20/1/2009 - A CRITICAL ANALYSIS on COMMONLY KNOWN THEORIES of TRANSITION in

This paper examines a general glance to the socio–economic transformation process in Eastern Europe after the collapse of Soviet Union. Throughout this analysis, the shift in the system as being another turning point for the world history is handled within the sphere of global factors and democratization process applied to the ex-communist countries since mid 80s. The collective sentiments resulted from general approaches put this phase under the umbrella of neo-liberalist or neo-institutionalist theories. However, when the latest developments and the attitudes of western authorities are cosidered, it seems difficult to categorize this stage into such a broad meaning. So, via this study, I tried to prove that “Explaining the politic and socio-economic transition of Eastern Europe only with neo-liberalist or neo-institutionalist approaches is not a true way to analyse what the region faced.”

I reached to the conclusion by covering 5 main subjects. First of all, I started my paper by analysing the emergence of this transition process in the region. Later on, I continued to analyse the generic meaning of both “transition” and “democracy” with what actually they refer in Eastern European case. Thirdly, the importance of leadership was handled as a basic tool to implement leadership. In the fourth part, I re-handled the common theories –neo liberalism and neo institutionalism- in this trasformation period and measured the accuracy of them.  Afterwards, I dealt with attitudes of western states towards Eastern Europe democratization on the grounds of their strategic aims and in the last part, I made a conclusion in an endevour to make a better theoretical analysis to explain transition from communism to capitalism in East European case.

Introduction

“America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world”. William J. Bennett

Democracy is known as the best polity for most of us that is devised so far. However, even if its history lies back to archaic times, it is still the most debated phenomenon in every states’ politics.

This is most probably resulting from its immense promises as in order to satisfy a democratic regime, several provisions should be fulfilled. First of all, a state should have some features such as political pluralism, regular formal elections, division powers, pluralistic approach to socialization in education and media, acceptance of diverse belief system within the limits of law, respect for minority rights and the rule of law. Secondly, it should legitimately encourage these. [1]

There is not any state that carries out a perfect democracy yet, but as we witnessed in 20th century and going on witnessing in 21th one, there are various democracy dictaters. This is not denigrating democracy without which I could ever imagine a life, but not also sharing the same opinion with Mr. Bennett who prouds to bring democracy to other civilizations on behalf of his country.  

Undeniably the most humanitarian invention until today is democracy. However, it is not logical to claim democracy standardization as argued above since it shapes up different forms when applied to various cultures of different countries. Ofcourse, assuming the form of democracy solely depending on the states themselves is seeing just the tip of the iceberg. During the last quarter of the 20th century, developments below evantuated in seven different regions of the world.

Southern Europe – fall of right wing authoritarian regimes

Latin America – the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civillian governments

East & South Asia – decline of authoritarian rule

Soviet Union- breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics

Sub-Saharan Africa - the decline of one-party regimes

Middle East - weak but recognizable liberalizing trend

Eastern Europe – the collapse of communist regimes [2]

All these simultaneous radical changes from dictatorial rule toward more liberal and democratic governance show us a huge convergence to the global capitalist system in several parts of the world. Needless to say, each of these regions experienced a different version of change. However, there is a common reason for all of them hidden in the answers of “How this transformation happened?” and “How that fast?”.

The Eastern Europe case is worth analysing as one of the most interesting “change” in the world history. One of the most important issues here is to understand the real meaning of transformation, since it is not referring to an innocent change.

Transformation Process: How does the story begin?  

In order to understand the basic reasons for this transformation, we should make a proper analyse on the decline process of communism in the region.  One of the basic reasons for this collapse was the legitimacy question. When economic problems augmented, the communist community found itself in the middle of a system which can not produce any resolution. Another factor can be considered as the structural question of communism. After economic politics applied on the industrialized regions, there happened an obvious increase in the literacy rate of the people. However, system was not literate enough to answer for the needs of urbanized community. Indeed, capitalism faced the same kind of emerging problems but the most important detail here is the promises bestowed to people. While collecting consent of the people, capitalism did not promised on not facing these kind of problems while on the other hand communism did. Having no check-balance system and transparent decision making structure, the system digged its own grave. As a result of this failure in the reforming process, growing economic problems, broke off ideologic alliance and an inevitable declining period for the communist system of Eastern Europe started.

On the other hand, west was delivering hope on freedom and prosperity which constituted a devastating consent on people’ s minds. Once ex-communist people overcomed by the “other” ideology, the thought of “Return to Europe” became dominant. This breakdown in several legs of the system created an appropriate athmosphere for the new ideology to walk in easily from the western gates.

Of course substitution of Liberal capitalism in the place of communism was not that much easy, in contrast it was a huge challenge when considering the magnitude of the operation. The transformation process was not composed of only social, economic and political changes but also including security and ethical issues. [3]

This comprehensive and fast integration process for the states of Eastern Europe into the capitalist global economy and the Euro Atlantic structures is defined as international assistance and cooperation, hence voluntarily accepted by states of Central and Eastern Europe for their future development.[4] This definition carries element of truth considering the masses of East European people believing in the “change”. However, the so-called change was not something in the control of their own society, in contrast, it was constituted by the global power in the direction of their own will.

