultural, economic, and political
constitution of nonliberal states. This systematic promotion of liberal
principles requires a clear distinction between liberal and nonliberal
states; “we must have no liberal enemies and no unconditional
alliances with nonliberal states.”
20 Once a nonliberal state has become
liberal, it can enter the pacific federation between liberal states,
thus extending the realm of peace in the world.
Is the consent of nonliberal societies required for this promotion of
“liberal principles abroad”? While democratic peace
theorists do not discuss the question of consent explicitly in this
context, it nevertheless lies at the heart of liberal thought in
general and of the democratic peace thesis in particular. After all,
liberal constitutions derive their legitimacy from consent, and the
presumed lack of consent in nonliberal states deprives the latter of
this legitimacy.21
This construction implies the assumption that populations
in nonliberal states—as, indeed, all human beings in liberal
thought—would, in principle, consent to liberal institutions. Yet
as the need for a promotion of liberal values indicates, this consent
is not always forthcoming. External and internal
barriers—political repression, or nonliberal cultural traditions,
or simply a lack of exposure to the benefits of liberal life—may
prevent an open or conscious embrace of liberal institutions.
In such situations, as Doyle's excellent historical analysis
reveals, the “dominant tendency leads toward
interventionism” irrespective of consent.22
Yet this interventionism may be
counterproductive, and Doyle explicitly advocates the extension of the
right of military nonintervention to nonliberal governments.
23 Specifically, instead
of force he advocates economic means—sanctions or restricted
interaction with nonliberal states, and extended aid and trade with
liberal or transitional states—to promote liberal principles
abroad.
24 However, Doyle does not advocate nonmilitary means as a matter of
principle, but rather consistently for reasons of prudence,25
and he demonstrates
that the historical record of interventionism—far from
constituting a departure from liberal principles—is fundamentally
rooted in them. The promotion of “pacifist” means is of
great importance for liberal thought, as MacMillan has argued,
26 and I return to its significance later. For now, however,
one must conclude that the democratic peace thesis, while offering a
normative constraint against the use of force between liberal states,
does not provide such constraint for the relations between liberal and
nonliberal states. The thesis thus fulfills the third criterion for the
justification of imperialism. The explicit aim to change the cultural,
economic, and political constitution of nonliberal states without the
consent of the population clearly implies the denial of rights of
nonintervention for the latter.
What, then, of the normative liberal approaches? Where the democratic
peace thesis starts with an empirical observation of a separate liberal
peace, normative approaches start with an ideal.27
Yet as I will now show, they, too, end up
justifying interventions.
In establishing their ideals, the normative approaches do not follow
Kant literally. The cosmopolitan democracy writers explicitly
acknowledge the historically situated nature of Kant's work, going
beyond its detailed analysis and reconstructing its spirit in the
context of contemporary needs.28
Because in a globalizing
world “every aspect of a state's economic, social and
political life is affected by political decisions taken in
others,” new limits to, as well as opportunities for,
democratization have arisen.
29 The two elements in
Kant's work that seem to address the transnational and
interdependent contemporary world are his belief in the pacifying
effect of trade and the cosmopolitan law addressing transnational
actors set out in the Third Definitive Article.
30 The cosmopolitan democracy authors argue that Kant's
cosmopolitan law complements the confederal nature of the pacific union
set out in the Second Definitive Article, and thus allows for a
representation of the world's citizens simultaneously through
their states, through civil society associations, and through regional
and international organizations on the global level.31
Transnational
issue-areas such as human rights, environmental policies, and trade
policies, according to this model, should be democratically decided on
by individuals and civil society associations directly represented in
international organizations.
32 Rawls and Beitz use Kant most crucially in the construction of the
hypothetical social contract first developed by Rawls in A Theory
of Justice.33
Beitz applies this
Rawlsian original position to humanity at large for the purpose of
developing global principles of distributive justice.
34 Rawls, following
Kant's lead in the First Definitive Article of the
Perpetual
Peace, uses this hypothetical social contract first to establish
“the liberal political conception of a constitutionally
democratic regime.”
35 Rawls then proposes a
second original position—in which this time the representatives
of liberal peoples find themselves behind the veil of ignorance,
choosing the principles of the “law of
peoples”—followed by a third and final original position
that now includes the representatives of liberal and decent peoples
(defined by a reasonable conception of justice, basic institutions
meeting political right and justice, and respect for a just law of
peoples).
36 The resulting “law of peoples” is a “realistic
utopia,” specifying the social conditions under which all liberal
and decent peoples may belong to a reasonable Society of Peoples,
identified with Kant's Pacific Federation.37
Non-ideal theory then establishes the
right of the Society of Peoples to defend itself against outlaw states
(defined by their refusal to comply with a reasonable law of peoples),
and the obligation to assist burdened societies (characterized by such
unfavorable historical, economic, and social circumstances that they
cannot achieve a well-ordered regime).
38 All three approaches have thus constructed an
ideal—cosmopolitan democracy, principles of distributive justice,
a just “law of peoples”—and one now has to ask
“how the social world may realize the features of a realistic
utopia” which, it is claimed, “gives meaning to what we can
do today.”39
In fact, all approaches clearly define the criteria of a liberal,
democratic, or just state by which real existing states can be located
in terms of their approximation to the ideal. These are, respectively:
states “whose institutions conform to appropriate principles of
justice,” namely the rights of individuals;
40
“those communities which enable policy and law to be shaped by
their citizenry”;
41 and those in which the
procedure of “the ‘holiest’ rite of
democracy—free elections”—are to be found
(specifically, the European Union [EU] as an
“international example of cosmopolitan democracy”).
42 Despite Rawls's insistence that his
four categories of peoples do not conform to real, existing peoples,
there are good grounds for doubt.
It is almost impossible for the reader not to associate Rawls's
liberal and decent peoples, outlaw states, and burdened societies with
contemporary examples. Theoretical ideal types are by definition
derived from historical reality.43
As Beitz has pointed out,
“Rawls writes as if he believes that some existing
societies—perhaps the constitutional democracies—come close
to satisfying” the definition of liberal peoples;
44 indeed, these societies do fulfill the criteria of,
first, a constitutional regime recognizing basic equal rights and
liberties for its citizens, secondly, protecting these rights over
claims of the social good, and thirdly, providing primary goods
enabling individuals to make use of these freedoms.
