Peace, Prosperity, And Politics

John Mueller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429978067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book deals with a variety of issues of history, of national security, and of political economy, and focuses on the need for a dynamic perspective. It emphasizes the development of ideas as the motor forces behind the economic policies.

1

Introduction: Prospects and Problems in the New Century

JOHN MUELLER AND ARTHUR A. STEIN

As we abandon the old century and enter a new one, it seems clear that there are at least four international developments that could have crucial consequences.

First, the leading countries confront no compelling or immediate major threats of a military sort; that is, there is little or no danger that anything resembling World War III will break out. The end of the Cold War transformed the distribution of global power with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is smaller and less powerful than the Soviet Union was, and it doesn’t have the imperial control over Eastern Europe the Soviet Union had (though it does still possess much of the nuclear weapons capacity that some international relations theorists have seen to be determining of international structure). And arguments heard as recently as the early 1990s about the decline of U.S. power have been replaced by ones that characterize the United States as the sole remaining superpower and the international system as unipolar.

Second, the Cold War concluded with the demise of a dramatic ideological struggle in world affairs. As Fascism died in World War II, the end of the Cold War witnessed the collapse of state Communism. The result seems to constitute the triumph of liberalism—democracy and market capitalism—and the recognition of the failure of alternative economic and political systems. Currently at least, all the leading countries see the world in essentially the same way.

Third, and substantially in consequence of the first two developments, there has been an enormous expansion of international trade and of multinational economic interconnections. Of considerable potential importance, these interconnections in many cases supersede—and perhaps render obsolete—older relationships of a political sort. The Cold War, like hot war, disrupted the flows of capital, commerce, and people, and its collapse makes possible the creation of a truly global marketplace, one in which exchange leads to the most efficient allocation of resources.

And fourth, the prospects for growth and economic development are further enhanced by rapidly expanding technological improvements in communications and in information flows that facilitate economic and non-economic international interconnections, ones that substantially skirt standard political arrangements.

The combined effect of these developments is to transform world affairs. The security environment in which states operate seems radically to have changed, and this makes possible a reallocation of national effort from security to material concerns. Thus there is a reasonable prospect for an unparalleled era of prosperity and peace.

But less benign forces also persist. The collapse of the Soviet multinational empire has witnessed the rise in some places of ethnic conflict and has perhaps created new political space for such conflicts to flourish. In addition, it is possible that we are merely enduring a brief hiatus before a new challenge to the international order is launched, perhaps by China or Russia or by another emergent or resurgent state.

Some states thus face the prospect of a virtuous circle in which reduced threat stimulates greater prosperity which in turn heightens the degree of security and peace. Yet other states may confront a vicious cycle in which conflict and turmoil destroy wealth and reduce investment that in turn fosters still greater violence, and in which ethnic conflicts, religious feuds, and border wars may fill the vacuums left by the diminished role of the distant and distracted superpowers. Similarly, the positive prospects of the global economy are not yet, and may not soon be, available for all nations and all regions of the world. The result is that politics—political choice—remains important.

The new international condition poses problems for policymakers and scholars alike. Both now find a world quite different from that which they experienced during the Cold War. What often seemed to be the certainty of bipolarity, and of military and ideological superpower competition, has been replaced with a less anchored and perhaps more fluid environment. Moreover, the ability of states to control outcomes may grow weaker under the onslaught of global economic forces. Scholars face new challenges to the adequacy of their formulations for explaining the end of the old world and the beginning of the new one being born.

In this book, a group of political scientists, economists, and historians assess these important developments. Despite disciplinary and other differences, the authors are in broad agreement that important historical changes are occurring in the nature of international politics, and they agree about some of the ways to think about them. They differ in their perspectives and proffer different speculations about the new era and about the consequences and difficulties of the emergent relationship between politics and economics. They also vary in the degree to which they are optimistic or pessimistic about the way things appear to be going.

The Rosecrance Connection

This collection began with a call to colleagues, students, and friends of Richard Rosecrance to delineate the factors that will be central to world politics in the next century.¹ The resulting essays were written in his honor, and, not surprisingly, they form a testament to themes that run through his work and to his intellectual contributions as an author, colleague, and teacher.