Democracy for Authoritarian Structured Societies

Application of democracy to authoritarian structured societies is one of the basic tasks in this system transformation endeavour however this process is considered as “uneasy” since these societies do not have democratic background. Abuses of human rights and the flouting of democratic norms and practices, whether these referred to suppression of opposition or freedom of expression, or the over- concentration of executive power can be all associated with Eastern European administrational structure. [5] 

The main reason for Eastern Europe having difficulties while transforming the structure into democratic regime connoted to the lack of nongovernmental organization tradition in these states by western governments. This may be true in a way, however, since the pattern of society differs from west, conditioning democracy solely on nonexistent societies is ambigious while there is already a huge “mass organization” capacity in each state.

Besides these, the growing influence of transnational civil society network has increasing sway over governmental decision making. These NGOs had cross-border advocacy networks in Eastern Europe and have great role in shaping political choices in developing countries. According to Gillespie, governments’ incorporation of new ‘ethical’ goals relating to human rights and environmental protection was, they held, primarily a testament to this influence. Crucially, civil society agency was secured not simply through pressure and campaigning, but also through the way in which cross-border networks were able to structure a new discourse on normative values. [6]

The international society highlights the importance of multiparty regime, representative democracy and civil societies in establishing effective democratic regime. However, all these terms were redefined subjective to each state in Eastern European case which shows the essentiality of consideration of identical elements in establishing different cultures into societies.

What indeed needed in a real democracy are a structure, institutions connected to this structure and social forces imposing these institutions’ policies. If these three are not satisfied together, it is not possible to mention democracy in that structure.

Leadership as a Tool to Install Democracy

Destroying an already broken down system ought not to be as challenging as establishing a new one. According to Leslie Holmes, a strong leadership is the most important factors in establishing democracy into an ex-authoritarian state. However, she claims that too much democratization too quickly in several states could be dysfunctional wich ultimately result in new dictatorships. The strong leadership was needed in Eastern Europe states because they had no tradition of democracy, this led emergence of a strong leadership to apply democracy but this leadership evoked dictatorship as the region experienced in its close history and this democratization process turned out to be another version of authoritarian regime. [7]

Addition to her linkage to democratization failure to the regions’ historical process, she urges not to limit region not only territorial, economic and political transition, but also there should be a social, legal, ethical and ideological transformation needed for the construction of a new value system. All these changes required a strong leadership..[8]

Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Institutionalism Illusion

Neo liberal and neo institutionalist approaches are usually considered as having political and socioeconomic reform processes in the region as national processes of elite bargaining and institution building. These approaches’ perception of external and thus the role of international actors on transformation and integration process is worth a critical mentioning of how states of Eastern Europe have been integrated into the ongoing process of systemic restructuring at the global and at the regional European level through the internalisation of historical neo-liberal forms of power and domination. [9]

Neo-liberalism is a phenomenon that represents the transnational circulating capital, individual choices with freedom, the market society, laissez-faire, minimal government while Eastern European governmet patterns were much likely to carry characteristics of strong government, social authoritarianism, disciplined society, hierarchy and subordination and the nation. Akşit claims that, the neo-liberal approach to transformation in Central and Eastern Europe mainly draws on neo-classical economic theory and modernisation theory and claims to combine these with superior western values in formulating clear and unambiguous policy recommendations. Thus, a self regulating free market model to reform the state socialist system will be formed effectively prior to the collapse of the communist party rules. Soon it became a powerful instrument in the region together with international support and unsuccessful attempts of the communist system [10]

In the Neo-liberal context, the global and the international is not problemised adequately. However, there is an implying covergence with the West which requires the transfer of norms, rules and basic institutions of Western capitalism. This approach assumes universal laws as the rules of the ideal model, while lacks historical, political and socioeconomic conditions that are present within the national context. This is the basic reason for us to handle this approach as political rather than social or economic. [11]

The institutionalist approach seeks change and transformation by negotiation, people and institutions. In this way, change is dependent to social relations and historical conditions. On the other hand, existing and inherited institutional structures shape the character of the new orders. By bringing in history and society, role of the institutions the institutionalist approaches provide for an important criticism of the radical neoliberal approach to transformation. But institutionalist approach itself underestimates the dichotomy between internal and external and constitutive role of global factors during the transformation processes.

According to Akşit, Eastern European case departs from these mainstream approaches which have basic and sharp dichotomies between the internal- external, object-subject and action-structure for the interpretations of transformation process. Even the institutionalist approach provides relatively better insights to the situation in the region; the external players’ role should be much more emphasized considering the hegemonic interests of the West. [12]

Strategic Aims of West

The developments of latest 80s in Eastern Europe can not be cosidered as conforming liberal democracy as conventionally defined. Imposing a fast application of democratisation, marketisation and European Integration while proposing transition away from communist party rules, centrally planned economies and Soviet domination were the main targets of the West. Hence, the transformation procedure defined by strategic aims of integration can be concluded as being very much entangled with strategic objectives of the West.