45 Hence, Rawls's
ideal- type peoples are necessarily derived from real, existing
societies, and constitutional democracies no doubt meet his criteria of
liberal peoples.
46 Liberal states derive
their rights, just as in the case of other liberal theories, from the
representation of individuals (in the original position). A general
accusation of state-centrism is therefore unwarranted. Only the
inclusion of representatives of decent peoples, who presumably have not
constituted their state via an original position, may be regarded as
inconsistent.
Thus all normative approaches identify some
states—and not just individuals—as embodying the ideal
norms.
Indeed, these states embody liberal ideals sufficiently to accord
them with the task of an avant-garde advancing the ideal. Held expects
the development, in the first instance, of “an association of
democratic nations which might draw in others over time.”47
Such an association, including the democratic civil
societies, is conceived as the core of an expanding institutional
framework of cosmopolitan democracy—expanding partly by way of
example, and partly via beneficial civil society interventions in other
states.
48 The EU, especially, has institutionalized elements of a cosmopolitan
democracy nowhere hitherto experienced. For this reason, Europe is
presented as one of the “vehicles of cosmopolitan
democracy,” and an example for others.49
This “model of
post-Westphalian political organization” has rights of
participation in the more backward solidarist and pluralist parts of
the society of states—while the latter do not enjoy the same
rights with regard to the more highly developed sections of
international society.
50 What one sees here
is, of course, an almost exact replication of the pacific union between
liberal states in the democratic peace thesis, as well as a
justification of intervention.
Beitz, meanwhile, identifies three types of states: just states
(protecting the rights of individuals), states that are likely to
become just “if left free from external interference,” and
states that are “neither just nor likely to become
just.”51
While the two former kinds of states enjoy
the right of nonintervention “based on respect for the rights of
persons to associate in the pursuit of common ends, or to live in just
regimes,” unjust states cannot claim this right; they can be
intervened in, provided the intervention itself fulfills certain
conditions.
52 Beitz
consistently concludes that even colonial rule can be justified if it
provides such goods as “social infrastructure, agricultural
development, education and technology,” which rational members in
the original position must be assumed to choose.
53 Rawls, too, ends by justifying unequal law and intervention. He
identifies the establishment of an ideal liberal domestic regime as the
precondition for the constitution of the Law of Peoples.54
The primacy Rawls attaches to the domestic constitution
underlies the exclusion of outlaw states and burdened
societies—who have no voice in any of the original
positions—as Beitz has pointed out.
55
Liberal and decent peoples “have the right … not to
tolerate outlaw states” because the latter are aggressive and
dangerous and “all peoples are safer and more secure if such
states change, or are forced to change, their ways.”
56 Burdened societies lack “the political and cultural
traditions, the human capital and know-how, and, often, the material
and technological resources needed to be well-ordered”; it is
thus the long-term goal of well-ordered societies “to bring
burdened societies, like outlaw states, into the Society of
well-ordered Peoples.”
57 All three normative projects thus justify interventions with the aim
of changing the cultural, economic, and political constitution of
nonliberal states. None of them requires the consent of the target
society. In parallel to the democratic peace theorists, cosmopolitan
democracy authors hold that “democracy has become a universal
aspiration,” thus assuming consent to liberal institutions.58
Beitz explicitly states that consent by real, existing
human beings is an appropriate basis neither for government, nor for
self-determination, and hence, nor for arguments against colonial rule
or intervention.
59 Instead, consent
is addressed via the hypothetical social contract in which one imagines
individuals with right reason. In addition, Rawls excludes outlaw
states and burdened societies, as well as their individual members,
from all original positions, and, thus excludes their consent from the
“law of peoples.”
Finally, all three approaches, in principle, justify the threat or
use of force in the pursuit of these liberal—or
ideal—foreign policies. Beitz insists on a “general
permission to intervene in the course of justice” that does not
exclude military force.60
Rawls explicitly states that outlaw states must be
“forced to change their ways.”
61
Cosmopolitan democracy authors, along with democratic peace theorists,
strongly propagate intervention by civil society actors and nonviolent
means, without, however, ruling out the use of force.
62 In summary, then, empirical and normative liberal approaches identify
real, existing liberal democratic states (and decent societies) as
sufficiently embodying liberal norms to accord them with the rights of
sovereignty and nonintervention. Further, all of them deny these rights
to nonliberal or outlaw states, and thus justify particular rather than
universal law. In this sense, liberal international theory justifies
imperialist policies in blatant contradiction to Kant, as I argue in
the next section.
History and the Perpetual Peace
Contemporary liberal thought, I suggest first in this section,
misconceives the relationship between theory and history in Kant's
work and, consequently, the nature of moral laws. Subsequently, I
provide an interpretation of the Perpetual Peace based on
Kant's historical analyses and demonstrate that contemporary
liberal thought, far from just misinterpreting Kant, develops policy
recommendations diametrically opposed to those of Kant. In particular,
contemporary liberal thought propagates policies that Kant identified
as the source of imperialism in his time, and reifies the security
dilemma between liberal and nonliberal states—thus reproducing
the very sources of international conflict Kant set out to solve.
Kant argues that nature and human nature play themselves out in
history, so that a survey of this history is necessary to ascertain
potential goals of human development. Accordingly, he derives the
values of individual freedom and equality on which the ideal of the
republican constitution is based from a philosophy of history. This
philosophy of history is systematically worked out in his Idea for
a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose, on whose basic
assumptions the First Definitive Article relies.63
See Kant 1991 and 1957, 11–15. Kant argues that the history of
humankind—from barbarians to contemporaneous Europeans—can
be interpreted as a gradual development of political organization
toward the realization of individual freedom. In principle, this
philosophy of history is similar not only to Mill's, which I will
set out below, but to those underlying Enlightenment thought in
general. See Jahn 1999 and 2000, 118ff; Mehta 1999,
88ff; and Meek 1976. Because Kant does not
rely on this philosophy of history as an authoritative basis for his
moral and political thought, the highly questionable contents of this
philosophy of history are not of concern to the discussion in this
article.
However, “reason is not yet sufficiently
enlightened to survey the entire series of predetermining causes, and
such vision would be necessary for one to be able to foresee with
certainty the happy or unhappy effects which follow human actions by
the mechanism of nature (though we know enough to have hope that they
will accord with our wishes).”
