Transforming the International System: Culture, Identity, Rights, Justice, and Islamic Diversity - Essay Example

? Transforming the International System: Culture, Identity, Rights, Justice, and Islamic Diversity A Discussion Paper 4341 words Name of Student Name of University Introduction John Ruggie, distinguished professor in Human Rights and International Affairs, once asked, “What makes the world hang together in the international sense?”1 This question seems plain and simple on the surface, yet it has posed a very difficult challenge to International Relations (IR) scholars. This question can only be understood by situating it in the perspective of what remains the recognised form of inquiry in IR. This task shows that the prevailing themes of IR have long rejected the thought that something could be critically ambiguous, or really confusing, in the manner in which the international community is glued as one.2 This paper presents theoretical and concrete explanations for the contemporary transformations in the international system brought about by culture and rights claims; the analytical band created by the notions of culture, identities, rights, justice, and Islamic politics functions as the key ‘transformative’ instrument in our discussion. The Contemporary International System (Since) no shared vocabulary exists in the literature to depict change and continuity... we are not very good as a discipline at studying the possibility of fundamental discontinuity in the international system.3 Presently, the field of International Relations is in the brink of a revolutionary theoretical restructuring certainly because change appears to be ever-present in the modern-day world. However, there is no theoretical explanation of it since there is no agreement on the ‘meaning’ of change, or how it is recognised. This is bizarre, as key schools of thought debated over contradictory perceptions of the human state.4 Definitely, it is logical to assume that the remarkable debates among IR scholars have been inherent assumptions about the nature, possibilities, and outcomes of change. Alongside other aspects that tell apart the different arguments and schools of international theory, ‘changeability’ has been a key point of contention.5 However, there is more than merely transformation in theoretical perspectives. Ever more, IR theorists are arguing about deep-seated changes. The contemporary period is characterised not of insignificant growth and decline, and changes, but of deviation from the past. Yoshikazu Sakamoto (1994) defines the contemporary period as a new age requiring major changes. Rey Koslowski and Friederich Kratochwil (1994) claim that the Cold War’s aftermath represented a ‘transformation’ of the international order, a system change. An entire vocabulary has raided the discourse. ‘The borderless world,’ ‘interdependence,’ ‘the global village,’ ‘new millennium’, and ‘globalisation’, and others, indicate that we have crossed the threshold, or are crossing the threshold, of a new age or period where in modern-day issues, institutions, traditions, and knowledge of international relations are basically dissimilar from their forerunners.6 However, mainstream terms, although suggestive of aspects that are distinct, do not take the place of thorough inquiry and analysis. Absent in all of this assertion of newness is an agreement not simply on what has transformed but as well as on how we can differentiate insignificant change from major change, occurrences from changes, and development or demise from new structures. The academic issues are concrete and theoretical alike. Culture ‘Culture’, prior to its anthropological representation, denoted refinement. Cultural anthropologists have revised the notion of culture to encompass not only the educated and urbane elite, but to everybody. According to Clifford Geertz, “Culture... is not just an ornament of human existence but... an essential condition for it... There is no such thing as a human nature independent of culture.”7 Thus, all human beings are cultured. Yet in spite of this, it appears unquestionable that culture as people’s ‘way of life’ is ambiguous nowadays: ‘there is so much diversity and interrelation within each different society that we can no longer easily speak of ‘Japanese culture,’ or ‘American culture,’ or ‘Chinese culture’ as unified, distinctive wholes, as opposed to other unified, distinctive wholes.’8 The other definition of culture, which is “the information and identities available from the global cultural supermarket”9, appears especially uncertain. Evidently culture has become to some extent an issue of individual preference; in part, individuals seem to prefer and decide culturally our own identity. Nevertheless, our preferences are not without restraint, but determined by our gender, socioeconomic standing, age, and national culture, among other aspects. Hence, these two definitions of culture—(1) a way of life, and (2) ‘information and identities available from the global cultural supermarket’10 (5)—function to characterise features of the contemporary world, yet none of these two is adequate to allow a genuine interpretation of what culture denotes. One explanation why these definitions are inadequate is that they embody two conflicting factors influencing culture at present: the market and the state.11 The field of