It should be emphasised that wider processes of structural and historical changes are reflected in the changing role and evolving nature of involvement in internal policy making of the states in the region by actors such as the international financial institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and the European Community/Union with an aim to impose upon them neo-liberal forms of development. [13]

The framework which the transformation processes in Eastern European Region has, should be analysed with neo-liberal perspective that creates compromise between capital and labour, which leads to the emergence of a transnational formation. Additionally, the role of state and international organizations undergoes a change in the meaning of their mission and accompanies this globalisation drive. Besides, with the rise of transnational corporations as important actors in the global political economy, the role of states have largely been subordinated to the needs of emerging transnational forces by welcoming and encouraging the growth of foreign direct investment and trade as essential components of development. Another parallel process was the involvement of international financial institutions in the global political economy. The two roles of these institutions (first as structures within which the neoliberal project was legitimised and secured, and second as agents that backed up opening of markets for global finance) was reconfigured in the 1980s as a result of the Mexico crisis and enriched with conditionality which helped them to became significant actors in promoting the primacy of private economic activity and disseminating the neo-liberal strategy of restructuring. Also, interstate treaties play an essential role in the absence of ideological consensus or capacity of neo-liberal forces to bring about transnational regulation of capital markets, as in the case of EU. The European Union approach towards Central and Eastern Europe was presented as a significant instrument that strengthened the role of the EU in the promotion of globalisation process. [14]

In brief, transformation and restructuring in Eastern Europe carry essential elements of integration with the global economy as well as Euro-Atlantic institutions. When states desire to transform their societies they have to take into consideration integration, with added dimensions of conditionality and accession requirements, in forming their transformative policy choices. [15]

Hegemony Project on Eastern Europe

Rather than Neo-liberalist or Neo-institutioalist analysis, a Gramscian approach covers this integration process better as enriched with other perspectives within historical materialism and important concepts in trying to overcome the internal-external divide in understanding the routes of transformation.

Gramsci’s approach assumes that changes within the socio-economic circumstances themselves produce political changes and every relationship of “hegemony” is necessarily an educative relationship. This relationship occurs between various forces that nation is composed of within a nation and between complexes of national and continental civilizations within the international and world-wide field. In the neo-Gramscian sense, hegemony is constructed on a world order which provides a universalistic conception compatible with the interest of most states. However, it is not merely an order among states - as conceived by the mainstream approaches based on the dominance of one country over the others - but an order with a dominant mode of production within the world economy and a complex of social relations at the global level. [16]

As mentioned above, mainstream theories focus only on evaluating the processes according to technical sides of adaptation and adjustment of the policies, rules and norms of the European Union. Such approaches are concerned with an analysis of the levels of governance and institutional form rather than the socioeconomic content of the processes. Thus, the mainstream approaches fail to account for the power and thus the historical roots of social relations of power surrounding the transformation processes in the countries of Eastern Europe whereas Gramsci’ s Critical Theory supplies a more comprehensive analysis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the transformation period of the Eastern states after the communist system collapsed in the region allowed Eastern communities to be imposed by  integration plans of the West.

After experiencing several years’ authoritarian regime, it was inevitable for governments of Eastern block to face difficulties while implementing democratic regimes. Additionaly, the immense contrast between the basic needs of two different method of governance necessiated a radical transformation including social, political, economical, ethical and security issues.

Even the consent of communities indicated the readiness for this transformation, there were other dilemmas such as weak state need of democratic structure. In order to fulfill this transformation, a strong leadership was needed to impose the new way of life. However, this situation was contradicting to the democratization and liberalization plans, which required minimized role of state. As a result of this incongruous process, new forms of authoritarian regimes emerged which paved the way for different forms of crises and left obscurity for whom to blame on behind. West accuses the Eastern states for this failure since they lack civil society network as if it is the mere condition for democratization or avoiding crise.

This fast integration process in Eastern Europe is commonly known as a part of global liberalism flow. Thinking in this way is quite optimistic when considering the strategic interests of western governments. Indeed, this process is not merely composed of national factors but the elements of dialectics between national and the global. In other words, it is a project of democratisation and marketisation of Eastern Europe besides the transition away from central planned economies and Soviet domination. Materialism, intellectual leadership and idealism are basic legs lie under this transformation process which points out Gramsci’ s theory of hegemony projects.

3/1/2009 - MODERNITY DEBATES on DISCUSSING ORIGIN of NATIONALISM

As one of the today’s most popular discussion topics, there are several studies on Nationalism. Especially, the debates on understanding a person’ s state of belonging to a community, or starting point of people’ s national allegiance still remains undecipherable. In order to find answers, we need to know the beginning of the process. So this paper contains a brief analysis on emergence of nationalism and quests whether it is a modern phenomenon or not. Throughout the paper, I will try to analyse these discussions in the light of reputable scholars’s writings of this topic. Afterwards, I will try to find out the importance of this question in understanding nationalism.