64 Essentially, Kant recognizes the limitations of human interpretations
of history. Hence, these interpretations are speculative and do not
allow one to extract moral principles from empirical
knowledge—though they can establish the possibility of such moral
principles. Once established, it is therefore reason and not nature
(history) that establishes the rules of moral conduct and
“suffices for attaining the ultimate end.”65
The basic principle that
reason establishes for moral conduct is the universality entailed in
the categorical imperative.
66 Moral laws are by definition universal laws and moral
conduct requires the observance of these laws for their own sake
“and without regard to hope of a similar response from
others.”
67 Applied to the political sphere, Kant says that this
“should be understood as the obligation of those in power not to
limit or to extend anyone's right through sympathy or
disfavor.”
68 The requirement of universality essentially functions as a safeguard
against the potential misinterpretation of history (nature), so that
Kant does not resolve or transcend the dialectic between nature
(history) and reason (morality).69
While they are not
mutually exclusive in theoretical terms, subjectively, for real
existing men and women, “this conflict will always remain
…. Indeed, it should remain, because it serves as a whetstone of
virtue, whose true courage … consist(s) … in detecting
and conquering the crafty and far more dangerously deceitful and
treasonable principle of evil in ourselves.”
70 Moral
laws thus always apply to oneself, rather than to others. It is this
open-endedness that makes Kant a critical philosopher.
71 Quite strikingly, contemporary liberal approaches violate every
single one of these principles of moral laws. Where Kant argues that
one must observe moral laws for their own sake and apply them to
oneself, contemporary liberals disqualify nonliberals from choosing
their own laws. Where Kant argues that one must observe these laws
without regard to a similar response from others, in contemporary
thought liberalism becomes a precondition for equal rights. Where Kant
argues that rights must not be extended on the grounds of sympathy or
be limited on the grounds of disfavor, contemporary liberals extend
rights on the grounds of sympathy to other liberal states, and limit
them on the grounds of disfavor for nonliberal states. In short, where
Kant requires the universality of law, contemporary liberals justify
particularist law.
The reason for these contradictions lies in a misunderstanding of the
dialectic between nature (history) and reason (theory) in Kant. The
democratic peace thesis resolves this dialectic in favor of history by
empirically identifying contemporary liberal states as embodying the
values of freedom and equality. It thus reifies a particular reading of
history from which it derives its ideals rather than treating them as
regulative. Hence, the ideal is embodied in a particular part of that
history that in turn underlies the particularist nature of the laws it
justifies.
Ironically, the normative attempt to avoid this fate by taking the
ideal rather than the real as a starting point ends up in exactly the
same position. First of all, it overlooks that Kant himself derived the
ideal of individual freedom and equality from a philosophy of history.
Neither this origin nor its contested nature is recognized in the
normative approaches. Normative liberal thought, then, dissolves
Kant's dialectic in favor of theory—but because normative
thinkers have to establish the relevance of this theory for political
actors in the historical world, they read history in accordance with
the ideal, constantly trying to identify forces that appear to
approximate the ideal. These forces, as I have shown, are liberal and
decent peoples, democratic European states, states that respect the
rights of individuals and their civil society actors. Hence, normative
theory ends up with the same empirical identification of the ideal in
history, leading to the same violation of Kantian universality.
Yet it is not just the nature of moral laws that liberal
internationalism turns into their opposite, but also the contents. The
three elements of the justification of imperialist policies find no
support in Kant. First, the justification of intervention is
contradicted by the Fifth Preliminary Article, which states
unequivocally that “no state shall by force interfere with the
constitution or government of another state.”72
Moreover, this
principle of nonintervention applies “regardless of
circumstances”
73 and is thus explicitly
considered a “perfect duty” by Kant. This reading is
further strengthened by the centrality of the categorical imperative
establishing the necessary universality of law.
74 International right must be based on the
principle of equality, and cannot confer rights of intervention on
liberal states while denying them to nonliberal states.
75 Second, Kant clearly expected republican constitutions to arise out
of an internal political process, rather than to be established through
outside interference, as Beitz himself recognizes. That is, republican
constitutions rest, theoretically and practically, on the consent of
the population. Yet Beitz suggests that the goal of spreading
liberalism or republican constitutions may override the principle of
nonintervention—in other words, that the Definitive Articles,
especially the First, are more “basic” than the Preliminary
Articles.76
However, Kant was explicit that
constitutional reform is an imperfect duty, allowing for subjective
latitude according to the circumstances, and is thus subordinate to the
perfect duty of a state to “preserve its own existence”
(which has to be executed at once) as well as to the perfect duty to
refrain from intervention. Hence, constitutional reform is neither more
basic than the principle of nonintervention nor a precondition for
international rights and obligations but, if anything, is subordinate
to them.
77 Consequently and third, the use of force for the purpose of spreading
liberalism would not only violate the principle of nonintervention but
also the principle that republican constitutions must rest on consent.
Moreover, a justification of force for the purpose of spreading
liberalism, or republican constitutions, directly contradicts the
perfect duty of a state to defend itself. Practically, such a position
would imply that liberal states have a right to use force against
nonliberal states who, in turn, have a duty to defend
themselves—amounting to a vicious circle of wars that would fit
rather awkwardly into Kant's goal of perpetual peace.
Thus none of the three criteria of a justification of imperialist
policies can be derived from Kant. Still, this does not by itself
undermine that justification; nor does it establish the relevance of a
more appropriate reading of Kant. I now develop an interpretation of
the Perpetual Peace in accordance with Kant's theoretical
position on the relationship between history and theory, and return to
the weaknesses of the liberal justification of imperialism later.
Because Kant's republican constitution—or more generally
liberal ideals—are not unambiguously identifiable in history,
they cannot provide the starting point for an attempt to solve the
problem of war. Hence, the order of Kant's argument in the
Perpetual Peace: he starts with an analysis of the wars of his
time, proceeds to formulate preliminary and definitive articles that
would make these wars impossible, and finally ensures their
compatibility with the ideal in the two appendixes.78
He identifies three historically specific elements contributing to
wars—located respectively on the domestic, the international, and
the transnational level. His solutions, the three Definitive Articles,
are therefore derived from, and substantively linked to, these concrete
historical analyses.
Kant clearly characterizes the nature of wars in his time. Rulers are
“insatiable of war”; wars are pursued for the glory of the
state, defined as “continual aggrandizement”; the state is
seen as the property of rulers that can be “inherited, exchanged,
purchased, or donated,” even “espoused”; and wars are
financed by debt, crippling the development of the domestic
economy—in short, Kant refers to wars between absolutist states
in Europe.79
Absolutist states, as Kant rightly points out, are seen as the property
of the rulers, and wars between absolutist states are generally fought
for territorial gains that, in turn, benefit the rulers as proprietors
of the state, and certainly not the population.