International Relations has commonly disregarded culture as appropriate or important to its interests. The most dominant types of research have investigated relations among states that depend on prosperity and power. The existing realist perspective of IR, although toned down by neorealist revisions, are fixated with matters of abilities and conflict viewed as issues of ‘political economy’ or ‘security’ due to the dominance of self-governing state actors.12 The integral focus of IR theory, from Thucydides to Kissinger, explores how key political actors try to achieve their goals and promote their interests given the nonexistence of law, morality, community, and government at the international arena.13 Therefore, IR’s history is ruled by conflicts and peace negotiations. Cultural influences and differences can be taken in by a realist perspective of IR, but merely in a limited way. Various cultural influences can be considered as significant to the external and internal success of a political player, or as crafting the form of leadership and government. The superiority of Western societies has usually been discussed in cultural terms linked to the emancipation of reason from the control of religion.14 The Renaissance witnessed the rise of reasons as the instrument of societal modernisation, mainly through science and technology, produced a phenomenon of sped up growth in the major West European societies. Specifically, culture strengthens variations in ‘civilisational’ abilities, particularly if these abilities are determined by the materialist standards of development related with modernisation.15 Still, intangible standards of satisfaction or fulfilment associated with a sense of personal comfort and social unity may be weakened by the core types of efficiency needed to generate material growth. Scholars who highlight the cultural foundation of political action are usually inclined to consider the civilisation, instead of the state, as the correct unit of analysis.16 Consequently, cultural identity is more certainly linked with a non-territorial concept (e.g. Oriental, the West) than with any specific territorial player, such as the United States.17 At this point, it becomes clear why IR with its focus on clashes among states will find it futile to consider cultural aspects that appear to direct towards the interaction of civilisation. Yet, because civilisations, per se, seldom take part in warfare, their history appears related more with religion and art than with politics.18 The paradigm of modernism linked to the emergence of the West is the core intellectual setting against which ideas about IR grew. The shift from feudalism to modernism was manifested within the West by a change in focus by legal scholars from natural law to legal positivism, in particular, from an order of fundamental norms and principles depending on power and revelation to an order resting on the indirect or direct presentation of approval by territorial states, which turned out to be the elite group of the political player qualified for complete membership in international order.19 Indeed, in spite of the generalising predispositions of IR experts, it seems apparent that the initial stages of statist (precedence of state over the economy)20 IR were a manifestation of European regional expansion. The IR argument was ambiguous in several regards, as well as its inclination to mask dynamics of interstate control, particularly as between the world and Europe.21 Lingering within this cultural heritage of the West, as cultivated and changed over the centuries by major religious practices and traditions, were a number of perilous ideas that are still a strong influence on political consciousness; in particular, there was in this heritage a profoundly implanted idea of ‘chosen people’ as honoured mediums of development free to wield influence by some fundamental assignment that is afterward retraced to an original agreement between the Jewish people and Yahweh.22 Still, this biblical legend is understood and it gives a justification for a doctrine of supremacy and an obligation to insist one’s cultural traditions on those that refuse to accept. This imagery rooted in the wrecking nature of the wicked other can be non-religiously interpreted. The wicked that is to be eliminated has become cold-blooded capitalism or barbaric communism in the conflicting materialist measure of ideals. The original arguments of religious dissent have crumpled, at least literally; likewise, the ‘righteous’ may be the components of ‘socialism’ or of ‘democracy,’ or the other concepts of ‘property’ against socialism and state development, and ‘the market’.23 Or, as has occurred in recent times, both models can meet on a common allegiance to modernisation. In the 20th century, the modernist or Western cultural model has been divided into two major historical lines from the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution. The civil war wreaking havoc in the West on matters of property rights and class rule has recognised as shared basis the core thought that the growth of human society rests on the ever more competent organisation of productive factors.24 Marxism expanded the capitalist model of materialism by consolidating power within socialism, but viewpoints towards nature and development were impossible to tell apart. Both viewpoints aimed