The essays deal with a variety of issues of history, of national security, and of political economy—areas with which Rosecrance has been concerned throughout his career. In particular, the essays focus on the need for a dynamic perspective, a recurrent theme in his work and a regular admonition to his colleagues and students. His first book, Action and Reaction in World Politics, looked at the changing role of domestic politics on international politics during the last two centuries. His The Rise of the Trading State focused on the changing relationship between commerce and conquest. And his new The Rise of the Virtual State extends the analysis into a new technological era.² In various ways, the essays explore that analysis and its implications for the next century. In his contribution, Rosecrance himself pursues the analogy of states with firms and explores the implications for international politics.

Elements of Agreement and Disagreement

The contributors are drawn from different disciplines. Although the majority are political scientists, the authors include economists (Lal, Kaysen, and Yardeni) and a historian (Schroeder). Most are academics, but they include one whose analysis is done predominantly in the private sector (Yardeni), and some of the academics have had extensive experience in international institutions (Lal at the World Bank) and in national government.³

Notwithstanding the disparate subjects and approaches developed, the essays in this volume all discuss and describe a variety of ways in which international politics is changing and assess forces whose consequence will be a much different international politics in the next century. This stands in marked contrast to the static nature of much theorizing in international relations where scholars often argue that, since it is unlikely that international anarchy will be replaced by world government, the only thing that can change is the distribution of power: The balance of power works in this century, it is claimed, and will work in the next century the way it has worked in prior centuries. This type of theorizing, static and synchronic, can be found in all the social sciences. Even when such scholars recognize that their propositions are temporally bounded or specific to some particular structure, they do not focus on what factors lead to change over time.

Many of the essays in the volume also forecast continued differentiation between, and specialization of, states. Rosecrance has long argued against the conventional realist view that all states, except for their relative power, are fundamentally alike in their international perspective. Instead, he has sought to apply the insights of trade theory and to see the international system as one in which states could exchange and specialize. In this view, states can adopt particular strategies and change their foreign policy emphases in their allocation of resources and effort, and can allow a division of labor to emerge between them. Interdependence can and has existed between states in the international system.⁴

Many of the essays emphasize the importance of domestic politics for international cooperation and conflict.⁵ For some, the centrality of the provision of wealth to the domestic politics of modern states has spilled over into their international politics. Others argue that the absence of a domestic political alternative to market capitalism is a driving factor in international politics and that domestic politics remains central to foreign policy.

The contributors sometimes focus on different prospective motivating forces of historical change. Some emphasize the political, some the economic, and some the technological. Moreover, some point to the globalization of international politics while others stress its tendency to bifurcate the international arena.

Many of the essays envision greater opportunities for enhancing state power, wealth, and status in the altered international environment.⁶ And some suggest that prosperity and the continued pursuit of material wealth will likely by itself make for a more peaceful world. Indeed they emphasize that economic globalization is limiting the scope of the political, a development they find to be all to the good because the reduced ability of states to interfere in market transactions makes for the more efficient creation of wealth, something that limits and constrains political conflict and may reduce the prospects for war.

Others are more inclined to stress that peace and prosperity depend on politics. Historically, patterns of stability often seem to be determined by the political arrangements among the leading countries and by the conception of peace they happen to agree on.⁷ In addition, some argue that an international society has emerged in which states must necessarily justify and explain their actions.⁸ Central to a more pacific global order may be the existence of quasi-judicial international institutions that provide the social lubricant necessary in any society in which actors face exigent circumstances.

Some of the essays emphasize the development of ideas as the motor forces behind the economic policies that underlie globalization: The maturation of economics as a science has been a hallmark of the twentieth century and, by virtue of this science, policymakers now know what to do. For others, the twentieth century has been an era of economic experimentation that has left in its wake many failures and economic basket cases, and those states that have made the greatest strides are the ones that have learned and adopted the appropriate policies, a path that is open to others. Thus, the growth of economic science and the emergence of what may be a scholarly consensus about appropriate economic policies could be a progressive vision of intellectual growth and development. Or it could be a return to a more classical set of economic arguments after a century of failed experiments with alternatives to liberalism, a product not so much of intellectual advance as of painful learning.