80 See Teschke's analysis of wars between absolutist
states and the defining role of all the characteristics of war
mentioned by Kant. Teschke 2003,
181ff.
This very specific historical situation underlies Kant's central
argument in the First Definitive Article: that the civil constitution
of every state should be republican. Liberal approaches pick up this
ideal of the republican state and demonstrate that contemporary liberal
democratic states fulfill Kant's criteria of a republican
constitution.81
This equation of
contemporary liberal states with Kant's republics has been
challenged on empirical grounds. Critics have pointed out that in
modern liberal states, sections of the population do benefit from wars,
that not all sections of society vote, that liberal states
rarely—if at all—hold referenda on questions of war and
peace, and that liberal populations can be shown to have been in favor
of war.
82 These empirical challenges are not just accidental. They reflect the
systematic differences between absolutist and liberal capitalist
states. For here the government is not the “proprietor” of
the state; instead private actors may indeed gain from wars, and they
are represented in government. Accordingly, there is no need for
referenda on war and peace, and liberal populations have often
supported wars. Hence, the republican constitution is not a solution to
war if the interests represented through it may benefit from war. The
First Definitive Article is, therefore, not automatically relevant for
the contemporary world. While it may plausibly be argued that there is
an institutional “match” between Kant's republics and
contemporary liberal democratic states, this ahistorical institutional
comparison misses the core of Kant's argument—peaceful
policies will be represented through such institutions if and when the
citizens do not gain from war—and it obscures the presence of
specifically liberal interests in war.
In the Second Definitive Article, Kant identifies the security
dilemma at the international level as contributing to wars:
“Peoples, as states, like individuals, may be judged to injure
one another merely by their coexistence in the state of nature”;
and he proposes the Federation of Free States as a solution.83
Liberals understand this federation as an exclusive club
of liberal states, or a separate liberal peace, poised against
aggressive nonliberal states. This interpretation, again, has been
challenged widely. Logically, such a reading contradicts the argument
in the First Definitive Article. If citizens tend to avoid war because
of its costs, they have to avoid all (costly) wars, not just those
against other liberal states.
84 Historically, Kant established guidelines for behavior in a diverse
international system—prior to worldwide liberalism and
peace—and accorded nonliberal Prussia with full rights. He states
clearly that the Federation should gradually encompass all states and
aim only at “the maintenance and security of the freedom of the
state itself” (not its citizens).85
While
Kant clearly expected a “powerful and enlightened” republic
to assist in setting up this Federation of Free States, the latter is
open to all sovereign states, not just to republican or liberal states,
and is designed as a collective security arrangement dealing with
aggression, rather than regime type.
86 In this case, because of the previous equation of liberal states with
peaceful foreign policies, the ahistorical liberal reading misses the
generality of the security dilemma. Ironically, the separate liberal
peace does nothing else but to rearrange the parties to this
dilemma—which is now played out between liberal and nonliberal
states, and may even provide peculiarly liberal grounds for aggression
against nonliberal states, resulting in more rather than less wars.87
Yet the Second
Definitive Article, understood as a response to a general security
dilemma, is eminently relevant for the contemporary diverse states
system.
In the Third Definitive Article, Kant turns to transnational sources
of war and injustice, that is, to the imperialism of his day. Liberal
theorists use this article to underline the pacifying potential of
transnational, particularly economic, interaction.88
On
this basis, they propagate interference in nonliberal states through
private actors and by economic means.
89 While Kant undoubtedly believed in the pacifying potential of
transnational interaction, he clearly identifies the interests of the
“civilized and especially the commercial states” of his
time (Britain and the Netherlands) as the source of imperialism.90
This imperialism was based on the assumed right
to trade, imposed on others; it constituted, according to Kant,
“an injustice carried to terrifying lengths”
91 and thus a
transnational barrier to peace. Consequently, the Third Definitive
Article demands that “The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be
Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality,” which requires
only that a refusal to interact must not lead to the death of the
applicant.
92 Hence,
Kant does not establish a right to trade but rather limits this very
right. Accordingly, China and Japan were not just entirely within their
rights but also wise when they refused the Europeans entry.
93 Trade and other forms
of transnational interaction can be a means to a moral end only if they
are entered into voluntarily by all parties.
The ahistorical reading of liberals picks up on the positive
potential of transnational interaction and overlooks the historically
specific analysis of imperialism. This results in an interpretation
that is diametrically opposed to Kant's article, which identifies
the right to trade as a contribution to injustice and wars. This
blindness to the historical analysis of imperialism, moreover, obscures
its continuing relevance in the contemporary world. For the
perpetrators Kant mentions, Britain and the Netherlands, were the most
advanced liberal capitalist states at the time—not the absolutist
states of the First Definitive Article.
That is, private interests within liberal capitalist states continue
to pursue the opening up of markets abroad, and they continue to enlist
their governments' support, through multilateral and bilateral
arrangements—conditional aid, International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and World Trade Organization (WTO). While the latter agreements are
formally “voluntary,” in light of the desperate economic
dependence of many developing states, they are to all intents and
purposes “imposed.” Moreover, the beneficiaries of these
agreements—sometimes intentionally so, often
unintentionally—turn out to be the rich countries. The Agreement
on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), it
has been argued, turned the WTO into a “royalty collection
agency” for the rich countries. The Structural Adjustment
Programs (SAPs) connected to IMF loans have proven singularly
disastrous for the poor countries but provide huge interest payments to
the rich. In both cases, the “voluntary” signatures of poor
states do not signify consent to the details of the agreement, but
need. Obviously, trade—with liberal or nonliberal states—is
not a moral obligation, yet conditional aid, like IMF and WTO policies,
aims at changing the cultural, economic, and political constitution of
a target state clearly without its consent.
In short, all of these policies use the economic power differentials
to impose a particular order on weaker states. The liberal preference
for economic means of changing the cultural, economic, and political
constitution of nonliberal states thus falls squarely into the category
of activities that Kant intended to rule out as a source of injustice
and war. If historical imperialism had to rely more on military means,
this is arguably because it had to destroy the independent economic
basis of non-European societies before it could establish the very
dependency on which contemporary “informal” means rely.