Before I started to prepare this paper, I made a mini questionnaire to the people around me and asked them whether nationalism is modern or not. The answers being generally “no” led me think on how the definition of  “nationalism” and “modernity” had gradually underwent a change from their real terms. Different than it is commonly believed in Turkey, nationalism is not equal to aggressiveness in country love expressions. Indeed, it is a modern phenomenon, a product of modernist era, where “modernist” is not referring an individual characteristic.

Even if the scholars or intellectuals are not claiming exactly the same background of nationalism, most of them are in agreement on modern opening of nationalism. According to Ernest Gellner, one of the important factors influential in nationalist sentiment is its relationship with the existence of industrial community. He claims that nationalism and nation are the product of the homogeneous culture, community and political unity whereas homogeneity in the culture can be observed only in the industrialized communities having horizontal relationship between people and equality. We can conclude that nationalism is an intelligence movement in the modern states and the culture that comes with nationalism is a modern elitist culture; high culture, mass education.  On the other hand, the social organization of agrarian society is not favorable at all to the nationalist principle, in the aspects of political and cultural units and school transmitted nature of culture within each political unit. [1] In modern communities, the reason why communities are homogeneous is the interchangible lifestyle they have. This results into homogeneity which leads nationalism. Therefore, nationalism is not primordial, it has a history and starts with the industrialization. In other words; it is modern.

MODERNITY

╙

Industrialization → homogeneity → nationalism → nation

                    ↓                ↓                   ↓                   ↓                  

                                   nationalist sentiments

Nationalist sentiments are exist in primordial times but appears as a result of homogeneity in the culture, like sleeping beauty, waiting for someone to wake her up.

Benedict Anderson does not agree with Gellner’ s flow, as he claims that nations are not a kind of invention but an imaginary phenomenon; an imagined political community both inherently limited and sovereign. The reason for him to define nation as “imagined” is the fact that even in the smallest nations, members of a them will never know most of their fellow members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. [2] He refers the emergence of these artefact communities through the agency of invention of print capitalism. So, according to Anderson, reforms in print technology facilitated printing holy book in vernacular and this advancement ceased the monopoly of Latin. He also emphasizes the decline in religious believes coincide with the emergence of nationalism since these believes have similarities on interpreting world, and nationalism replaced religiousness. Thus, the coalition between Protestantism and print capitalism quickly created large new reading publics and mobilized them for politico religious purposes. This resulted decline of the imagined community of Christendom [3]

MODERNITY

╙

Print capitalism → cease in Latin monopoly → imagined ↔ nationalist sentiments                  

                   ↑                       ↑                             communities
          Decrease in religiousness                            (nations)

Reading from the same language creates imagination and replaces religious sentiments in the form of nationalism.

Like Anderson, Anthony Smith emphasizes the collective characteristics of national identity and claims that it arises within a nation.[4] However, he claims that nationalism is formed as a long and gradual evolution of ethnie -the generic name for culture, history, geography,.. etc for a specific ethnic groups-, which is perrenial and extends back to the beginning of humanity. According to him, nationalism is modern, however the nations that are constituted by ethnics do not have to be modern since in time, nations gain modern features and raise nationalist communities. As a requirement, ethnicity is important to have nation.                                                  

MODERNITY

╙

Ethnicity (myths and symbols)→ nationalism (territorial or ethnic nationalism)

                                                                        ↑

                                                            └→ nations      

Nationalism as an ideology and movement is a phenomenon that dates from the later eighteenth century, while a specifically national sentiment can be discerned little earlier than the late fifteenth or sixteenth centuries in western Europe. [5]  

In brief, according to Smith, nation is a purely modern phenomenon, a product of strictly modern developments like capitalism, bureaucracy and secular utilitarianism.

According to Liah Greenfeld, nationalism is an umbrella and lies at the basis of this world. In order to explain the emergence of idea of nation, she uses zigzag pattern of semantic change which indicates the sovereignty as the result of transformation in the structural conditions. Besides why and how the nationalism emerged, she also quested how natioalism was transformed from one society to another within patterns of culture.[6] There are 3 types of nationalism in her analysis; individualistic civic (like in England), collectivistic civic (like in France) and collectivistic ethnic (like in Russia or Germay). She claims that although the territorial, religious, linguistic and political identity exist before the national identity is formed, nationalism related to nations, not all communities. Because, ethnic is not equal to nation, such as in US case, and national identity is not generic but it is specific to each nation. [7] 

Territorial,  →  nations  →  national identity  &  nationalism 

religious,                                 (specific to each nation)                      

linguistic,

political identity                                           └ MODERNITY

Rather than define nationalism by its modernity, modernity as defined by nationalism. (industrialization, secularization, rationalism, capitalism, democracy, etc.)