for quick and utmost economic prosperity and both took for granted the exteriors of industrialisation.25 The two viewpoints created ‘realists’ in the area of IR, whether the medium was that of power balance or abilities analysis or that of the relationship of forces. And the two viewpoints recognised the state as the essential political player in IR for the projected future.26 Hence, socialism or Marxism, and capitalism or liberalism provides the non-Western civilisations with the two central features of modernism as formulated by the Western world. This discerning presentation of the Western cultural heritage assists in focusing a preliminary group of assumptions about IR as an explanation of the patterns and actions of territorial independent states. To begin with, there is a hidden conflict between collective aims and personal integrity that becomes obvious once cultural aspects are taken into consideration. This conflict operates logically, and may contribute to the explanation for the creativity and adaptability of Western societies as cultural spaces.27 The nature of this conflict stems from the societal interaction between expansionist motives that are embedded in doctrines of supremacy and the decisive counterattack against evil conduct that originates from a cultural dedication to reason and principles, and through these, to establish the individual’s place. In this sense, the role of the West has been in contrast to that of non-Western civilisations, anti-hegemonic and hegemonic, diffusing as an outcome of its supremacy the core thoughts that can be reread to establish the normative basis for the struggle of the oppressed28. What appears obvious is that a tough cultural identity can serve an important function in protecting the absolute autonomy of non-Western societies in the contemporary period, but not essentially in an advantageous way, at least as determined by generally shared international norms of democracy and human rights. Identity As defined by Stuart Hall, “identities are points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us.” 29 Nevertheless, a crucial question is the effect of this definition on the way people look at things if the contemporary world is actually moving towards globalisation, or towards a more profound ‘internationalisation’ as several detractors of globalisation claim. If the preservation of boundaries is vital to identity building and maintenance, between and within populations, and if there are connections between the international political order and the global economy, then the so-called trend of de-bordering possibly assumes relevance outside issues of political economy.30 A borderless order, in extreme terms, would be a world where in identity was challenged. In a way, this would represent an ‘end of history’.31 In the framework of identity formation, civil society is the site of conflict, competition, and economic functions. This competitive setting is a requirement of individual growth, if individuals stay within the unrestricted support system Hegel refers to as the ‘family’, individuals will fail to enhance their capabilities, but it is important as well that this process of putting people in a competition is not the ultimate objective.32 A degree of fullness has to be rebuilt by the state or, in particular, a political setting where civil society’s inequities are counteracted by the concept of equal citizenship and, possibly, an equal input to the overall societal arrangements. The fundamental premise is that the state and civil society encompass similar ground33—what will happen otherwise? Can the state continue its centralising role when the civil society under consideration extends over a broader space than is restricted by the political power? Using the European example as a lead, we can understand how the dynamics operate or, instead, fail to operate. Events in the global economy and European integration have formed a sort of Europe, broad civil society, yet one that works in the absence of support from the European state. Hence, for instance, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and British hunters vie with each other for hunts in this recently surfacing European civil society, yet the tensions this contest unavoidably creates cannot be resolved by the political mechanism since Europe remains a geographical demonstration, a region with a border, yet not a state.34 A European identity is absent. The European Union’s (EU) organisations make choices, but not choices that are recognised as binding and trustworthy. Rather, the impact of the European civil society is to weaken the political powers that are non-existent.35 For instance, The British state is unable to satisfy Cornish fishermen, unable to reconcile them to the law, get them to understand that the law, in some sense, represents their will, because the problems they face transcend the boundaries of the British state.36 Thus the depression called ‘Euroscepticism’ in Britain—even though this is misnamed, since the issue is not raised by the EU. In fact, the EU could be the answer, not the issue.37 If a true European identity were to materialise, these types of conflicts would be resolvable by the political mechanism, and the existing absence of a definite sense of the connection between nation and civil society would eventually be viewed as the outcome of a transition phase.38 Nevertheless, a modified European identity founded by a European state could resolve these intra-European inconsistencies, yet the mechanism could not be simplified to create a framework for the global division between international political powers and international civil society created by globalisation. Identity is uniqueness. There is no valid explanation why a European identity would not be able to slowly overtake Portuguese or French identities, yet there is valid explanation why an international identity would not be able to supplant Japanese, American, or European identities. 