This discussion also suggests that the cosmopolitan insistence on a
moral distinction between state and private actors94
lacks a social foundation in liberal
capitalist states. Private interests—the East India Company, the
Dutch East India Company—often lay at the heart of imperialism,
and these were simultaneously represented in the government of liberal
states. The same holds for contemporary liberal states, so it is
unclear why the direct representation of private actors in other than
national state organizations—such as the EU or the UN—
should be expected to lead to different policies than their
representation in the state. In short, Kant's Third Definitive
Article is eminently relevant for the contemporary world.
Finally, all liberal approaches give primacy to the domestic
constitution. Yet the three Definitive Articles cannot be ranked in
order of presentation.95
Instead, each of the
three levels—domestic, international, and
cosmopolitan—equally contributes to the development of each of
the others, as well as to the outcome of peace. Wars between liberal
and nonliberal states, or a war-prone international environment in
general, indicate for Kant not just a lack of progress on the
international level, but an environment in which a “fully
developed republican constitution is unattainable.”
96 Historically, Kant's insistence on the
mutually constitutive nature of all three Definitive Articles is borne
out by the frequent limitation of individual rights in the name of
national security—widely acknowledged, yet not consistently
theorized in contemporary liberal thought.
97 In summary, then, consistent with the dialectic between history and
theory, each of Kant's articles is based on an analysis of the
domestic, international, and transnational causes of historically
specific wars. Yet the ahistorical reading of liberals reifies and
prioritizes the republican or liberal constitution—irrespective
of its questionable historical application in the contemporary world.
Furthermore, instead of addressing the general security dilemma through
the Federation of Free States, liberals propagate a separate liberal
peace, thus reconfiguring the security dilemma as one between liberal
and nonliberal states. Finally, instead of recognizing the crucial role
of private interests and transnational interactions in establishing
historical imperialism, liberals propagate precisely these means. This
ahistorical reading of Kant does not just “inhibit criticism of
liberal states themselves” by removing their particular
contributions to international conflict from the analysis;98
it also actively
promotes the private interests and transnational activities lying at
the heart of imperialism, supported by the possibility of state
intervention based on the denial of rights of nonintervention to
nonliberal states on moral grounds.
This justification of imperialist policies stands in stark
contradiction to Kant's passionate anti-imperialism. Arguably, its
real roots can be traced back instead to Mill.
John Stuart Mill and Liberalism
Mill's defense of imperialism, I will now suggest, provides a
perfect match for contemporary liberal thought. Like Kant, Mill derived
the liberal ideals of equality and freedom from a philosophy of
history. But unlike Kant, Mill was an empiricist; he therefore allowed
this history to provide the basis of his political and international
theory.99
A brief look at the contents of this
philosophy of history should serve to clarify this point.
Mill identified four stages of development in history. Of these,
modern civilization is the highest and “distinguishes a wealthy
and powerful nation from savages or barbarians.”100
It is characterized by commerce, manufacture and
agriculture, cooperation and social intercourse, and law, justice, and
protection of people and property; it exists in modern Europe, and
especially in Britain.
101 Furthermore, the mode of government found in
Britain—representative government—is the “ideal type
of a perfect government” because it best allows for the
development of individual liberty.
102 Mill then proceeded to sketch three earlier stages of development in
the history of humankind, for each of which a different form of
government is best suited for progressing to the next stage. There is,
first, the stage of savagery, characterized by personal independence,
the absence of a developed social life, and a lack of discipline either
for unexciting work or for submission to laws.103
Savages must learn to obey, and this is achieved through
slavery and despotism as the appropriate form of government.
104 This second stage of development, slavery, requires a
government “which possesses force, but seldom uses it” in
order to raise the people “from a government of will to one of
law.”
105
Subsequently, one finds the third stage of civilizational development,
barbarism, which is characterized, above all, by “mental”
shortcomings such as an inveterate spirit of locality, passivity,
ignorance, rudeness, attachment to tradition, and general
“positive defects of national character,” making
representative government impossible.
106 Mill did not believe that progression from one stage to the next was
an automatic process: stagnation and even regression are the order of
the day for “large portions of mankind.”107
Historically,
two different roads to civilizational development can be identified.
The first is the exception, namely, government through an indigenous
leader of extraordinary genius; the second is the rule, namely,
government through a culturally superior power carrying the people
“rapidly through several stages of progress, and clearing away
obstacles to improvement which might have lasted indefinitely if the
subject population had been left unassisted to its native tendencies
and chances.”
108 Similar to contemporary liberals, Mill identified the highest stage
of development empirically with European, and especially British,
culture and political organization. This identification necessarily
entails the separation of humanity into a civilized and an uncivilized
part, which provides the basis for two different principles governing
the conduct of international relations.
These “true principles of international morality” are
based on the distinction between culturally superior and inferior
peoples.109
“To suppose that the same
international customs, and the same rules of international morality,
can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between
civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error, and one which no
statesman can fall into.”
110 Mill gives two main
reasons for this distinction:
In the first place, the rules of ordinary international
morality imply reciprocity. But barbarians will not reciprocate. They
cannot be depended on for observing any rules…. In the next place,
nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during
which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered
and held in subjection by foreigners.111
Relations among civilized nations should be governed by the principle
of equality. Mill supported the principle of free trade. He also
suggested that international law and an International Tribunal are
“now one of the most prominent wants of civilized
society.”112
“Among civilized
peoples, members of an equal community of nations, like Christian
Europe,” aggressive war, conquest, and annexation are out of the
question; what needs to be decided in this relationship between
civilized nations is the question of interference.
113 In
general, Mill argued for a principle of nonintervention because
“a government which needs foreign support to enforce the
obedience of its own citizens, is one which ought not to
exist.”
114
Similarly, a people whose desire for, and capability of achieving,
freedom against its own government is not strong enough, will not be
able to retain the freedom given to it by foreign intervention.
115 Ibid., 122. It is this problem, of
intervention between sovereign European states, to which discussions of
Mill in international relations are generally restricted. See Bull 1977, 251f; Beitz
1979, especially part II, chaps. 2 and 3; Vincent 1974, 54–56; Walzer 1992, 87–96; Jackson 1990; and Brown, Nardin,
and Rengger 2002. For a recent detailed discussion of the
development of Mill's position on nonintervention between European
states and its exceptions, see Varouxakis
1997.