The original modern idea of the nation emerged in 16^th century England which was the first nation in the world. When first appeared in England, it had sovereign meaning. However, as it is imported to other countries, it gained particularistic meaning, which Greenfeld called it “transvaluation”. In the nations that nationalism arrived, equality between members of the community phenomenon constituted and this new tendency became a answer to status crisis of 18^th century Europe. Thus, people from every class felt that they have a chance to govern when they could prove doing it better. Therefore, invention, importation of ideas and its ability to solve the crises and national identity is adopted. So the nation is the constitutive element of modernity. National identity is simply the characteristic of nations, while nationalism is a product or reflection of major components of modernization.[8]

In conclusion, according to the studies of scholars and intellectuals, nationalism and modernization are directly linked to each other. After Medieval era, every kind of reform in human’ s life contributed to the advancement of nationalistic sentiments. Especially industrialization period and secondary developments in the world pave the way towards nationalism. As mentioned, there are claims that nationalism is a feeling that meets the same needs of human for religion and replaces it. Even if this may be theoretically true, there is not any significant indication proving this. This can be interpreted as the low level of correlation between religion and modernity.

It is obvious that there are less people who think that nationalism is modern than people who do not so. This common delusion of understanding nationalism within public results into abstinence from nationalist sentiments. Indeed, people should not consider this phonemenon only in a framework of violance, but also within its esteemed features. Because all those emotions do not corrupt mankind, in contrast, they enrich civilizations.

23/11/2008 - PROCESS TOWARDS SECULARIZATION

This paper contains a brief historical process of religion and secularization from the medieval world till today and quests the main reasons for their emergence. Throughout the paper, the analysis focuses on the relation between cause and effect through a review of theories of reputable scholars of this topic.

It can be fairly said that Europe sheltered the most distinct times in Medieval period. What the continent witnessed in those years gradually became the building stones of what today’ s modern society owns. According to Watson, Middle Ages in Europe was experiencing a bothersome but one of the most creative periods of the world history which led to the emergence of the idea of democracy. [1] When the background of its formation is considered, “democracy” implies more than a governmental regime type, but evolution of humanity  through years of bittering experiences. The formation of the idea of secularization is one of the important features that Middle Ages bequeathed us. Today, even if its neccessity is still debated in some societies, we generally assume that secularism is the horsehead which provides states and citizens with fair and effective governance. Of course, this idea did not start in one day; it is the product of hundreds of years of humanity and it has not got only one origin. Actually, every revolutionary step taken for modernity can be assumed as beneficiary but I will handle only the basic reasons for the emergence of secularism. Before focusing on secularization of societies, religions and politics of middle ages should be mentioned in order to understand the historical evolutionary process.

Watson links the process to the fall of Roman Empire in the west, which led Europe to witness a great difficult years by creation of a number of kingdoms formed out of prostrate kingdoms starting from ad 476 to the year 1000. As a result of Great Roman Empire, a universal Latin speaking church that is directed from Rome remained a sense of universality and common membership of Latin Christendom. Even if it has diversities inside such as classes hereditary such as nobility, clergy, townspeople, etc.., the medieval christendom was a single society. The church was an institution responsible from almost everything besides religion. Many innovations were developed and diffused by the church on the areas farming, building, metalworking, seamanship and other arts together with the increasing population, gradually increased the power of the church and even, pope became more powerful than emperor in some parts of the Europe such as France. [2]  

However, ordinary people were not loyal to nobility which resulted into subsequent development of the European international society of states.  Men’ s attempts to defend or alter the ideas and the institutions of  medieval ages  went parallel to the expansion of medieval christendom and the European international system found herself in Renaissance period, in which the questions were being asked whether something is beautiful or ugly, effective or futile, true or untrue rather than right or wrong . [3]

In the Italian renaissance, princes had a great concentration of power in their hands. So, the renaissance Italian contribution was to develop new techniques of acquiring and consolidating real power within a territorial area.[4] On the other side, late medieval Europe was stil organized by universal church; however renaissance and the reformation dislocated this horizontal structure of medieval christendom. With the efforts of Martin Luther who criticised church and Jean Calvin who critisized not only church but also hierarchical structure and tradition of the universal church, religious reformation started to take place in peoples’ minds.

In Spruyt’ s article, modes of nonterritorial organizations are handled and compared with the sovereign states. According to his study, none of feudalism, church or Holy Roman Empire have geographic limits. Having no territorial definition was one of the most important weaknesses of these structures.

The emergence of feudalism can be considered as a precaution for military and monatary difficulties in order to provide local defence. However, the lack of hierarchy, nonexclusiveness  and territorial rule was made the system inevitable to break down. [5]

The basis for the emergence of sovereign, territorial states is a result of clashes between universalist mode of church and empire. Spruyt claims that both of them developed a theory of sovereignty but the main tension between these two is that none recognized territorial boundaries of its authority. Additionaly they were conflicting with each other on divinity and tolerance of pluralism under the Pax Romana of Holy Roman Empire. This was contradictory for the aims of christian conversion of church because christianity was an organization among fellow believers of elsewhere which was a rival to imperial rule. This is one of the reasons that christianity came to florish only after the decline of the empire. [6]

The Church being a cultural, economic and political actor and not delimiting its territorial authority in any territorial sense but advancing universalist claim to rule over the christian community of believers came to the conclusion of problems with requirements on formal border existence. Legitimacy was denied, fragmentation started and the struggle led to new modes of organizing and justifying rule. The decline of power of the church engendered several results in Europe. One of them is Westphalia System which means legitimizing commonwealth of sovereign states.