Most of the essays seem to suggest that states will remain the central actors of world politics. Nevertheless, a number of the essays stress that the states of the next century will be different, and they see market forces as changing the nature of states as they increasingly become constrained by global economic and technological forces beyond their control. In some cases, states will opt, or be forced to opt, for international institutions and arrangements that will diminish their sovereignty.

There is also some disagreement about the implications of, and the continued prospects for, the depoliticization of markets. Some see the continued triumph of market capitalism and a reduced role for the state. Others voice misgivings about the consequences of a return to laissezfaire through globalization and about the instabilities of global capitalism. They are concerned about the social costs of rising inequality, domestically and internationally, and see the prospect of a world increasingly divided between the haves and the have-nots with attendant increases in domestic and international conflict.

Even more generally, some of the essays raise the possibility of a dangerous rift between the political and the economic. They ask, for example, how we can square an economically successful China with a politically dissatisfied one.

The authors thus disagree about whether international politics is witnessing increased globalization and integration or fragmentation and regionalization. Some of the essays suggest that the transformations that are occurring are systemic and global, and they argue that the growth of market exchange and the new communications revolution has impelled much of this process. Others emphasize that globalization, prosperity, and institutionalized international cooperation apply only to a subset of nations. The rich, advanced industrial nations are indeed interested in getting wealthy and now confront a quite benign security environment. Yet large parts of the world are economically backward, falling behind, and embroiled in a variety of intra- and interstate conflicts.

Indeed, it could be argued that Rosecrance’s delineation of a choice between commerce and conquest characterizes a bifurcation of the world and its politics. In one world, trading states exchange with one another in a secure environment while in the other states pursue territorial strategies and are embroiled in conflicts that preclude a choice of a trading strategy for them. A zone of peace and prosperity may come to prevail among the advanced societies, but this may fail, for reasons of structure or choice, to encompass the entire world in the medium-term future.

Finally, the papers vary in tone. Most are optimistic though some provide caveats and qualifications and express some pessimism. Most of the pessimists remain hopeful and most of the optimists remain cautious. Only a few are unabashedly triumphal.

Some see the future as technologically or economically determined, but most emphasize the role of political choice, and thus they stress possibilities rather than certainties. We now confront the prospect of a bright future, more prosperous and peaceful than the past century. But it will be accompanied by turmoil and conflict in many areas. And if those who emphasize politics are correct, a more prosperous and peaceful future remains a matter of choice. We retain the ability to foul it up, and we must attempt intelligently to manage the turbulence that remains.⁹

The Essays

The essays in this volume focus on the future, but are respectful of history and of the need for dynamic explanation.

Richard Rosecrance begins the discussion. Following the logic of the theory of international trade, he suggests that a new division of labor engendered by the process of market exchange is reshaping nations and their role in the world economy. It seems likely that countries, like firms, will increasingly come to specialize. Combined with new technological developments, this will lead to a situation in which the instruments available for combating or dissuading major military conflicts will become far more numerous and powerful than in the past. Most importantly, Rosecrance argues that modern states are experiencing the same downsizing and flattening that firms are undergoing, with profound consequences for foreign policy and international stability.

Economist Deepak Lal argues that economic grief in the past has chiefly stemmed from the overruling of market forces by politicians. However, as the world market has expanded and become integrated, politicians are less able to interfere. Capital, including human capital, which is increasingly important, can simply pack up and leave and take the politicians’ tax base with it. That is, bad economic policies can lead to an almost instantaneous reduction of a nation’s wealth and are accordingly readily punished. Partly as a result, the world may be returning to the classical liberal international order of the nineteenth century.

Political scientist John Mueller concludes that economists have now finally gotten on top of their subject so that the advice they render is more likely than not to be sound and that policymakers have, often reluctantly, become willing to accept that advice. The prospects for an unprecedented expansion of economic growth and well being accordingly seem high, although he argues that this development will not particularly enhance happiness, or at any rate professions of happiness.

Economist Edward Yardeni celebrates the ending of the fifty-year era embraced by World War II and the ensuing Cold War—a period he characterizes as an unprecedented trade barrier. With its eradication, the world market has been freed up and has massively expanded. Aided by quickly developing and massively improving new technologies, the world economy is in a good positi...