The same principle applies to the white settler colonies.116
Mill recommends the continuation of this form of
international organization on the grounds that it can be considered a
step “towards universal peace, and general friendly co-operation
among nations.”
117 The bonds between Britain and its settler colonies make
war between the members of the Commonwealth impossible, protect them
from outside aggression, and prevent them from becoming aggressive
powers in their own right; furthermore, they ensure an open market
between members and add weight to the moral influence of Britain in the
world, that is, to the “Power which, of all in existence, best
understands liberty … and has attained to more conscience and
moral principles in its dealings with foreigners, than any other great
nation seems either to conceive as possible, or recognize as
desirable.”
118
Despite this preference for international integration through
institutions such as the Commonwealth, Mill clearly stated that the
settler colonies are entitled to the full rights of sovereignty and
nonintervention.
In contrast, relations between civilized and barbarian peoples should
take the form of a hierarchy. If the culturally inferior population is
in the majority, as in India, “the conquerors and the conquered
cannot … live together under the same free institutions”
because the absorption of a culturally superior people into an inferior
civilizational stage would be an evil. The conquered have to be
governed by despotism that “is the ideal rule of a free people
over a barbarous or semi-barbarous one.”119
It is clear, then, that Mill did not just utter A Few Words on
Non-Intervention pertaining to sovereign European states, as his
commentators in international relations suggest. Rather, he provided an
overall theory of international relations. What governs the selective
application of the right to sovereignty is the stage of civilizational
development set out in his philosophy of history. Therefore, the
attempt in international relations to separate A Few Words on
Non-Intervention from Mill's “eurocentrism,”
which Brown, Nardin, and Rengger relativize by pointing out that it
only expressed the common prejudice of his time,120
overlooks that precisely this “prejudice”
lies at the heart of Mill's philosophy of history and provides the
principle on which the whole of Mill's theory of international
relations rests.
Moreover, this selective reading also obscures the fact that
Mill's arguments for not extending rights of sovereignty and
nonintervention to noncivilized peoples are perfectly mirrored in
contemporary liberal thought. Firstly, nonliberal or “outlaw
states” are defined by their refusal to comply with international
law—they do not reciprocate—and thus must be denied the
right to sovereignty and nonintervention.121
Secondly,
intervention is an appropriate means to speed up the development toward
liberalism in the interests both of the target population as well as
“of all peoples,” who will be “safer and more
secure” once the sources of “aggressive and
dangerous” behavior are removed.
122 Despite these parallels, there are also some differences between Mill
and contemporary liberals. Most obviously, Mill considered formal
colonial rule the ideal government of barbarians, while this is
certainly not the view of contemporary liberals. However, both
historical evidence and Kant's argument for the republican
constitution demonstrate that the institutional form a hierarchical
international order takes is not decisive. In terms of justification,
Mill and contemporary liberals deny equal rights to nonliberal or
noncivilized states on exactly the same grounds: they are defined as
aggressive and will benefit from the accelerated development of
liberalism or civilization. The realization of such a hierarchical
order, on the other hand, depends on the means available, and here, as
liberals readily point out, the contemporary interdependent world
offers a greater and more efficient range of informal means than were
available in Mill's time.
Yet are Mill's “civilizations” comparable to the
contemporary liberal emphasis on “regime type”? Yes, for
Mill identified “civilization” with representative
government theoretically and practically. While the culturalist version
of the democratic peace thesis mirrors Mill's argument regarding
the mutually constitutive nature of government and cultural development
explicitly, implicitly one finds that such a connection underlies most
liberal thought.
In sum, then, Mill and contemporary liberal thought start from the
empirical identification of liberal ideals in liberal states, leading
to the distinction between liberal and nonliberal, or civilized and
noncivilized, peoples. This distinction requires the application of
particularist, rather than universal, rights of sovereignty and
nonintervention, justifying the “implementation of a foreign
policy of intervention” that “constitutes the fundamental
nature of imperialism.”123
Hence, if contemporary liberal thought has a classical tradition, it
leads back to Mill rather than to Kant, who may be regarded as
“the last of the Continental republicans” rather than the
first liberal.124
Mill, however, provides a
perfect match for contemporary liberal thought—and this not
despite, but because of, the fact that he justified imperialism.
125 The awareness of such a tradition is useful, as Hoffmann has argued,
because “philosophers of history have a disarming way of making
explicit, and even central, assumptions about man, society, and history
which are often repressed but nevertheless operating in all social
scientists' schemes.”126
In
the case of Mill and contemporary liberalism, however, these
assumptions have political implications that require serious and
systematic reflection. As I argue in the next section, a close reading
of Mill is more than a prompt to critical self-reflection; it may also
address part of the predicament of contemporary liberalism.
Mill's Political Theory
The classical roots of contemporary liberalism, I have argued, do not
go back to Kant but rather to Mill, and they do entail the
justification of imperialism. Yet this imperialism, it can be argued,
may still be justified if it successfully reduces international
conflict and spreads individual freedom and equality. It is, however,
at this point that the quagmire deepens beyond rescue. For both Mill
and contemporary liberal thinkers, this move depends, on the one hand,
on the empirical realization of these liberal values in civilized or
liberal states, and on the other hand, on the assumption that liberal
ideals can be realized through the illiberal means of unequal rights.
Unlike contemporary liberals, however, Mill provides a critical
analysis of modern civilization in his political theory, which can
serve as a starting point for a critical assessment of the first claim.
The policies he advocated for the advancement of liberal ideals in
modern society help to problematize the second claim.
Mill's domestic political theory reveals a curious and alarming
inversion of the claims he made in his philosophy of history and his
international theory. The very civilization that represented the
highest stage of the development of individual liberty in the latter is
here depicted as a form of society “which in its uncorrected
influence … has … a tendency to destroy” the
highest goods, namely individual liberty.127
Modern
civilization is characterized by a loss of “individual energy and
courage,” pride and self-reliance, “slavery” to
artificial wants, “the dull unexciting monotony” of life,
absence of individuality, and “great inequalities in wealth and
social rank”; the wants of “the great mass of the people of
civilized countries … are scarcely better provided for than
those of the savage, while they are bound by a thousand fetters in lieu
of the freedom and excitement which are his compensations.”
128 Mill insists that all the inventions of which civilization is so
proud have not “lightened the day's toil of any human
being.”129
Civilization, in his analysis, has neither
initiated material progress for the benefit of human beings, nor
achieved the development of individual liberty. Mill comes to the
conclusion that in the highest form of modern civilization, Britain,
“society is itself the tyrant—society collectively over the
separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannising are
not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its
political functionaries.”