39This international identity would possess no boundary, no understanding of the Other. Rather, the growth of a truly global economy would generate tensions between individuals while getting rid of the opportunities to mitigate these tensions40—except, to be precise, the dynamics of globalisation forge a new difference and identity structure at the same time that the obsolete structure is abolished. Recently the issue of community in international relations has been explained ever more in relation to the cosmopolitan/communitarian split. As argued by Chris Brown the split between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism relates to the debate over whether the group or the state embodies the boundary of human community. Brown claims, cosmopolitans give absolute moral importance to the group and the individual, whereas communitarians position it in the national or local community, or the relationship of the individual to the community.41 Integral to this discussion have been the issues of cultural diversity and universal justice. As it is presently, the identification of the issue of community in international relations proposes that universal justice and cultural diversity are essentially antithetical. On one hand, cosmopolitans are advocating human community membership and universal justice without regard for the membership of specific communities and cultural diversity.42 Communitarians, on the other hand, are opposed to universal initiatives and view any effort to build universal moral concepts as essentially detrimental of the specific communities where in people live. The nature of this problem with regard to a disagreement has implied that universal cosmopolitan justice is still viewed as opposed to the objective of preserving cultural diversity.43 The split between cosmopolitans and communitarians, hence, reaffirms the conflict between diversity and community. Human Rights Claims The concept of universal human rights is a concern in contemporary IR that evidently expresses the arguments of cosmopolitanism. The quest of universal human rights and their establishment as a global standard ever since the end of World War II are of decisive relevance to the objective of forming a cosmopolitan community for a number of grounds. First, universal human rights are the most definite demonstration of a moral universalism which transcends states’ morality, obvious in the contemporary international system. Per se, the integration of human rights into the standards of the international order is a dedication to the concept of universal human community.44 The dedication to human rights shows that states, and the people, have responsibilities and commitments to humanity that are above the duties they have to preserve peace and order. Second, the universal human rights standards, in a way, support majority of other regulating trends in the international system, such as the transition from a pluralist to a solidarist perspective.45 Moreover, human rights are a primary emphasis for discourses concerning the rights to cultural diversity. In this sense, they can be viewed as a framework example on how a communicative strategy can notify moral discussions in IR.46 Ultimately, any idea of cosmopolitanism should be enlightened by some form of universal human right to take part in discourse. Justice The end of the Cold War saw a remarkable growth in support for the assumption that international order can, and should, aim to advance greater justice, just like the expansion plan of human rights, the evident identification and ability to address violence within states, and the pronounced obligation of a renewed international system to give assistance to the victims of hostilities. Furthermore, there were more and more compelling claims during the 1990s that peace and stability relied on the fulfilment of justice and rights claims; for instance, that order was institutionalised with the abolition of oppressive, undemocratic, and despotic governments, or that greater justice was an integral condition of global sustainability.47 Rather than being simply an absolute expression to suggest a consideration for morality and ethics, a more sound international justice programme can be determined, within current global political practices and in the sudden growth of scholarly works on international normative theory: the proposal that everyone should obtain and be given what is due to or appropriate for them; the notion that international legal privileges, obligations, and rights should be valued and addressed and that unlawful activity be penalised wherever it takes place; and the broader idea that the key global and international economic, political, and social foundations that decide the allocation of obligations and