As it is obviously seen, modern international constitutions are the product of religious background of Europe. Today, there are some debates on the roots of modern international relations or the roots of Westphalia. According to Phillpott, the christian Reformation is not the only cause of emergence of sovereignty however one of the basic causes, a crucial source. He claims that there are several long term dynamics which contributed to the process but the sparking reason is protestant reformation. [7]

When the forms of these reformations are handled which were analyzed by Philpott, we see origin of sovereignty occured by three ways. Reformation from below- public forces the above society, that Germay, Netherlands and Transylvania experienced-, from above – elites forces the others, like in Sweden, England and Denmark -  and as politique solution in order to have sovereignty like in France. [8]

These evolutions developed the foundations of secular understadings. Peter Berger in his study that analyze the elements of sociological theory of religion, claims that  the process of secularization is first employed in the wake of the wars of religion to denote the removal of territory or property from the control of ecclesiastical authorities. And additonally, protestantism served as a historically decisive prelude to secularization. However, he argues that the roots of secularization are also to be found in the earliest available sources for the religion of ancient Israel in the old testament under the meaning of “disenchantment of the world”. [9] But he adds, the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms of this world and the world after this in which the autonomy of the secular world is actually given a theological legitimation. The protestant revolution is a reemergence of secularizing forces that had been contained by catholicism, not only replicating the old testament in this but going beyond. [10] Berger attain the reason for it to happen in the modern west is the religious traadition of the modern west.

Wallis and Bruce, point out the study of August Comte who devised the search for a “Religion of Humanity” and emphasize the social change. However according to Walis and Bruce,  while the idea of science gradually taking the place of religion, it has had a great influence over the general public. But the consequences were perceived as a social change rather than intellectual advance by Marx, Weber and Durkheim who accepted the theory as a long term trend. [11]

According to some historians, the turning point was the eighteenth century enlightenment. A second approach is the industrial revolution that has a massive shift of populations from villages to towns from 1800 onwards while the third approach is developments in science, philosophy and the study of religion around the middle of the nineteenth century (Darwin, as a central figure) from 1960 onward, a much more rapid decline in religious practice. McLeod gathers together these as : the march of science, modernisation, postmodernity and selling god.

In Lapidus’ article which treats state and religion in Islamic societies, shows the difference of  islamic societies from western societies in that they do not have a church institution. In these societies, state and religion are embodied in the same person. On the other hand, western style seperates the state and religious institutions. This can be considered as the result of rival between church and Roman State since the christian churches born in opposition to the the empire and evolved as independent institutions. [12]

On this issue Taylor claims that although people think that secularism can not be applied to other cultures, it is a wrong thinking. There were great overlap and great conflict between church and the state, but in all versions and on all sides it was axiomatic that there had to be a separation of spheres. The origin point of modern western secularism was the wars of religion and the need was felt for a ground of coexistence for christians of different confessional persuations. There are different strategies; firstly, the aim was to establish a certain ethic of peaceful coexistence and political order while still christian which is called as the common ground strategy. And secondly, trying to define an independent political ethic independent from our religious beliefs altogether. Taylor claims that the common ground approach challenges the independent ethic while an independent political ethic is difficult to sustain. So, he suggests another approach which is consensus view for today’ s diversified societies which aims to respect diversity of such understandings while building consensus on the ethic. [13]

In conclusion, the process starting from old testament, protestantism, wars of religion, Westphalia, enlightenment period, industrial revolution and scientific developments have significant contributions to the development of secularism. Ofcourse, there are several additional factors which shaped today’ s understanding of secularism, but when we look at the basic reasons behind that, the effects of religion is undeniable.

8/8/2007 - FLEXIBLE LEGALITY on the GROUNDS of HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

Abstract

This paper contains examining the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions from the First World War (WW1) until today. During the paper, the main subject was tried to be explained by evaluating actions of institutions (especially United Nations) and great powers (especially US). Formation of assertive multilateralism and the connection between international law and international politics tried to be worked up with support of scholars’ views and statistical analysis.

Introduction

The term “humanitarian interventions” replaced some other intervention models such as “intervention to protect same-religion communities” or “imperial interventions”, and became a popular concept in 20th century. Two world wars and increasing sovereignty claims were important reasons for the last century for witnessing several humanitarian interventions.

The meaning of “humanitarian interventions” initially connotes an intervention on behalf of humanitarion reasons like abuse of human rights on democracy, education, health, etc.. by local government. So, theoratically, the main purpose in an humanitarian intervention should be an ethical action like “intervening for civilizing”. However, when we consider the history of interventions under the name of humanitarian, we see dominance of international politics in the approaches and violation of international law. Then a legitimacy question arises:

“When we consider the humanitarian interventions in the period from WW1 until today, is it possible to say these interventions have valid international legitimacy?”