130 Mill's domestic and international thought together, in effect,
demonstrate that different cultures display different forms of the
oppression of individuality and liberty. While this analysis of modern
civilization clearly removes the basis of Mill's claim that modern
civilization uniquely and successfully realizes the ideals of
individual freedom and equality, it also provides a fundamental
challenge for contemporary liberal thought. For Mill demonstrates that
constitutional liberalism does not as such guarantee individual freedom
and equality—on the contrary, it jeopardizes them. Hence, unless
it can be shown that the particularly liberal forms of unfreedom that
Mill identifies as integral tendencies of modern civilization have been
overcome in contemporary liberal states, there is no ground for
according these states more rights than others. Despite these
shortcomings, Mill certainly believed that modern civilization was
superior to other stages of development, and that higher goods
“may yet coexist with civilization.”131
But as
long as this remains a hope, it is not sufficient for the justification
of the despotism of civilization or liberalism over the rest of
humanity.
This hope, however, motivated Mill to work out remedies for these
“vices and miseries of civilization.”132
Ibid., 119. Mill develops the theoretical argument for
the integral tendencies of civilization to suppress individuality
mainly in Civilization, while On Liberty is devoted
to propagating the countermeasures society should adopt.
Yet
as I show below, the remedies themselves rather tend to undermine this
hope. In the domestic sphere, he argues for the protection of the
private sphere from the pressures of public opinion; freedom of thought
and discussion; development of individual genius and mental
superiority; promotion of free trade; support for different forms of
education, including elite education; and weighted suffrage.
133 See Mill 1975,
14, 17ff, 53ff, 88, 98, and 1998b, 335–38.
In addition, in order to diversify and enrich the narrow and limited
tendencies of modern civilization, he prescribes the study of the
“opinions of mankind in all ages and nations,” including
the study of the noble manifestations of the cultures of “Athens,
Sparta, Rome; nay, even barbarians, as the Germans, or still more
unmitigated savages, the wild Indians, and again the Chinese, the
Egyptians, the Arabs.”134
Furthermore, to
counteract the unlimited increase of wealth and population resulting in
the destruction of the earth's “pleasantness” for the
mere purpose of supporting a larger “but not a better or happier
population,” he recommends the abandonment of economic growth in
favor of the stationary state.
135 Thus Mill's remedy for the “vices and miseries of
civilization” is the introduction of as much plurality as
possible in society, which can only be ensured if no community
“has a right to force another to be civilised.”136
Not even in the name of the necessary defense against
barbarism can this right be established, because it would mean the
degeneration of civilization to such an extent that it were better to
be “destroyed and regenerated (like the Western Empire) by
energetic barbarians.”
137 Apart from the fact that these recommendations of cultural diversity,
coexistence, and nonintervention are diametrically opposed to his
international policies of assimilation, hierarchy, and intervention,
Mill supports policies such as weighted suffrage and elite education,
which themselves violate the liberal ideals of freedom and equality.
This contradiction has historically and theoretically been part and
parcel of liberal thought and practice. Whereas all human beings were
supposed to be “born equal, free, and rational,” this
birthright, from Locke onwards, has never been enough; liberal
“political inclusion is contingent upon a qualified capacity to
reason.”138
Hence, the use of illiberal methods must be seen as a central feature
of liberal political reason distinguishing between those who can be
governed through the promotion of liberty and those who cannot.
Traditionally, these distinctions have most commonly been made along
gendered and developmental lines, excluding women, children, the
mentally handicapped, slaves, workers, and so on in the domestic
sphere, as well as non-European cultures in the international sphere,
from rights of freedom and equality.139
In the
domestic sphere, Mill excluded workers from suffrage on the grounds
that their lack of education amounted to a lack of the requisite
reason, while internationally, non-European cultures were excluded on
the same grounds.
140 Mill 1998a, 335–38. See Mehta 1999 for a discussion of the role of
education in raising these groups to the required level of
rationality.
In contemporary liberal thought, too, it is widely assumed that it is
not the actual consent of real, existing people that establishes
legitimacy, but the “hypothetical contract” that
“would be consented to by rational persons” or by
hypothetical “liberal and decent peoples” who are by
definition rational.141
In short, the rationality with which all
human beings are born does not constitute sufficient grounds for equal
rights of freedom. Hence, in propagating unequal rights of sovereignty
and nonintervention, contemporary liberal thought denies the
fundamental claim of equality and freedom as a universal birthright
from which liberal ideals are derived in the first place.
Yet these illiberal means are certainly thought of as a temporary
measure designed to remove barriers to the realization of liberal
ideals by the population, such as autocratic governments. The recent
Iraq war is a case in point. It also demonstrates, however, that should
the population not, or not unanimously, act in accordance with this
expectation, the temporary measures of oppression and violence are
extended in time and become themselves necessary for the forced
development of reason. Thus one has a perfect parallel to Mill's
justification of imperialism, in which despotic government is necessary
to prepare the population for the next stage of civilization.142
Applied to other cases of exclusion from
equal rights, the logic of this argument implies that women, or indeed,
non-European peoples, have only developed the requisite reason for the
rights they now enjoy through the forceful denial of these rights in
the past.
This line of argument, however, certainly denies the
liberal claim that human beings are born equal, free, and
rational—for in that case, there would be no need for force. If
this claim is relativized, then the values spread by liberalism are no
longer equality and freedom, but a particular form of rationality.
Spreading liberal values by illiberal means necessarily betrays these
values.
Contemporary liberal justifications of intervention in nonliberal
states are therefore imperialist, not because of their universality,
but rather because of their particularity. Their starting point is the
claim that only a particular part of the world's population is
actually capable of governing itself. This claim trumps the universal
claim that all human beings are, from birth, endowed with the necessary
reason on which the political rights of freedom and equality rest. It
is this particularist starting point that underlies the justification
of a particular, rather than universal, right of sovereignty and
nonintervention.
A closer reading of Mill, therefore, not only reveals the parallels
with contemporary liberal thought; it also explains the plight of
liberal internationalism. Mill provides an analysis of liberal
capitalist society that demonstrates, at a minimum, that constitutional
liberalism as such does not guarantee individual rights of freedom and
equality, and thus undermines the claim on which the special rights of
such societies rest. Moreover, Mill's attempt to solve these
shortcomings of liberal capitalist societies by illiberal means also
reveals that such methods fundamentally contradict the theoretical
basis of liberalism, and hence cannot be successful in spreading
liberal values domestically or internationally.