rights should be structured and, if needed, reorganised according to ideals of global social justice.48 The limited idea of what the international system can, or should, aim to, and the advantaged position that it granted to a restricted power-political structure developed around the self-governing state, has historically confronted a range of influential detractors. However, during the 20th century it was questioned by more solidarist, comprehensive ideas of peace and stability.49 What peoples and states think reasonable to expect from the international system, or from the largely debated international society, has grew dramatically. Hence a modestly suitable concept of order is more and more recognised to include the formation of international policies that profoundly influence the local organisations and structure of states, that provide groups and individuals within states obligations and rights, and that aim to represent an idea of an international common good. This has required a change in the normative system of global politics towards the theory and practice of global governance framework and towards a greater solidarist idea of international community.50 Islamic Politics A great deal of the theoretical and practical discourse on IR and Islam concentrated until the 1990s on the issue of harmony between Islam and nationalism and the established standards of IR. The traditional perspective was proposed by an unusually overlapping but powerful fusion of Muslim and Orientalist scholars, who brought into play Islam’s natural universalism and to the necessity and appeal in several circumstances for Muslims to fight doubters in morally sacred war or jihad.51 Islam represented one religious society, and was unfriendly and antagonistic to individuals or groups who deviate from it. Normative and utilitarian aspects merged in the Islamic domain throughout the centuries to promote IR practically as the world have known it in the contemporary period. Practical self-centredness or, in the sceptical point of view, the lack of ability to enforce code of belief on disobedient realities, predictably showed itself. Furthermore, Muslim interpretations adjusted to this pragmatism in order for an Islamic IR to resemble Western IR.52 Academic and political leaders promoted four major premises: ‘the sovereignty of territorially demarcated states; the equality of governments; the inviolability of solemnly concluded agreements; and the precedence of peace over conflict.’53 Inasmuch as the disagreement sorted out in Muslim academic works, conservatism was prevailing. In a sense possibly akin to the experience of the Soviet, the formation of a tough state in the Islamic world was seen as the crucial prerequisite to a strong international system and stable international order. Since the general description of Islamic relations with the international community was one of compliance and flexibility, Bull’s somewhat regretful assumptions about the growth of international order seem exaggerated.54 The growth of the international system, even though evidently utilitarian and pragmatic in nature, appeared to be a less superficial trend than Bull envisioned; the standards were being accepted over time. Furthermore, developing countries claims for distributive justice were not as capably threatening as he predicted them to be.55 In addition, the Islamic states were not just inactive spectators in the formation of new normative systems like that concerning human rights. Regardless of how much they may have opposed certain conditions, like the right to practice any faith or convert to another religion, they were not just completely taking part in the international arena; they were also ingeniously recreating their human rights concepts in terms of the prevailing global language.56 For instance, Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan acted in different ways to grant women additional civil rights and individual standing, and even traditional Saudi Arabia complied with the detailed paradigm of human rights57, thus forming a future principle by which to evaluate the legality of the government. Conclusions This paper has focused on the arguments as to how the international system, community, and order have been transformed; it has proposed as well dynamics and courses of action for such transformation, be it the ideology’s and polity’s trans-nationalism, the liberating features of cultural group, social identity, rights, and universal justice, or the creation of varieties of international governance. The main sections have been devoted to the relationship between international and local politics, and on the repercussions of this for studying how the international community operates. Discussions, like the one performed in this paper, will not halt the discourse on change in the theory and practice of international relations but it could assist in ordering or regulating the explosion of arguments about new world orders. References Albert, M., D. Jacobson, & Y. Lapid. Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory. 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UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Sakamoto, Y. Global Transformation: Challenges to the State System. New York: United Nations University Press, 1994. Zehfuss, M. Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Read More