In this paper, I will try to analyze the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions from the WW1 until today, and try to reach the answer by examining the changes in the meaning of humanitarian intervention, its mode of usage by super powers and approaches of super powers towards its legitimization. The historical background of the events with their statistical analysis are also given to clarify the actual situation of humanitarian intervention in internatioal arena.

Brief history of Humanitarian Interventions (since WWI )

As being an intervention consept, humanitarian interventions became popular after the WW1, in connection with Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points which started a phase based on sovereignty questions. The aim of League of Nations’ (LoN) establishment was basically on preventing wars by a legitimate covenant, however, the structure collapsed and became antiquated with the outbreak of WW2, the new era came closer to a more realistic world order which takes wars for granted. From the humanitarian point of view, the most important thing to be specified here should be the reasons for failure of LoN.  Manchurian crisis by Japan aggression, Ethiopian crisis of Italy, western Europe’s invasion by Germany were all violation of the covenant.  The main actors of the covenant (hegemon powers then) being also the agressor sides during the post WW1 era, destructed the belief of a peaceful world that people were dreming of. 

After WW2, instead of LoN, UN charter undertakes the pacific settlement of disputes role. It has more authority than LoN and this time the mission was more focused on to optimize circumstances in case of a war, rather than preventing it. Great powers’ position as being main actors kept on like it was in LON covenant.

One of the important differences of this era from others is that, in spite there were brutal interventions such as Vietnam and Korea, the word “humanitarian” met its least popularity because of ideological discourses of US-USSR then.

In contrast to the post cold war era, when we have a look at the years 1990s, we see a huge emphasize on the term “humanitarian interventions” . The decade witnessed several interventions which were pointed out by humanitarian reasons, however, most of them resulted as humanitarian disasters.

According to Kurth, the humanitarian crisis of 90s led new attention to humanitarian interventions. Beginning with high hopes but turning into massive human rights abuses or large- scale massacres, made a change in people’s approaches towards UN capability on intervention issues. UN’s failure in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda replaced by US successes in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, East Timor,..etc which lead into a common sense on US’s being sole super power. However, he claims that, in spite of huge developments in the law and theory of humanitarian intervention, the actual practice of it has been in decline. [1]

On the other hand, when we have a look at the recent years’ interventions, we hardly met any effective one. US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are seen as the most important humanitarian interventions of 2000s. However, the actions taken in these places by US can be interpreted as “wars” rather than “interventions”. In spite the discourses of Bush administration were abuses of human rights and treat to international security, the afterwards events proved that the actual aim of western world is bringing liberal and democratic order and make the region as a part of globalization which means, as a part of their political and economic interest.

Institutional Involvement

The search for pacific settlement of disputes in the twentieth century came with debates on its necessity in world politics. The Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907 had its initial attempts for third parties involvement while LoN Covenant enshrined with its Articles 11-13, 15, 17. And, after WW2, Chapter VI of UN Charter underlined the legitimacy of international disputes by nominating organizations such as Organization of American States, the League of Arab States, the Organization of African Unity, and also security organizations like NATO and the Warsaw Pact and, to a lesser extent, political bodies like the Council of Europe as legitimate bodies. According to the charter, individual states, notably the major powers of the interwar period and the super powers since 1945, have also been involved in the resolution of conflicts, crises, and disputes. [2]

In general; the main actions of UN Charter underlined as managing verbal passive commitments, field operations, mediation, economic/ military sanction and military presence to ceasefire.

According to Kurth, a humanitarian intervention requires a political authority to decide upon and authorize it and a military force to carry it out. Therefore, these requirements are met by some nation states such as US or Britain, regional organizations such as NATO or European Union or universal ones like UN. In practice, there is a correlation between the kind of political authority and the kind of military force like UN has peace keeping forces while US has military units.[3]

Independent from the theory, when we consider the ability of institutions, there are several reasons for us to have hesitations on them. For instance, in spite of playing important role in humanitarian issues, United Nations has a pivotal position in US policy planning. As Lewis claims, UN’s place can be nominated as part of strategy for multilateralism.[4]

In Somalia example, the UN forces first had to be rescued by U.S. forces, and then both withdrew and left the Somalis in chaos while in Bosnia, the UN forces did not stop the ethnic massacres, which resulted in the murder of 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. In addition to these, in Sierra Leone, the UN forces had to be rescued by British forces, who then carried out an effective intervention. And in Rwanda, the UN forces were prevented by the UN leadership in New York from stopping the genocide of 800,000 Tutsi. [5]

Besides the unsuccessful results of UN actions, some characteristics of the charter should be analyzed in detail. The Charter underlines interventions in order to avoid the existence of a threat of international peace but does not specify the features of a possible threat exactly. Additionally, there are some uncertain expressions. For example; The Charter recognized "the inherent right of individual or collective self defense if an armed attack occurs" (Article 51), but at the same time prohibited "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations". Thus, the charter itself draws an unclear image which leads to a flexible application of the law.

One of the most important reasons for UN’s failure in playing role in humanitarian crisis was about timing. Since timing is vitally important in humanitarian issues, when a sudden war reveals, UN should act immediately. However, UN’s performance on deciding or acting fast resulted into unrecoverable time loss.