Conclusion
A historically sensitive reading of Kant and Mill can explain the
“striking failures” of liberal internationalism in reducing
international conflicts as well as spreading liberal ideals.143
These
failures, however, do not just consist in a nonattainment of these
goals, but rather in an active, if involuntary, contribution to
international conflicts based on the propagation and justification of
imperialist policies.
As I have shown in this article, the whole edilfice of contemporary
liberal thought rests on the assumption that liberal states embody
liberal ideals of freedom and equality that, in turn, make these states
more peaceful than nonliberal states. Yet neither Kant nor Mill, on
closer reading, can provide support for this assumption. Theoretically,
Kant denied the possibility of an empirical identification of such
ideals and, historically, linked the peaceful nature of republican
constitutions to the property relations pertaining to absolutist
states. Mill also demonstrated empirically that representative
government as such could not ensure individual freedom and equality.
Contemporary liberal thought, despite its criticism of liberal
foreign policies and, in the case of Doyle, its perceptive reading of
Kant, persistently fails to take up this critical, reflexive legacy of
its classical forbears. The shortcomings of liberal foreign policies
are seen in their inconsistent application,144
thus leaving unchallenged the unsubstantiated
belief in the peaceful nature of liberalism itself. All liberal
theories argue that the liberal peace has its roots in liberalism
itself—and thus do not just present empirical facts.
In this sense, liberals today write from “within the liberal
world,” identifying problems for that world whose source, by
definition, can only lie with “the vast number of people beyond
its borders.”145
Viewing themselves in this
way, liberal states are by definition confronted with an external
environment populated by nonliberal and aggressive states. The security
dilemma that liberal thought claims to transcend has therefore been
reinserted at the very heart of liberal international
theory—removing the first distinctive pillar on which liberal
contributions to international relations are claimed to rest. It is
this moral superiority of liberalism that provides the grounds not only
for denying similar moral worth to nonliberals, but also for denying
them equal rights of sovereignty and nonintervention.
This specifically liberal security dilemma, however, may not be of
paramount importance if, as liberals assume, all people really aspire
and consent to liberal institutions and values. Where this consent is
absent, it is argued, economic and transnational interaction will soon
demonstrate the benefits of liberalism, thus providing liberals with
nonmilitary means of intervention—and these provide the second
distinctive pillar of liberal internationalism.
Unfortunately, however, both Kant and Mill demonstrate in their
historical analyses that imperialism can have its origins precisely in
the transnational activities of such private actors and their economic
interests. “It has been the destiny of the government of the East
India Company,” says Mill, “to suggest the true theory of
the government of a semi-barbarous dependency by a civilized
country.”146
There can be no clearer expression of the fluency and
inseparability between private interests and government in the
constitution of historical imperialism. There is, then, nothing
inherently peaceful about economic interaction; rather, as Kant
suggests, economic interaction can make a positive contribution if it
is entered into voluntarily.
Yet economic interaction in liberal thought explicitly aims at
changing the cultural, economic, and political constitution of
nonliberal states, and is thus, almost by definition, not entered into
voluntarily. The consequences of the resultant resistance of at least a
part of the population are perfectly described by Mill: “a
civilized government cannot help but having barbarous neighbours: when
it has, it cannot always content itself with a defensive position, one
of mere resistance to aggression.”147
In
defense of its liberty, the civilized government will either have to
conquer these neighbours or to exert so much authority that it breaks
their spirit and they become dependent on it.
148 India, of course, only became Britain's
“neighbor” through the private interests and transnational
interactions of the East India Company. It was this private and
economic “liberty,” represented in the British government,
which then had to be defended.
The very same dynamics are described by Doyle not just for the period
of imperialism but also for that of the Cold War: private property or
free enterprise abroad, when it meets with local resistance, calls for
protection by the state.149
At this point, the
peculiarly liberal security dilemma plays a crucial role. While there
can be no doubt that liberal authors aim to restrict the number of
interventions in comparison to Cold War practice, these restrictions
are always based on prudential grounds.
150 Yet as Doyle has
shown, it is the very assumption of the aggressive nature of nonliberal
states that stands in the way of conflict resolution and generates
additional incentives for intervention.
151 This explains the uncanny historical parallels that can be found in
the ongoing involvement of the United States in Iraq. From the late
1970s onwards, a longer-term attempt to exert influence in the
nonliberal Middle East came to include support for the buildup of
Iraq's military forces, thus incurring a moral responsibility for
its genocidal policies against Kurds and Shiites; the eventual
dismantling of this military power necessarily involved its replacement
with a “liberal” occupation, in effect producing a
dependency—exactly in the way in which Mill described the process
of the British involvement in India.
Moreover, Iraq also demonstrates that liberal justifications of
intervention are based on the nature of nonliberal societies in
general, rather than on their actual behavior. Iraq was aggressive, it
had weapons of mass destruction; when these were not found, it was
aggressive because it surely supported terrorism; lack of evidence for
this still always leaves, by definition for nonliberal states,
aggression against its own population, which calls for intervention.
This explains the ease with which nonliberal states can be added onto
and subtracted from the list of “rogue states” or the
“axis of evil.” The category of “outlaw states”
is problematic not because noncompliance with international law should
go unanswered, but because actual compliance in particular cases are
not the grounds for “liberal” justifications of
intervention. Hence, not all interventions are imperialist, but all
liberal justifications of interventions are.
On the basis of this theory, liberal states face an indefinite
security dilemma whose consequences are a deepening complicity in
unfreedom and inequality internationally. Further, all nonliberal
states permanently live under the threat of force. Finally, in the name
of this security dilemma—the “war on terror,” or
previously, the communist threat—liberal rights in the domestic
sphere are restricted. This liberal security dilemma is not an advance
on its realist counterpart, but generates the same
“self-fulfilling prophecies” from which the latter
suffers.152
The political dynamics resulting from this theory never were confined
to the situation of the Cold War. The revival of imperialist policies
after the end of the Cold War can thus not be blamed on the
extraordinary political challenges of the last decade, or on the nature
of the George W. Bush administration—they arise, after all, from
the very core of liberal international theory that shares its aims,
justifications, and means with imperialism.