According to Tillema and Van Wingen, the best known strict interpretation of the charter's rules against the use of force is belongs Brownlie (1963). From the Brownlie's point of view, the law of the charter permits states to use armed force within other countries in only a few circumstances: (1) in response to armed attack against self until the UN has an opportunity to take action; (2) in subject territories, and also in territories of shared sovereignty (including protectorates and trusteeships), provided that force is not used to change completely the legal status of the territory; (3) by consent of the established local government under treaty, or at the specific request of the established government, provided that the requesting government is not challenged in its own country, or if it is challenged, that the rebels receive foreign assistance; or (4) by approval of a competent organ of the UN.[6]

In the study of  Wilkenfeld and Brecher, the statistical analysis of UN’s performance on international crisis between the years 1945- 1975, it is cleraly seen that, UN became involved in only slightly more than a half of all crises which occurred in the international system, and of these cases, was judged to be effective in only one-third. Some other facts according to the results of UN’s effectiveness statistical analysis are like below:

l       UN was considered to have been effective in terms of crisis abatement in only 18% of all the international crises.

l       The number of UN intervention increases together with the involvement of superpowers.

l       The higher the level of UN activity, the longer the duration of the crisis.

l       It helps signing agreements but not helpful to decrease tension.

The findings clearly reveal that UN involvement becomes more probable as the number of crisis actors increases. As the level of involvement of the superpowers increased, the probability of UN involvement also increased. Besides, there seems a tendency towards termination in agreement in case of UN involvement which can be regarded as a success of the organization. However, when we consider the data generally, neither resolute action nor effectiveness of UN appears in the duration.[7]

Great Power’s Approaches and Assertive Multilateralism

In the world’s history of intervention, great powers always played the main role.  Especially in 20^th century, by the increasing popularity of humanitarian reasons credibility, gaining consent of people for intervening in somewhere became more facile. According to the records, Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union have conducted more than 70 military interventions in foreign lands between the years 1946 and 1975.[8] Theoretically, it is not so unusual for a great power to intervene since an intervention’s requirements. However, by analyzing the details, the picture shows that things are not as innocent as we are being told so.

First of all, a great power’s intervention always includes political interest of it. This approach can be interpreted in the frame of state’s realism. By the beginning of WW2, the existence of wars had understood and flow of realism had restarted. Realism is known as immoral way of thinking because of material and power interest, as the proponent of offensive realism, John Mearsheimer pointed out: gaining power is the best way to survive, so they don’t pay attention to values. [9] In spite some realist such as E.H. Carr claims that realists want to make world order more humane but in the limits of what anarchy allows, this can not be a clear and understandable explanation since not clarifying the difference between facts and values. [10]

So, a state with a deep power obsession can not behave in ethical frame while trying to sustain its hegemony. In order to understand better, we should consider US example.   

The actual practice of humanitarian intervention has declined because of some globalization and liberal democracy concerns of US. Today Africa has greatest need for humanitarian interventions and only US is capable to do so but it has not political will on the area.  So, the reluctance of US on intervening to Africa continent can be interpreted as not being beneficial strategically enough for US.[11]

On the other hand, the recent Iraq issue has proved US capability and reluctance on humanitarian issues. Instead of pursuing humanitarian interventions, the United States has engaged in two wars, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, which the Bush administration justified in human rights terms.[12] According to Kurth, it seems impossible for the US to undertake any humanitarian intervention in the foreseeable future. However, I am not agree with him. When we consider the behavior of international organizations, their role is nothing different than supporting sole power’s actions. This is not by chance, of course, the organization itself is established by these great powers and the legitimacy can be converted into something else as the circumstances change. This situation evolves and turns into a situation called assertive multilateralism, which means defining an organization, composing sides, codifying rules and as a result minimizing the obstacles in every case of international politics. Now, members express their concern according to the meaning and content of the strategy, most notably: what strategic U.S. interests are to be engaged; when and where the U.S. will intervene when such interests are not at serious risk. [13]

Conclusion

Through historical expansions, statistical analysis and with the support of scholars’ views, I tried to handle humanitarian issue from the years of WW1 until today. Since my core question is aiming to examine the legality aspect of all these interventions, I preferred to mention institutional involvement which focused on UN basically, and great powers’ (especially US) approaches towards humanitarian issues.

As a result of my study, I have clearly seen that, historical record of humanitarian interventions is more one of failure than success. The reasons for these failures emanate from several parameters. Only major powers have modern military and intervention capability and this makes them main actors beside institutions in an intervention. However, international organizations’ main actors are also the great powers and  usually, intervention may depend on political interests of states who intervene. When all these factors come together, they form a vicious circle. Then, the answer of our question becomes clearer; of course it is usual that all these interventions are not having international legitimacy. If there is an exact international law, they can not give shape to the legitamacy of different kinds of interventions to different countries, under different circumstances, and it either makes their actions illegal or avoid them to fulfill aims on their political interest. Instead, they choose to strengthen their hands by multilateralism, self-assertively.